She sighed. “No gratitude. So it’s just as well that I have a solution for us.”
“Uncle Lionel told me. An offer.”
“Yes,” she spat. “An offer.”
“Tell me, then,” I said, trying my best to sound strong. “What is this offer?”
I knew it was going to be a bad one before she started speaking. I could see it in her stare.
“Christopher Rawlings,” she announced. “He wants you as his bride. Baron Rawlings suggests you are to be the latest addition to the Rawlings name and the British aristocracy.”
No.
Not Baron Rawlings…
I was shaking my head before she was even done speaking.
She sighed, folding her arms across her chest. “Don’t try my patience any more than you already have, Elaine. This is a good opportunity for you. And a good opportunity for the Constantine name. Do something for the family, for a change.”
Constantines and Rawlings…it made my skin crawl.
“The tabloids would love it,” she said. “It would be the wedding of the decade.”
“No,” I said. “I don’t want to marry Christopher Rawlings.”
She scoffed at me. “You don’t have to like him. That’s hardly the point of a good marriage. What I would expect is that you would see the value in my proposition. A fresh start, in England, with a good family name and a ring on your finger.”
Mom was still talking, rattling off the benefits.
“I’ll finish your debts with the Powers one last time. You’ll be out of the cycle. No drugs in your life, no losers to hole up in the pits of shit with. Baron Rawlings was very clear on that. Nobody would come within a mile of you. Nobody they didn’t approve of.”
I was still shaking my head. “Baron Rawlings is a sick fuck.”
“Watch your mouth!” she said. “Baron Rawlings is a fine man, from a fine family lineage.”
I did watch my mouth. It shut tight. Just as I always had done.
I was already walking away from her as she cursed under her breath.
“I mean it, Elaine,” she said. “Accept Christopher’s proposal or you’re on your own. I’m not digging you out ever again.”
I didn’t want her to. Not anymore. The sails of hope in me died their death for the last time. I was lost to everything. Even myself.
I’d never marry Christopher Rawlings. Never.
My legs were still tingling from the cuts, and my cheek was tingling from the cold hard slap of my mother. My ass was still hurting from Lucian’s cock, and my heart was shrinking from years of disgrace and fear and self-hate, and I was ready.
I could never be with Lucian. I should never want to be. I could never dig myself out of the life I’d created, amongst the people who’d created me.
I let out a sigh as I took the final staircase back down to the garden party, leaving my mother upstairs with folded arms, cursing my name.
I had the answer.
This time, for myself, I had the answer.
If the Power brothers, or Lucian Morelli, or Reverend Lynch weren’t coming for me pretty soon, I’d be taking myself and saving them the trouble.
With the first shred of self-respect I’d allowed myself in years, I smiled. Fuck the Power brothers, and fuck the Morellis, and fuck the whole host of people aching to be a part of my demise.
My final breath belonged to one person only.
Me.
My end would be on my own terms, and soon.
Really damn soon.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Lucian
It was a foreign feeling to me. Failure.
I’d succeeded at every task and every mission that had been thrown at me in my life. But not this one. Not writing off Elaine Constantine as history.
Not taking over Morelli Holdings.
I should’ve left her to the Power brothers and focused on finally gaining my position in check as head of the Morelli empire. I should’ve heeded the oath carved into my palm and knuckled myself down to my roles, both criminal and corporate.
I didn’t.
I couldn’t.
I didn’t even bother heading back to city life, just headed over to the Constantine compound and stayed at the safest distance I could manage with a chauffeur.
I was a fool risking it all for a woman I should despise. I was a beast craving a filthy little goddess and her innocent soul.
Trenton tried to reach me on my phone, but I wanted nothing to do with him.
Morelli Holdings and keeping my position intact should be the only thing that mattered to me.
It wasn’t.
The board would vote, and with my absences lately, they would vote for my father. Again, I should’ve been determined to change that.
I wasn’t. I was far too determined in pursuing Elaine and her beauty and her fears.
Elaine’s chauffeur left the Constantine compound early on Sunday evening. Just the smallest glimpse of her bouncing blonde hair as she slipped into the limo made my cock hard. I followed her back into the city, bailing out of my limo a block away from her apartment to make my way closer on foot.
I stood next to the building and stared up at her suite windows on the top floor, and I wondered what she was doing up there, and how chewed up inside she was over everything.
I pictured her wide eyes, and her nervous shivers, and the abject terror in her stare whenever I looked at her.
I wanted more.
My phone was pinging, but I didn’t care enough to look at the screen. My gaze was fixed up high, watching the lights turning on in the top floor windows as the evening turned to dusk. I didn’t move. I didn’t have anywhere I wanted to go.
I didn’t want Violent Delights and the club house full of games and filth. I didn’t want to summon any other women and tear them apart for my whims.
I wanted Elaine Constantine. Even though my palm was still sliced ragged, begging me to hold true to my oath, I wanted Elaine Constantine.
It was the most insane move I’d ever made when I took the pair of glasses from my inside jacket pocket and took off my tie to loosen the top few buttons of my shirt. It was the most risky thing I’d ever contemplated to walk straight into Elaine’s building foyer and up to the security reception with a cold hard smile on my face.
Let them find out. Let them find out that Lucian Morelli was here to see Elaine Constantine. Her family was surely monitoring her. I rang the bell and waited, half expecting her to ignore it.
After a moment, the lock clicked open.
Interesting.
Interesting and thrilling, right to the dark depths of me.
The elevator ride was long and slow. My mouth was dry as I stepped out and walked right on up to Elaine Constantine’s front door. I rapped my knuckles three times, my fist still held up in the air as my pretty little fool Elaine answered.
She’d been crying.
The tracks of her tears were fresh down her cheeks.
“You’re insane,” she said as she swung the door open. “What the hell are you doing here? Have you lost your mind?”
I pushed past her without a word, taking a look at the opulence of the apartment around me. It was huge, cream, and sparse. Hardly a trace of personality in the place.
“Are you worried your parents will find out? Mine already have? Who gives a fuck? We’re grown ups, even if our parents are psychos who might kill us.”