“And marry her.”
I finally admitted the obvious. “Yes, and to marry her.”
“Why?”
I still wasn’t quite sure of the answer to that, so I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe I want to toy with her a little more before I do.”
“Don’t do it,” he said, and his voice was tighter with dread than I’d ever heard. “Seriously, Lucian, for the life of you, don’t do it. Don’t go anywhere near the Constantines again. It’s not worth it. She’s not worth it.”
The fire in me said otherwise, burning bright with the need for her pain and destruction.
“I fucking mean it,” Elliot said. “Don’t go anywhere near her again. Go after Tinsley if you have to. Or even that Haley chick, or whoever, none of it matters. Just not Elaine Constantine. Please God, not Elaine Constantine.”
I sneered at him, because his words made no sense. His logic made no fucking sense. “Why not Elaine?” I said. “Her mother would be crying harder about losing any of the others than that of her black sheep. Taking out any of them would be a much more dramatic swipe at their heritage than the one they want to disown.”
He was shaking his head, and I could read it in his eyes, something that made my blood freeze. “This is nothing to do with the Constantines and who they’d cry hardest about,” he told me. “It’s about you.”
“Me?” I scoffed. “What the hell has it got to do with me? Why the fuck does it matter which of the Constantines I fuck with? I’ll be firing a nice fucking shot into the heart of them, regardless. It’s about damn time one of us did.”
“It’s got everything to do with you,” he said, and he meant it. He really fucking meant it. “It’s got everything to do with which of the Constantines you opt to go after next.”
“So tell me,” I snapped at him. “Tell me what catastrophe you think is gonna happen when I go after Elaine Constantine and fuck her.”
Elliot Morelli looked at me like the best friend I’d known for decades, all summed up in that one short moment. “I don’t think. I know what catastrophe is gonna happen,” he said. “You’re not just gonna marry Elaine Constantine. You’re gonna fall in love with her.”
Chapter Thirteen
Elaine
Monday found me sitting with Harriet, Grace, and Vivian in the Regent Country Club. The girls were chatting and laughing, sipping away on coffees like a group of regular BFFs. We were four blondes, all made up to the nines, amongst a whole load of golfers and suited gentlemen and their high-styled wives around the edges. The other girls were glowing fresh from a morning gym session, but I was barely steady on my feet, still muggy-headed from my weekend on the rocks.
My thighs were itching under my dress, fresh with cuts from the night before, deep enough to remind me of my failings.
The others went through their usual crappy small talk. How was your weekend? Did you see Amy-Ann’s dress on Saturday night? Hemmings Vintage, right?
I sipped my black coffee, hoping that the gathering would disband as soon as possible. I barely said a word, just smiled my fake smile as everyone spoke, playing at being vaguely interested.
But I couldn’t be vaguely interested.
Not with Lucian Morelli racing through my mind.
I should’ve known it was inevitable that the questioning would turn in my direction. Manners cost nothing, so our au pairs and housekeepers had instilled from a young age.
It was Grace who spoke. My cousin was a picture as she grinned across the table at me, eyes fluttering under fake lashes.
“Hey, Lainey. How was your weekend, then? How come you bailed on the Longley fundraiser? Someone said you were busy…”
The other two were staring along with her. Harriet—my closest cousin of them all—was trying to look optimistic, like she didn’t know the answer would be something unacceptable to Constantine standards.
My sister, Vivian, wasn’t even trying to look optimistic. Her smile was paper-thin, knowing full well that I was likely coked up and barely conscious the whole while since she’d seen me last.
I nearly let loose an unhinged laugh—dark humor as I imagined what expressions they’d be pulling if they knew the truth of it. They’d be retching all over the table.
I was downtown with Tristan, watching some rocker guy he wanted a piece of dick from. I got tipsy with no security in sight…and then I was hoping to get fucked by Lucian Morelli. As it turns out, he didn’t, just wound me up with his hands and mouth.
I shrugged. “Yeah, it was good, thanks. Just took some time out.”
Three blank expressions looked across at me, paper smiles not even cutting it.
I summoned up a smile of my own and poked the conversation back to some regular numb chatter.
“Tell me about Amy-Ann’s Hemmings Vintage gown, then.”
Grace leaped up and into it, sliding her hands down her ribs as she bleated on about teal satin and diamonds. Same old crap.
I knew Harriet’s eyes were on me as I played with my coffee mug. I could feel them.
I loved Harriet Roosevelt. Not just because she’d been my closest cousin for forever, but because she was a really sweet soul and I wished I could learn something from her. She was on the straight and narrow with everything she ever did, and it wasn’t because the Constantines were dictators who demanded we all did what we were told—it was because that’s who she was as a person.
She didn’t fill her calendar with hundreds of different charity events because it looked good in the tabloids. She did it because she wanted to be there with her heart of gold.
Maybe we had more in common than I’d ever let myself believe, but my heart wasn’t gold like hers. Mine was tattered, dead.
Secrets. More secrets.
I’d have paired her up as besties with downtown Jemma if I thought they’d be able to spend any time together under the Constantine umbrella, but my mother would have blown a fuse to even catch sight of Jemma on Bishop’s Landing turf with her moral crusading and dreadlocks in her hair.
When lunch was over, we did air kisses, same as usual. I didn’t even bother downing the rest of my coffee before I gathered my coat up, ready to go.
I was at the front doorway when Harriet grabbed my arm. I leaped out of my skin, eyes opening wide on hers on instinct as she pulled her usual confused face, trying to make sense of just what the hell was going on with me.
“Come for a walk around the grounds?” she asked, and the flare up in my stomach was a fresh quest for cocaine, but I managed to contain myself enough to resist snorting a line at the Regent Country Club on a Monday lunchtime.
“Sure, yeah.”
She linked her arm through mine as we walked, waving the others away with the chauffeurs. I didn’t know where to begin with speaking, so I didn’t bother, just stared numbly ahead with the paces.
“Seriously, Lainey,” she whispered. “What’s happening with you? Please tell me.”
“The usual,” I said back. “I don’t know why you bother asking.”
I wasn’t expecting her to grab my shoulders and twist me toward her. I wasn’t expecting the sheer hurt and fear in her eyes as they met with mine. “Don’t do this,” she said. “Don’t shut me out like this. When have you ever shut me out like this?”