His Absolute Assignment - Elise's Love Story: The Billionaire's Continuum (#1) (A Contemporary Romance Novel)

by du Lys, Cerys

  "Alright," Lucent said. "Good night, Miss Tanner."

  "Good night, Lucent."

  Everything might not be fine. Lucent could be lying to me. I didn't know. I found it difficult to care. In his arms, soft and quiet, in the middle of the library, I felt like everything was perfect. I thought this was exactly how everything should be all the time.

  Maybe everything wouldn't work out, but it could. It might. That was the best I could do right now. It was what I wanted to believe.

  A Note from Cerys

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  ~*~

  This was a tough story to get through for a lot of reasons. I struggled at times with what I thought was right and how I wanted it to progress, but I think I managed to do a good job of it. Mainly, I didn't want to leave anyone out, you know? If you're reading this as a continuation of The Billionaire's Paradigm, then I wanted to give you a glimpse of some of the in between time with Lucent and Elise. If you're reading this as a fresh book, without having read The Billionaire's Paradigm, I didn't want you to feel altogether lost and confused. It was kind of a balancing act, but I think I made it work.

  If you haven't read The Billionaire's Paradigm, I'd really suggest it, too! You can pick up the first part of the series for a small amount to see if you'll like it, or you can get the entire series/full-novel version for a good deal, too. It's one of my favorite stories and I really enjoyed writing it, and also reading it.

  Also! Going along with that, I wanted to state my plans with this, since I know people like to know about all of that. I do like to publish longer series (or some might call them serials, although I don't think that's entirely apt for what this is), and currently I'm planning between 5-7 parts for Elise's Love Story. I don't know exactly how long it'll end up, because sometimes things change depending on what's going on with the characters. I write about them, yes, but they might have minds of their own on occasion. I know generally what's going to happen, but why not let them have a little fun once in awhile and move away from the accepted path into unknown territory? I think it makes the story more fun that way.

  Anyways!

  Elise's Love Story is going to be a concurrent series, meaning it happens alongside Jessika's Love Story. Both Elise's and Jessika's stories will happen at the same time, but you don't need to read them both to understand the story. It's just a fun extra thing I thought I'd try out, you know? So... when you were reading Elise's story, were you more curious about what happened with Jessika's office and all of that? You should go check out the beginning of Jessika's Love Story (His Absolute Arrangement), then! Want to know more about Asher, too? That's also there. There's a scene with one of the meetings of all of the Directors and Asher as the CEO, too, which includes Lucent, Alice Hamilton, and a few more characters that weren't introduced here.

  Overall, I think it's an interesting concept. I wanted each character to have their own stories without diluting from that and taking away from their feelings, thoughts, and romance, but I thought it'd be fun to offer a glimpse of both sides, too. What happened with Jessika after the fire, when she was screaming for Elise and Lucent? Hm... (Well, you can find all of that stuff out in His Absolute Arrangement: Jessika's Love Story, so I hope you'll check it out!)

  If you'd rather just read about Elise, you can certainly do that, too. There's no right or wrong way to read these. You've just got a few more options. I hope you'll love the story enough to want to read everything, though! It'll be a fun romantic adventure, with some interesting conflict.

  Speaking of conflict, for Elise's Love Story, there's going to be a lot more in the future. What happened here is just the tip of what might have happened in Lucent's past. Honestly, there's an entire hard drive full of what he's been up to, and the one thing he told Elise isn't really the worst of it. I don't want to spoil things, but there'll be some really interesting revelations in the second part of Elise's Love Story that I think will intrigue a lot of people. I'm intrigued by it, at least.

  I will add that, personally, I don't think Lucent is a bad person, but I don't really know. If someone has done bad things, but for good reasons, does that make them bad? It might. Illegal stuff is still illegal, right? Maybe what was revealed here doesn't seem so bad, but then there's a bit more, too. Lucent is secretive for a reason. One of the parts I enjoyed most from the beginning of Jessika's Love Story was a scene with Asher and Lucent talking (before Elise goes to Asher's office, so you see a glimpse of the end of that here), and Lucent mentions that he doesn't want to be in a spotlight of his own, he'd rather be in someone else's (which he is, as the Direct of Public Relations for Landseer Enterprises, since he does press releases and is the corporate go-to person for business relations to public ones).

  Here's a teaser of that:

  "Sometimes it's easier to hide in plain sight. If a person acts suspicious, they're more likely to be discovered compared to someone who goes about their daily routine, even if they both have something to hide."

  That holds true for a lot of people, too. I don't think it's specifically a Lucent thing, and some of the other characters might be hiding things of their own, too. Lucent's just the first to articulate it.

  One thing I want to share quickly, too, is one of the ideas I had which sort of pushed this entire story forward (the whole thing, Jessika, Asher, Lucent, and Elise, and everyone else in it). The idea basically hinges on the mention of "calm" at the beginning.

  There's a calm before a storm, right? Except there's also a calm in the eye of the storm. There's calm before the raging wind and rain, and calm in the middle of it, so...

  How do you know which one applies to you?

  It might seem obvious if you're in the middle of the storm, since you could see disaster all around you, but I don't know if it's that simple. Has the storm always existed, surrounding you while you stayed safe in the center, or is this the beginning of it?

  I just thought the idea was neat, how there's certain parallels there, but also differences, too. It's something I wanted to kind of put out there, and while you certainly don't have to consider it and can just enjoy the story for what it is, I think it's an interesting idea and I wanted to share it in case it makes the story more enjoyable for you.

  I hope you like the story either way! There's no right or wrong way to read or interpret any story, so it's fun to see what different sorts of things we can all get out of the same reading, you know? I think that kind of thing is really neat, at least.

  If you liked this story, I'd love if you rated and reviewed it, too! It helps me out a lot, and I like to read everyone's comments and ideas about the story and the characters. There's going to be more coming soon, too, so I hope you'll keep an eye out for that, also! You can email me any time at cerysdulys@gmail.com if you have questions, too. I check reviews and read my emails at least once a day, so I'll try to respond to any questions, comments, or concerns as soon as possible.

  Thanks for reading His Absolute Assignment! I hope you loved it!

  Sample (Sweet)

  Are you curious about the story Elise was writing about how she first met Lucent Storme?

  Please enjoy this sample from The Billionaire's Paradigm: His Absolute Purpose, by Cerys du Lys

  ~*~

  Snow fell in fluffy white flakes outside, covering the empty streets in a heavy winter frosting. I stood inside behind the library's counter, warm, staring at it. It was a Friday afternoon and the library was almost entirely empty. No one wanted to go out during the storm, and honestly I couldn't blame them. I didn't want to go out in the storm either, but this was my job and...

  And almost everyone else had called out sick. The weather reports claimed a record-breaking seventy-eight inches and the news anchors kept going o
n and on about how this hadn't happened since 1921 in Silver Lake, Colorado. Apparently back then they received seventy-six inches in twenty four hours.

  And on, and on, and on. Numbers. Forever.

  I liked the news as much as the next person, but didn't they always exaggerate the weather? It was hard to tell sometimes. When they called for rain, it didn't rain. Sun begot rain, and snow became a wintry mix, and nothing ever truly turned out like it was supposed to.

  That's what I thought, anyways. Staring at the snow now, I reconsidered my opinion.

  "Hey, Elise?"

  I turned, eyes glazed from watching the snow fall. "Yes, Margaret?"

  "Do you mind if I take off early... I mean, it's just you and me, you know? And there's no one here. Even Rob didn't come in, so..."

  I shrugged. "I guess. Sure. I won't say anything."

  "Maybe you should leave, too?" she added. "I doubt anyone's going to show up. It's getting kind of bad out there."

  I worked in the library every weekday after my college courses, but those were canceled for today. Usually my shifts ended at nine in the evening. Currently it was four o' clock.

  "I can't," I said. "Someone has to close down, right?"

  Margaret looked at me and sighed. "You're always like this, you know? I don't understand it. I know you like libraries, but aren't you taking the call of duty too far? Even Rob didn't come in and he runs the place."

  I laughed. "His daughter just had a baby! He took the whole week off. Otherwise I bet he would've come in no matter what."

  "Maybe..." She didn't sound convinced. "Just be careful, alright? It's getting pretty bad out there."

  "I can see that," I said, staring pointedly out a window again. "I'm sure it'll stop soon."

  "Yeah, you're probably right." Margaret grabbed her coat and hat and gloves from a cubby behind the library counter and bundled herself up. "Well, ta-ta, Miss Tanner!"

  "Pip-pip, cheerio," I said in reply, grinning. Neither of us was English, and I doubted English people even said half the things we said to one another, but it sounded fancy sometimes. Or different, at least.

  Margaret opened the door to the library, sending the bell above it a tinkling fit. A rush of harsh wind blew inside, bringing a gust of snow with it, and she hurried through it and shut the door hard behind her. I watched her leave, gazing off into the winter wonderland long after I lost sight of her.

  And now what? I was alone in the library in the middle of a supposedly record-breaking snowstorm.

  I brought up the weather on the library computer and scanned through the forecast. Seventy-eight inches, running through until late tomorrow afternoon. Except now it was even worse, apparently. The snow might stop, but another blizzard was headed this way and could keep the city blanketed in white for another day or two after.

  Unfortunately, as a little ticker scrolling across the monitor's screen stated, it was unlikely we'd beat out the "one storm" record of one-hundred-eighty-nine inches that happened during 1959 in Shasta Ski Bowl, California. Oh, yes, I thought, how unfortunate. Were they serious?

  Seventy-eight seemed like plenty to me.

  I checked my e-mail while I was at it. Nothing. Nothing. Spam. And an invitation to a Snowed-In party from the local sorority. They wanted to formally invite everyone to their sorority house during the storm for a party. If the power went out, they had plenty of food and beverages to last for the weekend, plus candles, blankets, and more. Plus, it said, with so many people in one place, it'd be easy to find a cuddle partner to keep warm. Or more.

  More. Yes. Ugh!

  I groaned thinking about it. Why did most college people have this mindset? Granted, I was older than most of my classmates, and going for my MFA, but still. Yes, let's just all act like it's the end of the world, wait for the power to go out, and find some thinly veiled excuse to fuck someone's brains out.

  Ick.

  I disliked all of this. I just wanted to go to class, finish my coursework, get my degree and...

  And then what? I didn't know. What use was a MFA in Creative Writing with a specialization in fiction? I could write, and I did write, but sometimes it seemed so hard. How did anyone get their foot in the door? Do I just... write? I'd taken some classes discussing this exact thing, sort of, but they left me more baffled than before. Quite a feat, too, considering I had exceptional grades so far. But I digress...

  I should do my homework, that's what I should do. Except I decided to check YouTube quickly, because who would stop me? Rob hated people using the computers for personal use, but Rob wasn't here, and no one else was here, and no one needed the computers for non-personal use, so...

  I scanned the front page trying to find some-thing interesting to watch before buckling down and studying. Nothing, nothing, nothing. My finger twitched, accidentally clicking on a video. On the screen, wearing a crisp dark suit with a silver tie stood Lucent Storme.

  Lucent, the description of the video said, was the newest Director of Public Relations for Landseer Enterprises. He had taken over for Solomon Royce who was involved in some severe scandals during the middle of last year. The description went on to describe all this, then more, and I gave up reading and just watched the video after that.

  Lucent Storme talked about the future of Landseer Enterprises and how he'd do his best to keep everything crystal clear. Public relations should be about the public and continually fostering positive regard, not the archaic practice of diffusing bad situations when they arose and acting oblivious to general interest otherwise.

  Lucent Storme sure could talk, I thought. He said a lot of words and they sounded nice, but was that really it?

  I didn't like him. Not just because of the shady look he had. Yes, he wore dressy clothes and looked nice. And, yes, he looked really nice. Lucent was handsome, alright? I knew this, and I also knew he'd never look twice at someone like me, so I didn't know how he could talk about continually fostering positive regard. It sounded great in theory, but it just didn't work. People like him never associated with people like me.

  The library was only a few blocks away from Landseer Tower and I never saw him or Asher Landseer, or anyone like them. I saw Jessika once, Asher's new wife after his mutually agreed upon divorce(My God what a disaster that sounded like! The tabloids were abuzz after it happened. Mutually agreed upon after the man she was having an affair with tried to kill her husband? I really hope he never considered staying with her afterwards, anyways).

  Jessika was supposedly normal, but I doubted it. She looked nothing like any normal person I'd seen. What had she done before marrying Asher? Well, nothing. She graduated from college, took on small jobs, and then met him, and that's it.

  Fairytales and fantasies, really. Except what use would someone like Asher Landseer have with a girl like that?

  There were rumors about what Lucent Storme looked for in a woman, though. He was into the darker sides of sexuality. At least according to the common gossip of the day. I shouldn't involve myself in that, but I currently had little social life to speak of(quite evident by my situation during this record-breaking snow-storm), and I enjoyed thinking about it.

  For creative reasons. I was majoring in Creative Writing afterall.

  The video finished and a list of other recommended videos popped up. I clicked out of the internet browser, forcing myself to begin committing to my studies. Grabbing my book bag from behind the library counter, I hefted it up and pulled out one of my books. I needed to read chapters 3 through 8 by Monday, then write a five page paper.

  Why read behind the counter, though? That's what I usually did just in case someone came in and needed help. Rob hated people using the computers, but he loved for us to read back here. It made us seem more bookish, he said. Librarians reading books? Who knew?

  I decided not to spend more time back here than necessary, though. I had the entire library at my disposal, and while it wasn't the most up to date place ever, I liked it here.

  I loved it, actually. I k
new this was kind of dumb, and the job didn't even pay very well, but I loved it here. Margaret probably thought I didn't want to leave in case Rob found out, but that wasn't it. I didn't want to leave because I didn't want to leave.

  I wanted a library one day, some massive, expansive affair of my own. In my giant house. Or maybe the library was my house? I'd set up a dining table in the center and put my bedroom on the second floor in between squared off shelves. The bathroom could be the only regular room in the house, and everything else should be creatively crafted using bookshelves and ladders, scaffolding, steps, nooks, crannies, hideaways, this and that, books. Everything.

  I waltzed through the library, imagining this was that. My feet danced lightly across the thick carpets and I scurried over to the children's section. The children's section had beanbags around a small stage area where local authors came and read stories now and again. Or librarians did otherwise. I never read a story. I liked children, but I got nervous speaking in groups.

  Silly, really, because right now I was dancing through the library as if I were some elegant lady of well-renown, social and graceful and witty beyond belief. I'd say some cunning joke and the entire room around me would laugh. Oh, yes.

  Not really.

  I plopped into a bean bag and opened my book to chapter 3. Skimming through the introduction, I settled into the meat of it. This wasn't a fun book, though. There were no dashing heroes and ladies of well-renown. No social grace and ballroom dances or fancy dinners. No romance, no high adventure. No love; lost, forgotten, or otherwise.

  No, it was a school book, and on any other day I'd read it and study and force myself into it no matter what, but on this snowy, lonely day, I soon found myself drifting off to sleep.

  ...

  I awoke, or I thought I did, and saw a man. He stood in front of me wearing a dark, crisp suit with black shoes and a grey tie. Smirking, he looked down at me. He stared at me, into me, and for a moment I felt anxious.

  Then I realized I must not have woken up, because he was definitely Lucent Storme and why would he be in the library? Or, for that matter, why was I dreaming of Lucent Storme? A nightmare, probably. Some dismal addition to my dreamworld meant to scare me awake. I'd find myself in a cold sweat upon returning to reality. Was it snowing outside still?