LUCIEN: A Standalone Romance

by Glenna Sinclair

  “They’re my babies. They’re going to be quite active.”

  I nodded. Pretty much knew that already.

  Chapter 17

  Nicolas was locked up in his office with a team of lawyers the next day. I wanted to know what was going on, but I didn’t want to insinuate myself somewhere I didn’t belong. So I spent most of the day in the kitchen helping Constance clean and restock the pantry. It was nice to do something other than sit around worrying all day. However, I couldn’t help but wonder what was going on behind closed doors.

  “Did you know about his mom?” I asked Constance at one point.

  “His mom?”

  “Nicolas. Did you know she was a drug addict who died in jail?”

  Constance glanced at me with a knowing look I knew well from my childhood. As my mother’s best friend, Constance was as much family as any of my biological aunts, uncles, and cousins I’d never met. A look from her was as good as the ones I used to get from my mom.

  “So, you knew.”

  “I’ve worked for Nicolas Costa for fifteen years, mija. I know just about everything there is to know about him.”

  “He told you?”

  Constance shot me a look that said don’t-be-stupid. “You overhear things, see things, in this line of work. You know that.”

  I nodded. “Did you know he and Adam are childhood friends?”

  “I also know that he hired Adam straight out of prison because he couldn’t get a job anywhere else.”

  “You mean Adam was in jail?”

  Again, that look. “He was in prison for armed robbery.”

  “Wow.”

  It really wasn’t hard to imagine Adam in jail. If there was a type, he was probably it. But he seemed like such a nice guy. And he was fiercely loyal to Nicolas. Who else would have stood outside the door of Constance’s small apartment for two days, watching over me, even though I was a nobody as far as he was concerned? I was pretty sure he never took any days off. He always seemed to be here, always walking the perimeter or going with Nicolas wherever he went—which was nowhere at the moment. And he was in Nicolas’ office as we spoke, taking part in the meeting with Nicolas’ team of lawyers. That definitely had to mean something, right?

  “Nicolas Costa is a good man who had a rotten childhood,” Constance said. “And he’s made up for that childhood by making a success of himself and surrounding himself with people who help him forget that this is not where he came from. When he married Aurora Parker, she was supposed to be the cherry on the sundae. But she wasn’t.”

  “Did you know she was a drug addict?”

  Constance turned away from me to dust a shelf. “I never saw her use drugs.”

  “But you spend as much time in this house as anyone. Surely you saw something.”

  Constance didn’t answer right away, but I could see by the tension in her shoulders that there was something she knew. She just didn’t want to tell, which either meant that she had seen Aurora using drugs, or that she knew there was more to Nicolas’ accusations than I knew.

  “He swears that she used cocaine. That she was doing it almost from the moment they returned from their honeymoon.”

  “He also says that she cheated on him.”

  I nodded even though Constance still had her back to me and couldn’t see.

  “Did she?”

  Constance sighed. “Aurora was not the person she presented to the press and to visitors here at the house, you included.”

  “What does that mean?”

  She looked over at me. “It means you should have those babies and then take yourself back to Texas because this is much more complicated than you will ever understand. I regret telling you about their need for a surrogate. I thought…I guess I thought having a baby would make Aurora different. But I was wrong.”

  “Do you think Nicolas will be good to these babies?”

  “I think anyone who wants a family as much as he does will do all he can to make sure he gets it.”

  I didn’t understand what she was saying. She glanced at me and again that look, the one that said don’t-ask-questions-you-don’t-want-the-answer-to. But I had to. I had to know what she knew about Nicolas, what she knew about the things that went on in this house before Aurora’s death, and anything she thought she knew about the future of these babies. But just as I opened my mouth to speak, Adam stuck his head in the pantry door.

  “Nicolas needs to see you,” he said to me.

  As I handed the rag I’d been holding to Constance, she patted my arm. It felt like a pat of condolence.

  My head was ringing with all Constance had said, as I followed Adam down the hall. I was so lost in thought that I didn’t realize we weren’t headed to Nicolas’ home office but to the living room. Like a weird sort of déjà vu that was happening each time we saw each other rather than just the requisite twice, Nicolas was standing by the bar. He wasn’t drinking, though. He was just staring at the expensive bottles of liquor like an alcoholic who was waxing nostalgic.

  “Everything okay?”

  He turned, the strain of the day showing in the fine wrinkles along the corners of his eyes and mouth. He gestured for Adam to leave, watching until he did, and then he crossed to me. I wanted to touch him, to tell him everything was going to work out, but I wasn’t sure I had earned that right just yet. After our conversation in the garden last night, he disappeared and I didn’t see him again until I came downstairs for breakfast. And then he was quiet and tense, staring at his iPad and refusing to even acknowledge my presence. So, was it any wonder I was afraid to touch him now?

  He pressed his hands to my belly, molding them to the firm roundness of it. His hands were warm through the thin material of my linen blouse. I almost expected the babies to respond to his touch, to offer a few strong kicks, but I hadn’t felt them move since I climbed out of bed this morning.

  “How did your meeting go?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Don’t really want to talk about it.”

  “Okay.”

  His eyes moved up to mine. “You’re okay with that?”

  I shrugged, and was about to say something along the lines of, “Why shouldn’t I be?” when he suddenly kissed me. I moved into him and deepened the kiss, loving the feel of his lips on mine. I could really get used to this, the feel of this man tugging me into his arms, kissing me like it was the last time he would ever kiss a woman. Everything that was going on, everything that was on my mind, it was nice to forget about it all for a few, hot moments.

  Nicolas buried his fingers in my hair and tugged me close against him. It was a kiss like none other. There was something different about him, about the way he touched me. There was none of that sense of indifference that had set the tone of our interactions before. He might pretend it didn’t matter to him, but I could feel the change in his kiss, in the way he looked at me, in the way he cradled my body against his.

  Nicolas was a man who’d never had the kind of love I got from my mom and Constance and all of their friends and extended family. He was never a part of something, of family. And just as he was on the verge of getting just a small piece of that particular pie, everything imploded. Was it any wonder he held me the way he did?

  But if I gave him what he wanted, what would that mean for me?

  Chapter 18

  “I told you, I’m not going to just sit around and wait for my lawyers to fix things. I need to be busy.”

  “But are you sure going back to work is a good idea?”

  I watched Nicolas move around the room, gathering his computer and a script he’d stayed up late last night to annotate in preparation for today. We’d been arguing about it for a week.

  A month had passed since Nicolas’ arrest and things were…I’m not sure how to explain how things had been. Some days, Nicolas was very attentive, wanting to know everything that was happening with the babies, watching over my diet, giving me my insulin injections, doing just about everything an expectant father might do
for his pregnant wife. And on those nights, he’d invite me up to his bedroom, and he would be as gentle and as caring as I could ever want a man to be.

  And then there were the days when he wasn’t so gentle, when he didn’t want me around, or he was borderline abusive. He drank on those days, clearly lost in his memories of Aurora and his childhood and all the dark things that surrounded his life. On one of those days, he told me I should leave, I should take the babies and run as far from him as possible. He said he would be a terrible father and I was stupid to believe otherwise.

  Those dark moods frightened me. And it didn’t help that the lawyers had made almost no progress in getting the murder charges against him dropped. Never mind the fact that the coroner called Aurora’s death an accident. Never mind the fact that Nicolas’ people had discovered that the star witness against Nicolas, the waiter from the restaurant where Aurora had her final meal, had a rap sheet a mile long. And never mind the fact that even the press was beginning recognize that the charges against Nicolas were nothing more than an act of vengeance propelled by Aurora’s mother, who just happened to be the widowed wife of a former governor of the great state of California.

  It think that last bit was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back for Nicolas. He’d thought Aurora’s mother, Virginia, liked him. He thought that she was one of a few people who understood Aurora’s drug issues. I think he honestly envisioned her testifying on his behalf if this thing ever went to trial. But then she attended a press conference with the district attorney a couple of days after Nicolas’ arrest. It was difficult to watch, even for me.

  “My daughter was not an angel,” Virginia had said. “She made mistakes in her life. And one of those mistakes was to marry a man she’d only known for a few months, running away to some island resort to elope like a couple of teenagers.” She began to cry at that point, huge teardrops cascading down her face and ruining her carefully applied makeup. “His accusations of drug use are ridiculous. My daughter never would have touched the stuff if not for the people he introduced her to, if not for the world he made her a part of. If anyone was using drugs, it was Nicolas Costa. And I believe with every fiber of my being that he is responsible for my daughter’s death.”

  I could see Nicolas’ spirit darken as he watched. And then he walked away, stepping into the first dark mood I witnessed. But it wasn’t the first and, I was pretty sure that until this whole ordeal was over, it wouldn’t be the last.

  He came over and sat on the edge of the bed, his laptop bag strapped over his neck and shoulder.

  “I need to work. Just sitting around here, worrying about the babies and this…” He sighed as he stroked my cheek. “Please, don’t make this harder than it has to be.”

  I sat up and slid closer to him, adjusting my hips to make room for my massive belly. Twenty-three weeks and I already felt like it was time. I couldn’t imagine how hard it was going to be when I was thirty-five weeks, let alone forty.

  Nicolas ran his hand over my bare belly, smiling softly when one of the babies kicked his fingers. Then, his hand moved up to my breast, cupping it softly, his palm tickling my nipple.

  “I’ll be back late,” he said, leaning close to kiss me.

  “Be careful,” I said.

  He glanced at me as he stood, a little defiance in his eyes. But he just nodded as he headed for the door.

  I lay back and ran my hands over my belly. The babies kicked, one shoving something—a foot or an elbow—against my ribs, the other dancing on my bladder. I was so excited when they began to move, but now I sometimes wished they would stop. And then I felt guilty for that because it was like wishing they didn’t exist and I would never wish that.

  I liked lying in Nicolas’ bed. Not that it was any different from the bed in my room. The sheets were the same Egyptian cotton, the pillows an amazing down. However, Nicolas’ bed smelled like him. When I snuggled down under the sheets, it was like being enveloped in Nicolas’ arms. Not that Nicolas would be content to just lay here with me. The only time he seemed to want to cuddle was when the babies were moving and he wanted to feel a part of it, or when he wanted sex.

  It was kind of sad, really.

  I lay there for a long time, feeling the babies wiggle and play together. I think they were already fighting over space, but I wasn’t quite sure. But I knew I couldn’t stay there all day. Constance would eventually come find me and insist I eat something. She seemed to understand the whole gestational diabetes thing better than I did. All I knew was that I needed shots at particular times a day. And Constance—when Nicolas wasn’t interested—was always there with a filled syringe when one was due. I didn’t even have to think about the foods I ate because Constance had my every meal thought out days in advance. It was like having my mother back.

  I climbed out of bed and made my way to the bathroom. I should have gone to the hall bath that I normally used—and where all my toiletries were—but I really liked Nicolas’ walk-through shower. There were five showerheads and each one was positioned perfectly to hit my body in just the right place. And I liked the liquid soap he used—it smelled just like him—and the shampoo made my hair look like someone else’s, someone who has long, luxurious hair.

  As I stood under the spray, I wondered what life was going to be like now that Nicolas was working on his new movie. I’d probably be relegated to the guest room again. There were only seventeen weeks until the babies were due, and Dr. Bishop said they would likely come between thirty-five and thirty-seven weeks, so that was only twelve weeks away. Three months. And then…

  I didn’t like thinking about what would happen then.

  I still didn’t know how Nicolas felt about me. I wasn’t even sure he considered me when he thought about the babies and their future. I was just the surrogate. But then…the way he touched me sometimes, the way he made love to me, it made me wonder if maybe, just maybe, there was more to us than I thought there was.

  Was there a chance?

  But not if he went to jail. The lawyers called every few days, assuring Nicolas that nothing would come of it. The district attorney didn’t have enough to go to trial. Yet, this thing was still taking a toll on Nicolas. I could see it. He wasn’t sleeping. He didn’t eat. He threw himself into this new movie over the last week, talking on the phone for hours with his crew, discussing locations and scenes and how he was going to be able to direct scenes set to take place in Canada and Kentucky. He needed the distraction, I could see that. But I worried just the same.

  I climbed out of the shower and slowly went about my morning routine. I was looking through the drawers under the counter to see if Nicolas had an extra toothbrush hidden somewhere. I didn’t want to have to go to the hall bath to get my own. Instead of a toothbrush, however, I pulled a drawer open too hard and it came free of the counter. Combs and a hairbrush, tissue packs and shampoo samples, bottles of sleep aids and heartburn meds flew across the floor. I groaned, not really in a position to get down on my hands and knees to gather it all up. My belly was just making me too ungainly for that sort of thing. I thought about calling Constance or one of the maids, and then I was ashamed because that was something one of the snooty women my mother worked for would have done.

  With a sigh, I slowly lowered myself to my knees. I gathered the stuff closest to me, then turned over the drawer to pile it back inside. But there was something wrong with the drawer. I leaned back against the counter and stared at it. There was a corner of the drawer’s bottom that was sticking up at a weird angle. And underneath it, the edge of a plastic bag was sticking out.

  I tugged at the bag and pulled it free. My heart sank when I saw what was inside.

  It was a bag of pills, long, narrow pills that said Xanax on one side and had a large two on the other. I just stared at it for a long time, telling myself that it was Aurora’s, that she hid it here to keep any of the maids from knowing that she was taking them. And that idea seemed likely when I tugged at the corner of the drawer’s fal
se bottom and found more drugs. There were half a dozen baggies like the one with the Xanax, but they held pills of all colors and sizes. And there was a tiny envelope filled with a white powder and another with an amber-colored ball inside. I had a good idea that the powder was cocaine. I wasn’t quite sure about the amber ball, but suspected it could be something like meth or crack cocaine.

  I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. My first instinct was to call Nicolas. To confront him and demand to know who these drugs belonged to. They couldn’t be his, right? They had to be Aurora’s. But the stuff on top of it was all Nicolas’. I’d seen him use these combs and the hairbrush. And he joked about the shampoo samples he took from hotel rooms he’d stayed in, a habit he developed early in his career that he couldn’t seem to shake. Would he really put his stuff in a drawer with a false bottom? Did he know about the false bottom? I hadn’t noticed it, but I didn’t open these drawers every day like he did. Shouldn’t he have noticed?

  I wasn’t sure. But there was something wrong about this. The Xanax bothered me the most. This was the drug the police said Nicolas killed Aurora with. That he slipped it into her drink. Finding a bag here, in his house, didn’t seem good. Was it proof that Nicolas had done what they said? No. But it didn’t seem to scream innocence, either.

  I didn’t know what to do.

  “Oh, Dios mio!”

  I quickly slipped the bag of Xanax under my hip as Constance came into the room, one of my insulin syringes in her hand.

  “What is this?” she demanded.

  “The drawer fell and this stuff was hidden under the bottom.”

  “Oh, cojeme!”

  “Constance!”

  I couldn’t believe that word had come out of her mouth. I had never once, in all the years I’d known Constance—and I’d known her since I was a toddler—heard her swear. And that word…did she have to choose the worst swear word out there?

  “This is not good,” she said, pressing a hand to her chest as though she was having pain there. “If the police find this—”