Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Elaine

Ihad no idea where we were going in the limo but life was buzzing around us as we headed into London from Quentin Manor. They weren’t with us, Devon and Francesca. This wasn’t one of the premieres we’d been talking about, and this wasn’t a late-night visit to Club Explicit that Lucian and I had been planning. This was something else. Something that had Lucian in a new tailored tuxedo and me in the little black dress I’d picked out so happily with Francesca.

There were security vehicles surrounding the limo as we drove into the city, keeping our safety their priority. So far there had been no sign of attack from either my family or Lucian’s, and it was seeming to be less likely—security growing stronger and associates promising even greater protection.

Maybe, just maybe, we’d be safe in our new future. I was daring to believe it.

I shot forward in my seat when the pods of the London Eye appeared in view, and my heart leapt as I pressed my face to the window, because I knew it right there and then. I knew just where we were headed.

“Really?” I asked Lucian with a squeal. “We’re going to the London Eye?”

God, his smirk. “Wait and see.”

I couldn’t sit still. I just couldn’t. I was squirming back and forth, my attention zipping from him to the window and back again on constant loop, still flying high with the excitement.

Oh my God, we were going to do it. We were going to ride the London Eye as the sun set, lighting up the river Thames in perfection. It would be perfection!

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” I gushed at Lucian as the limo pulled up at the entrance, next to the line barriers.

Except there were no line barriers. Not tonight. There was only a red carpet, lined with security guards and attendants.

They helped me from the limo and I stared up at the Eye with a lump in my throat as Lucian took my side. It was really happening. It would be a dream come true.

There wasn’t a single person around. Nobody in the line. Nobody in the pods. Not a single sign of life as Lucian guided me along the carpet, all the way up to a waiting pod.

He stepped aside, giving me a little bow as I walked in, and there I was, spinning around with that lump still in my throat, trying to comprehend the reality of truly being in this space. My dream.

Being in this space with my dream.

I let out a squeal as the pod started moving and we began the ascent, just the two of us holding each other tight, mineral waters in our hands, staring out at the incredible view.

“Thank you so much,” I said again, and the lump in my throat showed itself with the dip of my voice.

“You are more than welcome, princess,” he told me. “You are my life, this is just one tiny little testament to that.”

We pointed out landmarks with smiles, everything etching itself into my memory forever. The Shard. Westminster. The Tower of London.

I still couldn’t believe it. Lucian had taken over the whole of the London Eye, all for me.

It was when we reached the very top, and the very height of our spin, that Lucian let me go from his arms. I turned to face him, shocked at his body moving away from mine, but not as shocked as I felt when he dropped down in front of me onto his knees. Only it wasn’t onto his knees.

It was on one knee. One.

Lucian Morelli was on one knee in front of me, at the very top of the London Eye.

It was then when the fireworks lit up the Thames in front of us. Bursts of pure sparks flying high into the sunset and glistening diamonds on the water. I was blown away by the crazy emotion of it, because surely not…surely it couldn’t be…

But it was. It was.

“Will you marry me, Elaine Constantine?” Lucian asked me, and presented the ring. A full-on glittering diamond in a little black box.

I couldn’t speak. I didn’t have a voice. Didn’t have a breath. Didn’t have anything but a nod as the tears fell. The lump in my throat had nothing on the gushes of happy tears that ran down my cheeks as Lucian got back up to his feet and slipped my engagement ring onto my ring finger.

He held me tight and kissed me deep, then turned us both back to face the fireworks still bursting all around us. Only my eyes weren’t on the fireworks, they couldn’t be. They were too transfixed on the diamond on my finger.

I was going to marry Lucian Morelli.

Holy fuck, I was engaged to Lucian Morelli.

He held me tight as the pod descended back to the ground. It was slow and perfect, the atmosphere between us so loved up that my heart could have burst for real.

The attendants were ready and waiting for us when our descent reached its end, helping us back onto solid ground with smiles and congratulations.

The red carpet felt so long and incredible as we made our way back to the street. There were paparazzi gathered, managing to capture just a few pictures of us walking together before the security guards ushered them away.

“They were given minimum access, don’t worry,” Lucian told me. “Believe me, baby, I’ve got so much security around us they could fight a war.”

“Amazing,” I said, because it was. It was amazing. Us being alive was amazing, after betraying both families and their vendettas back home across the Atlantic.

He had his usual smirk on his face as we approached the waiting limo. “It’ll be even more amazing when you see the Morelli-Constantine Manor by High Wycombe. The security is so well ingrained you won’t even see their presence, but believe me, princess, they will be there. People won’t be able to step within a quarter mile of the place without being wiped out for their intrusion.”

“We have a manor?”

My pulse couldn’t race any faster. The surprises were piled too high. My heart soaring too fast.

“Yes,” Lucian said. “We have a manor. Just you wait and see.”

“When?!” I asked him. “When will I see it?”

An attendant opened the limo door and I slipped into the back seat ahead of Lucian. They shut us inside with a smile and wave.

“Now,” he told me. “You’ll see it now. We’re heading right on over. Francesca and Devon are already waiting there to celebrate.”

My hands were shaking as I checked out my ring finger for the thousandth time already.

The limo pulled away and the security cars drove along with us until we were out of the city, well on our way to the new manor in the darkness.

I couldn’t wait.

Holy hell, I couldn’t wait. We were going home. Home.

Home to a whole new home of our own.

The signs on the road started showing High Wycombe getting closer.

It was only when the distance seemed to be getting further away rather than closer that Lucian leaned forward in the seat and cast a scowl at the driver.

“The sooner the fucking better, please,” he said. “Get your act together.”

But that’s when the interior locks sounded out loud around us and the screen between us and the driver closed up tight.

“What the fuck—” Lucian began, but then he shifted again, staring at the driver through the glass, and I saw him realize something. Saw something slam him like a hammerblow.

His eyes were wild when he turned back to face me, grabbing me by the hand before trying the doors, but they were locked up tight.

“What’s happening?!” I asked him. “Lucian?! What the hell?!”

I’d never seen him scared before.

I’d never seen him frantic like he was when he tried to elbow the window until it smashed, but still he couldn’t break it.

It only took one sight of the driver staring back at me in the rearview mirror before I knew exactly what was happening.

It wasn’t the same driver as the one who’d taken us to the Eye. It wasn’t any one of the drivers who’d been responsible for driving us around since we first stepped foot on their soil.

I cried out as the limo pulled off the road at a random junction marked with a sign that said “Briar Dene Village, please drive slowly.” But we didn’t drive slowly. The limo sped through the village and I cried out harder as it screeched and rumbled up onto a gravel path, heading off road into some woodland, lined high with trees. I was so scared. So fucking scared I couldn’t breathe as we came to a stop.

Lucian’s hand was tight in mine when the driver got out of the front seat and came for us. The gun was already aimed at us as he opened the door and ordered us out.

Lucian moved first, keeping me firmly behind him.

“Whatever they’ve offered you for doing this…” he said, but the guy shook his head.

“Don’t even think about trying to buy me,” he replied. “I’ve been pro Morelli my whole life, you ain’t got shit to hold over me. Now, get out of the car slowly. I know you’re packing. Hand it over. Try anything and I’ll blow your bitch’s brains out.”

Lucian did as he was told, revealing the holster beneath his jacket, carefully taking the gun from it.

The driver snatched it from him, told us to get to the trunk.

Lucian kept me close behind him as we did as we were told, shuffling to the back of the limo while the driver kept the gun aimed at Lucian. He opened the trunk and there was the original driver, curled up, dead.

“I have orders,” the driver said. “And I’m going to be following them. Hurry up.”

He took out a cell phone and pointed it at us, and the light came on as he set the video camera rolling.

Once again he gestured us forward, guiding us into a space on the grass.

“Get the fuck over there,” he said to Lucian, and Lucian held his hands up as he stepped away from me.

“Stay where you are, Elaine,” he said as I made a move to follow him.

“No!” I cried out.

“Stay there, Elaine. This is between me and my fucking father.”

The driver laughed. “Not quite. It wasn’t actually your father who ordered the hit. It was Elliot fucking Morelli, your own cousin, who wants to take over the company.”

“Any last words?” the driver asked Lucian, stepping up closer to get a decent view on camera.

“Yes,” Lucian told him, stepping forward so his stomach was pressed to the gun. He looked straight at the cell and pulled a smirk. An evil one. “Go fuck yourself.”

I screamed as the gun sounded. Lucian collapsed onto the grass. I rushed over but I didn’t get very far, the driver stepping between me and my love before I could reach him.

I was wailing inconsolable, on my knees on the grass when the driver pointed both the cell and the gun at me. “It was all about money,” he said. “That’s all anyone cares about, whether you’re rich or poor. And I’m going to be one of the rich ones, now.”

The evening was dark around us, but not so dark that I didn’t see the movement of Lucian’s body between the driver’s legs. It didn’t make any sense, because if Lucian wasn’t dead, he would be screaming and flopping. He wouldn’t be able to hold himself still.

But of course.

He wouldn’t.

He wouldn’t be feeling a thing. He couldn’t feel a thing.

I gulped in a breath when my love got to his feet without a sound.

I’ll never forget the sound of that knife going in. The driver fell to his knees, dropped the cell and almost dropped the gun. He tried to swing it round but Lucian had him, snatching the gun in a beat.

My love won the battle and fired the next shot.

The driver fell to the ground, bleeding out and wailing before Lucian shot him in the back of the skull, just like the driver should have had the sense to do to him.

Then my perfect lover collapsed.

He collapsed to the ground with his arm clenched to his wound, blood spilling from his mouth as he struggled. “It shouldn’t hurt,” he murmured to me, looking dazed. “But it does.”

I don’t know how I had the breath or the voice to make the call to the emergency services from Lucian’s cell, pulled out from his tux pocket, but I did it.

“Please hurry,” I said to the dispatcher.

I sat next to my fiancé and begged the heavens to save him. Please, please just save him.

My hand was pressed tight to Lucian’s bleeding stomach when the sirens and lights showed up, begging them for help as they fought for his life.

Thank fuck, and thank the lord, they managed to get Lucian’s breathing steady before we pulled up at the hospital, screeching to a halt outside the emergency entrance.

I waited for him through a long night.

Francesca rushed in to give me a hug and hold me tight. I waited until the morning next to the people who’d become our friends, grateful for the true support I felt from them with every breath.

And then, finally, when the sun was bright outside and London was stirring to life for another day, the doctor arrived to tell me Lucian Morelli was done with surgery, and that he too was stirring with life for another day.

Lucian Morelli was going to make it.

My fiancé was going to survive.

This wasn’t a tragedy, after all. It wasn’t a love story the way the world understood them. He was my monster, and I was his doll, and we would live together forever.