Chapter 10
Reservations
By Thursday, Lucian still had not left the condo for more than an hour on his own. Evelyn was beginning to get offended. Every time he did run out, housekeeping conveniently came by. She was being babysat like a child.
She hadn’t heard any more talk about an apartment, but that was probably because she’d barely been able to use the bathroom alone all week. Tuesday night she lay awake beside him, a sickening thought playing in her head.
He’s renting an apartment for another woman.
He wanted it furnished. He wouldn’t be able to be in contact with this female for certain amounts of time. Once the thought entered her mind, she tried to discredit it, but the seed had been planted. Was he having an affair?
She was too afraid to ask, afraid he might confirm her suspicions, or worse, lie to her. The only thing that distracted her from the suspicious hurt knifing through her gut was her instinctual need to survive. It became imperative that she find a new job. She needed to be able to support herself, and she was not going back to St. Christopher’s if she could avoid it.
She started playing around with her new craft materials. She wasn’t sure what she was aiming to make. She didn’t use her favorite piece. Rather she played with the others, in case she messed something up somehow.
This was the only distraction from her fears that Lucian was somehow keeping something horrible from her. Using the wire, she formed loops and wound the metal around the sea glass in different, intricate designs. She used various widths of wire and tightly wrapped a thicker strand with thinner wire in order to reinforce it. Before she knew it, she had a bracelet.
She clamped the ends with clasps and soldered the details into place where she could without detracting from the artsy appearance. When she showed Lucian what she’d created, he turned her wrist this way and that and seemed quite impressed. So she made another one and another and eventually tried making a pendant and a ring.
Lucian put a call into his jeweler and had an interesting bar delivered that helped with sizing and allowed her to form the band in a perfect circle. After she made about eight pieces, each one unique, she decided to make something with her favorite piece of sea glass.
Lucian sat, working at his desk as she sorted through her jar of sea glass. She couldn’t find her favorite, so she carefully poured the pieces out on a black velvet cloth. It wasn’t there.
Stupidly, the missing piece breached some protective wall she’d been hiding behind. Symbolic of every anxiety she had of losing the grip on everything she loved, she completely overreacted to the missing piece of sea glass. Her search became frantic.
She’d never owned beautiful things until recently, and she found a peculiar attachment to this piece, now missing. Panicked, she climbed down from her chair and began searching the floor.
“Evelyn, what are you doing?” Lucian asked, not taking his eyes from his paperwork.
“I’m missing one.” She dragged her fingers over the carpet, clearly seeing it wasn’t there. Lifting back up to her worktable, she dumped canisters of typewriter keys, jars of silverware, and her pliers all onto the surface. “It’s not here!”
He was suddenly behind her, his warm palms weighing on her shoulders, gentling her alarm. “Hey, what isn’t there?”
“My favorite piece, the one I love.”
He paused. Why did that word keep intruding in her neatly organized life? Lucian seemed to flinch every time it passed her lips, never in reference to her feelings for him.
He cleared his throat. “The purple one?”
“Yes!” It was irrational to care so much that a piece of glass was gone, but she did.
“I’m sure it’ll turn up.” Rather than help her, he walked away. At the sideboard he poured himself a cup of coffee and watched her with a curious look on his face. It irritated her that she was overreacting, but she couldn’t help it. It also annoyed her that he didn’t seem to care.
“I think you need to get out of the condo for a bit.”
She scowled at him. “I don’t want to get out of the condo. I want to find my fucking piece.” Her crass words were overdone and frosted the air between them like shards of ice, cooling the otherwise pleasant morning.
His mug clanked down with a snap, and he walked into the bedroom. She continued to sort through her belongings, slowly righting her canisters and restoring the items she had spilled.
Lucian returned with a new tie dangling from his neck and a suit jacket on. “I’ll be back in a little bit.”
“Where are you going?” There was accusation in her voice. Something coiled for a fight deep inside of her.
“I need to take a ride downtown to meet with someone.”
Someone.
Her body stilled, and she had the sudden urge to throw herself at his feet and beg him not to go. He was going to go see her. The girl he was renting an apartment for. Anger was overthrown by dread. “Okay,” she said slowly, not sure why she wasn’t stopping him. Perhaps she needed to see if he would actually go, so blatantly, right before her eyes.
As he adjusted his cufflinks, pain, jealousy, fear, and anger twisted inside of her until it took everything she possessed not to fall apart in hysterics.
“I should be back shortly. Housekeeping—”
“Lucian, do me a favor and give the babysitters the day off.”
His lips thinned. Rather than argue, he turned and left. She was in a miserable mood. Maybe she did need to get out. But where could she go? Everything was messed up and she feared leaving, feared she might not be welcomed back.
A glimpse of a faceless woman in their home rushed through her mind, and she nearly heaved. Her face pressed into her palms and she groaned. It couldn’t be someone else. There had to be a better explanation for why things felt so strained between her and Lucian. There just had to be.
After about twenty minutes of wandering around the suite as though she were lost, she found herself staring at the messy papers strewn across Lucian’s desk. Illiteracy was something she hated. Although she was learning to read, the sight of so many written words, a language she was blind to, intimidated her and made her feel helpless.
She needed to know why he was renting an apartment. If he was seeing someone else, she needed to know. She needed to be prepared for the worst.
Flashbacks of the first day they met came hurtling to the forefront of her mind, stilling her hand. Lucian’s desk was off limits, but they were not the same people they were then. He trusted her now, right? Then why did the thought of rummaging through his papers feel like such an untrustworthy crime?
Her hand reached to a stack of notes he had scribbled. Cursive. She was lost. The sudden shrill bark of the desk phone in the quiet condo had her jumping back. With a shaky hand she reached for the receiver.
“Hello?”
“I’m sorry.”
Relief flooded her. “I’m sorry too. I don’t know why I acted—”
Lucian sighed. He sounded as though he was in his limo. “This has been a stressful week. Why don’t we get out of the city for a while?”
“And go to your house?”
“Yes. I want . . . I want to escape for a while. I want us to have time together without thinking about anything, but ourselves.”
This was the cleansing they needed. He wanted to clean away the residue still tarnishing their trust. “Lucian, you know I won’t lie to you.” Please just be honest with me.
“I know. I just . . . sometimes I worry about what comes next.”
His cryptic words made her frown. “What do you mean?”
“I have a gift for you, Evelyn, tonight, but . . . but you have to promise me—no matter what—you will go to the country with me immediately afterward.”
Where else would she go? “I promise.”
“Good. Pack a bag and get dressed for dinner. Nothing too sexy. I’ll be back in about an hour.”
She laughed. “Since when are you against sexy?”
“Just . . . for tonight. Please.”
Something was off in his voice. If she didn’t know better, she’d say he sounded scared, but that was impossible. Nothing frightened Lucian Patras. “Okay.”
She packed a suitcase for the week and showered. She didn’t own a lot of clothing that wasn’t sexy and for that she blamed Lucian, so she hoped the outfit she chose was appropriate for wherever they were going.
Black tailored pants hugged her hips and hung loose at the calf. She selected a dainty pair of sling-back heels that matched a black bangle bracelet. She wore a sheer white blouse with large black polka dots and a collar that tied in a big ruffled bow. She resembled one of those stewardesses who direct people on a plane.
As she waited for Lucian to return, she boxed up some of her crafts. No matter how much he said he wanted to get away from it all, he wouldn’t be able to put work aside for an extended period of time. He would bring work with him, so she figured she might as well bring something to keep herself busy.
The door opened and she turned to find Lucian. “Hi.”
“Hi,” he said, his gaze journeying from her shoulders to her feet. He sighed. “You’re too beautiful.”
She frowned and then laughed. “Blame the man who buys my clothes.”
“This has nothing to do with your clothes. We could put you in a burlap sack and you’d still be the sexiest woman in any room.”
Heat rushed to her cheeks and she lowered her gaze. His words were sweet, but there was no hiding the look of sadness in his eyes.
“What’s going on, Lucian? You look like you’re about to walk the gallows.”
He drew in a slow breath. “Did you pack?”
She tilted her chin in the direction of her suitcase.
“Good. I just need to throw some things in a bag. I’ll call Dugan and he’ll come get our luggage then we can go.”
“Where are we going?”
“To the estate, but we have a stop to make downstairs first. Dinner.”
There was that look again. It scared her. “Lucian,” she said walking to him and wrapping her fingers over his. “Whatever you have planned, you don’t seem to be looking forward to it. Let’s just go to the estate and forget about things for a while.”
He kissed her. “That’s a very sweet offer, but no, I need to do this. I’m doing it for you. Just promise me, like I said, that as soon as our dinner’s wrapped up we’ll go to the estate and this tension between us will go away.”
She didn’t know if one could force tension like this out. It seemed an invisible, heaving beast was snarling over them with bated breath ever since the day they had fought. Sure, they weren’t fighting anymore, but Evelyn felt as though she had welcomed something into their life that now wouldn’t leave. “Okay, Lucian.”
He called Dugan and went to the bedroom to pack some of his things. When he came out he was wearing his slate gray power suit, the one Evelyn had come to refer to as his “don’t fuck with me” suit. He wore it whenever he had a big meeting or negotiations. The posh material outlined his shoulders to perfection and fit his waist magnificently. He looked like the offspring of Forbes and GQ all rolled into one. He never lost when he wore that suit. What was he negotiating?
“Ready?”
Dugan arrived at the condo, removed their bags, and Lucian held her back as the elevator closed behind the chauffeur. He turned her and his lips, warm and sure, pressed over hers.
There were various levels of kissing, Evelyn had come to discover. There were the kisses like cute little snippets that played over lips like plucked petals, whispering childlike flirtations. Then there were kisses that left no room for argument, the kind that demanded your soul and would settle for nothing less. Then there were kisses hinting of dirty deeds in dark nights, the kind of kisses that curled one’s toes and had the potency to black out one’s mind, leaving a girl never quite sure if she had been kissed or fucked.
Then there were kisses like the one she was receiving now, kisses that ran the gamut of all emotions too intense to speak. Lucian’s hold was relentless, his touch proclaiming his potent need. His mouth whispered sweet desperations, and she tasted his fear like a drug flowing into her until desperation caught fire and the fear abated. Kisses like this were confusing. It was a kiss of heroic suicide. The kind soldiers gave their young brides before going to war, knowing they might never have a chance to kiss them so again.
Evelyn grabbed at his neck and pulled him into her. She didn’t know what made him kiss her this way, but if he felt this was the kiss they should share, then she’d better give him her all.
Deep breaths drew from his nose as it pressed into her soft cheek. His fingers and palms cupped her face like a chalice. He made love to her, right there in the hall, with only his mouth, and as the meaningfulness evolved, the mystery of the cause became all the more frightening.
He was afraid of something and his distress breathed into her. She didn’t want to let go. She wanted to save him.
Several minutes later they broke apart. He pressed his forehead to hers and stared into her eyes. “I love you, Evelyn. I want you to know, no matter the mistakes I’ve made in the past or the mistakes I’m sure to make in the future, I’ve never loved anyone the way I love you.”
She nodded, too speechless and confused to comment back.
He cleared his throat and slowly released her. “We better go. We have reservations.”
With all of this cryptic, ominous emotion floating around . . . she had reservations as well.