His Absolute Betrayal - Elise's Love Story: The Billionaire's Continuum (#2) (A Contemporary Romance Novel)

by Cerys du Lys

  I meant it to tease him, but the more I spoke, the more I realized it was partially true. That didn't mean that I wouldn't be missing out, also, but this was his place, not mine. Not just because of ownership, but because of something more than that, too. Because of the same reasons I thought about before as to why others came here for breakfast in the morning; those were Lucent's reasons, too. Slightly different, possibly more controlled and orderly, but his reasons were similar.

  He liked it here and he felt comfortable coming here. This was a safe place for him. It was safe for me, too, but only because of him. I didn't think I'd ever come here for breakfast without Lucent, even if technically I could and no one would mind.

  "Fine," Lucent said, muttering under his breath. "I'll refer to you as Elise. For the duration of this particular conversation, and no longer. Is that agreeable."

  "Yes, Mr. Storme," I said, smiling. "It is very agreeable to me."

  "You're teasing me, aren't you?" he asked with a faint smile.

  "I am teasing you," I said. "Also, I want you to kiss me, but say 'I love you,' first, and then tell me all of the things you want to tell me."

  He grinned despite himself and his current displeasure at being thwarted. "I love you, Elise," he said, then moved in for a kiss. It was a nice kiss. Loving and soft and sweet. I liked it a lot.

  "Unfortunately," he added after that, "I don't want to tell you, but as I understand it I'm being coerced into it against my will."

  I stabbed a bite of his food with his fork and fed it to him. "I'm going to feed you against your will, too. Eat that and then tell me."

  Dutiful, he chewed and swallowed, then swung one arm around my shoulders, pulling me close to him.

  "The agreement and understanding I have with Sam is that I make things easier for him, and in turn he makes them easier for me. This involves dealings that are too detailed to discuss."

  "Like what you said last night?" I asked. "About Asher and Jessika's home? With the secret stuff there."

  He chuckled. "Yes. Like with the secret stuff. Slightly different in this case, but the concepts are similar."

  "Alright, and..." I didn't know exactly how to phrase my question. "Um... what does Sam do for you, then?"

  "It's complicated," Lucent said. He huffed, apparently not liking it when I rolled my eyes at him in response. "It involves varying degrees of money laundering and the possibility of less than scrupulous business conduct."

  "Oh," I said. "Um..."

  "This is why I didn't want to tell you," he said. "I feel that it's extremely unsafe for you to know anything about this information."

  "Are you like a mob boss, then?" I asked.

  He stared at me blankly. "Miss Tanner—"

  I stopped him. "Elise."

  He huffed again. Lucent sure was huffy right now. "Elise, I'm nothing like a mob boss."

  "You haven't put a hit on anyone, right?" I asked, hoping I was joking.

  "Elise!" he said, indignant. "Why... what are you talking about? Why would I put a hit on anyone?" Flustered, he tried to remain calm. This interested me, because I'd never seen Lucent act this way before. "For your information, no," he continued. "I haven't put a hit on anyone. There's no murder going on. Nothing even remotely comparable to that. I'm not involved with any mafia activities. I have never been, nor do I plan on being thus involved in the future, either."

  "You just launder money, then?" I asked, finding the question silly and more than outrageous. Oh, is that all, Lucent? You're only a money-launderer? Why didn't you say so in the first place?

  "Yes," he said. Then added, "Among other things."

  "What other things?"

  "I have private investments," he said. "I cater to private needs."

  "That sounds like a fancy way to say money laundering again," I said.

  "I apologize. Perhaps it is."

  "Why do you do it?" I asked.

  He frowned for a moment, then opened his mouth to speak. By the shape of his lips, it looked like he was about to say "Miss Tanner," but he stopped himself.

  "Elise," he said. "I..." He paused for a second, trying to smile at me and hoping for a smile in return, but I wouldn't give him one until I heard what he had to say.

  He continued. "I want to help people. Unfortunately there's not always an expedient way to do that going through the proper avenues. Using last night's revelation as an example, how safe do you think a saferoom created along with hidden passageways in the Landseer mansion would be if it were a matter of public knowledge? Perhaps most wouldn't know about it, but some would, and word would inevitably spread. The information wouldn't be secret any longer. And, yes, it's certainly possible to create a safeguarded room that could protect Asher and his family in case of severe emergency, but on equal levels it would be possible for someone to plan out how to thwart those added protective measures beforehand, too."

  "I guess I can understand that," I said. "I don't know if that explains the money laundering, though."

  "It's all the same," he said quietly. "It's for the same reasons. You might not understand that and perhaps you can't see it at first, but please trust me when I say I never intended to do anything malevolent. I don't think I'm a bad person. I hope you'll believe that."

  He said he hoped it, but what I thought he actually meant was that he needed it, and I didn't know how to respond to that. I didn't know how I was supposed to accept it. I wanted to, though. I felt like I needed it just as much as him, because deep down I felt like maybe I understood on a base conceptual level.

  Lucent knew more about me than I did about him. He was obsessive about information, but he was also somewhat obsessed with me. It was fun in a different sort of way. It made me feel special. He didn't hurt me, and I didn't think he ever would. That might have been wishful thinking, but I liked to think it wasn't. He gave in to me a lot of times, too. He accepted my irrationality and random fits of whimsy even when they made no sense to him.

  He let me do things wrong, even when he thought he knew the outcome, because he knew that's what I wanted. I didn't want to be controlled and contained in some tiny plastic bubble, unable to experience life and the world around me. Yes, that might be safer, but safe was far from exceptional.

  Lucent made mistakes, too. He didn't like to admit it, but I knew he did. He probably made a mistake falling in love with me, and I thought about this sometimes, but I would never tell him that. Because sometimes the things we did wrong led to wonderful things we never could have imagined. I truly believed that sometimes mistakes made us happier.

  He'd made mistakes that made him extremely unhappy, too. Nothing that he could have recognized at the time, but...

  Abby. Her death, his loss. His loneliness and isolation for days on a mountaintop cabin surrounded by ice and snow. I knew this, and it hurt to know it. I didn't know why I thought of that suddenly. I didn't want Lucent to think he'd made a terrible mistake back then. He was too young when it happened. I didn't know how anyone could deal with something like that, and I didn't believe Lucent ever truly had come to terms with it, but he was trying. He wanted to be better and he wanted to protect people.

  One of the things I realized about Lucent early on was that he didn't just want to keep people safe, no. Sometimes he felt like he needed to keep people safe from himself. It was strange, and I didn't fully understand the rationalization behind those feelings, but I knew it was how he felt whether he told me outright or not.

  How hard must it have been for him to tell me all of this, then? To potentially put me into so much danger and risk because of him?

  On the other side of that, was it possible for me to accept it? To ignore his illegal activities because he believed he was doing the right thing? The best thing?

  And what if he was correct? What if his actions did result in the best possible scenario? Was it logic and emotion we needed, or morality and justice?

  I didn't know. I just knew that I loved him, and that as logically-oriented as Lucent coul
d be, I could be equally chaotic and irrational.

  "I understand," I said. "Lucent, I do. I understand. I don't know if what you're doing or what you've done is good or not, though. I don't know if I can accept that, but I don't hate you for it. I just... I don't know if I know you, either. Do you love me?"

  He looked taken aback. "Elise. Yes. Of course I do. Have I done anything to make you think otherwise?" He hesitated at the end, really trying to understand exactly what sort of question he'd just asked me.

  "I suppose I have," he said, staring at his plate, forlorn and lost.

  I used his fork to snatch up a bite of pancake sandwich for him and brought it to his mouth. He stared at me, quizzical, not understanding.

  "Don't do it again," I said.

  "What do you mean?" he asked. Or that's what he tried to ask, but I stuffed the bite of food in his mouth before he could finish.

  He chewed it and swallowed, and I fed him another bite. Then one more. He only had one piece left, so I offered him that piece, too, and left his fork on his plate after that.

  "I love you, Lucent," I said, the words coming from the bottom, top, and every other part of my heart. "I don't even know if that's the truth. Maybe it's not quite exactly how I feel. I feel like there's more in life than simple love. You said everything was complicated before, and that's how I feel about you most of the time. I love you, but it's a complicated, deeper love than that. My feelings are labyrinthine, like some mythical maze with untold treasures in a room at the end. Except somehow I've reached that room, and in one of the treasure chests there's a map leading to even more treasure. I'm excited and I feel so rich with love and wonder, but how can I just stop? If you found a wealth of treasure, with directions leading to more, would you just stop? Could you? I can't. I don't think I'll ever be able to."

  Lucent stared at me, lips parted slightly, a look of profound disorientation and appreciation on his face. I thought he looked handsome and amazing that way.

  I liked how he looked at me, too. Not just now, not even once in awhile, but always. When Lucent looked at me, I didn't just feel like we were the only ones in the room, regardless of where we were, I believed it. I believed that nothing else in the world existed, nor was anything else important, except for him and I, us, at that very moment.

  Sam came over to take our plates, and Lucent looked away, accepting of that. I didn't look away, though. I kept looking at Lucent. He turned back and saw me gazing at him and he smiled softly, the faintest hint of a blush on his cheeks.

  That was me. I did it. Somehow, myself, some unextraordinary woman, made Lucent Storme, the indomitable and powerful Director of Public Relations for Landseer Enterprises, and partial money laundering "not quite a mob boss" criminal, smitten.

  Lucent loved me and I loved him. He was mine and I was his. And that was that.

  ...

  Somehow we recovered from ourselves enough to snap out of being completely smitten with one another. I didn't quite know how I managed that one, and I thought I was mostly still smitten and in love, but we had business to attend to. Which was... what?

  Who knew? We were still on the run from the police, and apparently they were going to investigate Lucent's apartment, then mine. Or the other way around, mine then his? I wondered what Vanessa would do, or if she even knew what was going on.

  "I need to call Vanessa," I said. "I need to tell her that I'm safe."

  "Miss Tanner, we can't do that," Lucent said.

  "What do you mean we can't?" I asked. "You don't need to do anything, anyways. I can call her fine on my own, you know?"

  He sighed. Yes, apparently he was partly done being smitten with me, too. I still liked the way he looked at me, though.

  "As much as I understand your concern for your roommate, I believe it's far more prudent not to involve her in this. If you consider it for a moment, I think you'll agree with me."

  I considered it for a moment, yes, but I still didn't agree with him, and I told him as much.

  "You barely thought about it for half a second!" he said, exasperated.

  "You didn't really quantify how long a moment was, Lucent," I countered.

  Sam stood behind the counter, laughing at us. I shot him a fierce glare, that might not have been all that fierce, and he just laughed even more.

  "Fine," I said. I considered it. I thought about it more. A second passed by, then another. A few seconds. Ten seconds.

  "Maybe you're right," I said. "Someone needs to tell her I'm safe, though. Maybe Sam could do it? Later, I mean. Not now. Just um..."

  Lucent sighed, still exasperated. He was very huffy and exasperated today and I really thought he needed to relax a little.

  "Sure, I can do that," Sam said. "Want to write down her number?"

  I nodded. Sam got me a piece of paper and a pen and I wrote Vanessa's number down for him. Belatedly, I realized that maybe Margaret would tell Vanessa, too, but I figured I should cover my bases here. Just to make sure, right? Yes.

  "Do you have your phone on you?" Lucent asked me before we left.

  "I don't have anything on me," I said, stating the obvious. I had a dress. The same dress I wore last night. It didn't have pockets. My purse was in Lucent's car, which was in the parking lot at Landseer Tower, which I hoped we were going to right now, so I could get my phone and my purse.

  "Good," Lucent said. At that, he took his own phone out of his pocket and handed it to Sam. "Just in case anyone asks, can you say you found that here and were holding it?"

  Sam nodded. "That's fine. I'll keep it in the lost and found box."

  "Wonderful," Lucent said. He glanced at me, to my face, then downwards. I held the hard drive in my hands. "Would you mind hiding Miss Tanner's ill-gotten gains somewhere, as well? A hidden safe in your home would be most appropriate, but I trust you can come up with some other solution if necessary. It's of the utmost importan—"

  I interrupted him, stopping Lucent right there. "I'm keeping this," I said. For further reference, I added, "With me. I'm keeping it with me."

  "Miss Tanner, I think you should consider that for more than half a second, as well."

  "I've considered it for a long time, Lucent, and I'm keeping it with me. You can't change my mind about this."

  "It's unsafe," he said. "Extremely unsafe. I can't even begin to explain how unsafe it is."

  "I don't care," I said.

  "Why are you being so belligerent?" he asked.

  "I'm always this way," I said.

  He stared at me, trying to find a way to disagree, but he couldn't.

  "Will you at least consider letting me help you hide it somewhere? Of your choosing, I suppose, since you're decidedly more belligerent than usual. Will that suffice?"

  "I suppose so, yes," I said. Just in case, I clutched the hard drive tight to my chest, keeping it close to me.

  He rolled his eyes. "I'm not going to steal it. You know where I live."

  "That's what you want me to think. You probably have some hidden house somewhere that's your real house, and I don't even know about it."

  Lucent scoffed. "Hardly."

  "Oh," I said. "I was kind of hoping you did, because that'd be neat."

  Both Sam and Lucent laughed at me. I didn't know why, because it really would have been neat.

  "Shall we go then?" Lucent asked me.

  "Yes," I said.

  I didn't know where we were going, though. In hindsight, maybe I should have thought about asking...

  ...

  We didn't go to Lucent's car. We never went to get my purse. We didn't even leave Sam's Delicatessen the way we came in. Instead, we went around back towards the alley and the dumpsters. It was kind of grimy and dark, definitely seedy and sort of corrupt? I thought it probably looked like most other inner city alleys, but I also thought most other inner city alleys looked bad, so that didn't help much.

  We walked away from Landseer Tower, down the alley towards a side street, then down that to the corner. I thought we
were going to keep walking, but Lucent stopped me and opened the door to a car instead. Before I knew what was happening, he helped me in and then got in beside me, closing the door after him. A man in the front of the car nodded, saying nothing, then pulled the car away from the sidewalk and started driving.

  No one said anything. Lucent didn't, and the man in the front didn't. I didn't, because I didn't know what to say, and I wasn't entirely sure what was going on. The man in front looked a little shady, too. He reminded me of the type of person who would hang out in the type of alley Lucent and I had just come from.

  So, any alley, really. The whole situation was more than a little passing odd.

  We drove through the streets, everyone quiet. Halfway to our unknown destination, I realized maybe I should have asked where we were going. It wasn't too late to do it now, but by the time I thought I should, we stopped. Lucent reached into his pocket and handed the man some money, then opened the door to leave. He offered me his hand and I stepped out, too.

  Before closing the door, Lucent bent down and said, "Thank you, William. I hope we didn't delay your exhibition work too much. Good luck with the gallery."

  William? Gallery? Exhibition? Was that code for something? Maybe like voyeurism and exhibitionism and all of that? Something dark and bad and mysterious, perhaps. Money laundering... yes, that must be it. I didn't get it. It made no sense. Money laundering voyeurism?

  Lucent closed the door and William drove away.

  "What did that mean?" I asked. "'Exhibition work' and 'the gallery?' What kind of code is that? Is that a—" Someone passed us on the streets. I hushed and stood on tiptoes to whisper directly into Lucent's ear. "Is that a money laundering code words thing?"

  Lucent stood there, brow furrowed, staring at me. "Miss Tanner, it's an art gallery thing. William runs the Hadria Art Gallery. They're doing an exhibit today on contemporary art emulating the Rococo style from the early 18th century."