What was she going to do? No Søren. No Kingsley. No town house. Jesus, she didn’t have a real job. She had a little less than five thousand dollars to her name, a college degree in English literature and almost no work experience other than a few years at a bookstore. What was she going to put on a résumé? That she gave good blow jobs and could take a beating better than any masochist in New York?
She sat up in bed and buried her face in her hands. Panic threatened to overwhelm her. Slowly she breathed, slowly she calmed herself. She would not cry. She could not cry. If she started crying over Søren, she’d never stop. And if she cried, that would mean it was real, that she had left him and that she was never going back.
When she was calm again she whispered into the quiet of her room, “What am I gonna do?”
No one answered, not even her.
Wincing as her sore muscles protested the movement, Elle got out of bed. She walked down the hall to the bathroom where she’d stored her duffel bag. On the way back to bed she noticed a light on in Daniel’s library. Wasn’t he supposed to be on the night shift taking care of Marius?
She crept to the half-open door and heard him speaking to someone. She saw no one else in the room and then noticed he had a small mobile phone to his ear.
“She’s not well,” Daniel said. “Let her stay here a couple days until she feels better. Than you can come get her.”
Elle froze.
“Not tonight, King. She’s not in good shape. Mentally or physically. Let her rest. We’ll take care of her.”
Rage welled up in Elle. She took one step forward and then stopped. Kingsley had warned if she had to flee, she’d have to be smart about it. She’d been stupid before but she wasn’t going to be stupid again. She crept back to the bathroom, grabbed her duffel bag and got dressed. As quietly as she could, she left the house. She didn’t leave a note, didn’t lambast him with accusations and recriminations. She didn’t call him a traitor or an asshole or an arrogant piece of shit who thought he knew what was better for her than she did. She did something much worse and much better at the same time.
She stole his car.
Thankfully Daniel wasn’t some rich dipshit who drove a flashy Maserati or a Ferrari to show off his money. Daniel had a classic black Mercedes-Benz sedan. Nothing that would attract any unnecessary attention. She took the keys right off the rack in the kitchen. She coasted out of the driveway with the lights off and resisted the urge to squeal the tires as a final fuck you and fare thee well.
He wouldn’t call the police. That wasn’t Daniel’s style. And he wouldn’t have to. She’d dump the car somewhere the cops would find it, and it would be returned to him in one piece.
More or less.
After ten minutes on the road the adrenaline rush faded and the reality that she was alone again with nowhere to go set in. No...not nowhere to go. She had lots of places to go. Unfortunately there was nowhere she could go where Kingsley wouldn’t find her eventually. Especially now that she’d stolen a registered car. Wherever she dumped the car, that’s where Kingsley would start looking, and he would find her in a matter of hours.
Which left only one option. She would have to go somewhere Kingsley and Søren couldn’t follow her. Even if he knew where she was, it would be somewhere he couldn’t enter. She thought about getting herself arrested and sent to prison. Seemed a better option than her only other choice.
Then again, she’d faced prison once before and Kingsley and Søren had got her out of going then. He would do it again if she was foolish enough to get herself arrested. Kingsley took care of things. That’s how it worked. She needed a ride somewhere? Kingsley’s driver would take her wherever she wanted to go. If she needed a vacation, Kingsley would send her and Søren to Europe. If she got injured during kink, he’d send her to his doctor, who knew how to keep his mouth shut. If she got pregnant...well, he took care of that, too, didn’t he? Whether he wanted to or not.
Kingsley...she kept her mind on him. If she thought about Søren, really thought about him, she’d turn the car around and drive straight back to Connecticut. Instead, she focused her mind on Kingsley. Was he okay? She hadn’t seen him in a few days. He hadn’t offered to go with her to the doctor. He’d made the appointment for her, had the car take her. But he wasn’t there when she left, wasn’t home when she got back. If she’d asked him to come with her, he would have. She knew that. That he hadn’t volunteered was proof that he didn’t want to face it any more than she did. So she didn’t ask him. She went alone and didn’t make him more a part of it than he already was. Kingsley was more dark knight than white knight, but whatever his sins, he had one bright, pure and beautiful hope—that he would be a father someday. She wasn’t going to make him stand there and watch her put an end to that dream.
“King...I’m sorry,” she whispered as she reached a crossroads. If she drove south, she’d be in Manhattan in four hours.
Or...
Elle pulled the car over on the side of the road.
She had to do it, right? What other choice did she have except to go back? And that was no choice at all. Because if she went back she’d be admitting defeat. If she went back she would be walking straight into a different sort of prison.
Even now, her heart raced at the thought of Kingsley tracking her down and bringing her home. That wasn’t right. She should be able to leave if she wanted to leave. She should be able to go if she wanted to go without fearing someone was following her. That’s how it worked in the real world, right? Women got sick of the lives they were leading and they could do things like move out and move on and start over without an ex-assassin for the French government dragging her home by her hair.
Right?
Was it too late for her to be part of the normal world? If it wasn’t, did she really want to go there? She didn’t know the answer to either question. But she did know the longer she sat in the car, the sooner Kingsley would find her. It was nine o’clock now. The summer sun had finally set. By sunrise, Daniel would notice she—and his Benz—had disappeared. He’d call Kingsley, and Kingsley would start the search for her. She needed to be somewhere safe by morning, somewhere no one could follow.
That left only one option.
She was twenty-six years old.
She was the ex-lover of a Catholic priest.
She was recovering from an abortion.
Might as well go all in.
Goodbye, men. Goodbye, sex.
She headed west to her mother’s convent.
She didn’t look back.
5
KINGSLEY STOOD IN front of locker 1312 but didn’t open it. He couldn’t open it. Not yet. The last thing he wanted to do was open it and have every one of his fears confirmed.
At four that morning, Søren had called him looking for Elle. She wasn’t answering her phone. When Kingsley had gone to her room and found her bed made and empty, he’d known exactly what happened. Kingsley had seen this day coming since the night he’d met her. She’d finally done it. She’d left Søren.
But why? Søren wouldn’t tell him anything, only that they’d fought and Elle had driven off in Kingsley’s BMW, which she drove whenever she went to Søren’s. They’d argued. She’d driven away. Nothing new there. They’d fought before. All couples did. But this time was different and the empty bed proved it. She hadn’t come home last night.
So where the fuck was she?
He took out his keys and opened the locker.
Kingsley stared at the hastily scrawled number five on the inside of the locker. He closed his eyes and took a breath. In between the intake of air and the outtake he whispered a word to himself.
“Fuck.”
Then he saw it. Far more damning than the number inside the locker was the six-inch length of carved bone he pulled out of it.
Kingsley held it in the palm of his hand, stared at it and knew how it had got here, knew why she’d left it.
“This is why I left him,” it told him. If she’d been he
re he would have replied, “Good.”
Kingsley shoved it into his back pocket and slammed the locker door shut.
“You son of a bitch.” Kingsley swore under his breath. If Søren had been here, he would have said it to his face. Kingsley was thirty-eight years old and had known Søren since he was sixteen. Søren had beaten him, brutalized him and used him. He’d married Kingsley’s sister, which had precipitated her death. And never in all those years since they’d met had Kingsley felt this level of rage, of abject fury at the man he considered his truest friend and the only man he’d ever loved. Swear at him? If Søren had been here right now, Kingsley might have killed him.
And yet, he knew most of that rage was anger at himself. This was his fault, his doing. Kingsley never should have let her face Søren alone. He shouldn’t have let her face any of it alone. If he needed any further proof he wasn’t ready to be a father, it was this—he’d made her a doctor’s appointment and then abandoned her. He’d left the city for two days, lain low in Boston and done more drinking than he’d done in years. And Elle? She’d thanked him for making the appointment. That was all. “Thanks, King, I’ll take it from here.” And there’d been a pause, as if she’d been waiting for him to say, “I’ll go with you” or “Let me help you” or even “How are you?” He hadn’t said it, hadn’t said anything, and she hadn’t asked him to come with her, to be with her during it all. Kingsley knew she thought she was doing him a favor by going alone, but in the end all that it had done was make him feel like shit.
He leaned back against the row of lockers. In scenarios one through four she’d been instructed to write the name of her destination inside the locker—Canada, Maine, Seattle, somewhere else if that’s what she wanted. But in scenario five, she’d only write the number and disappear. And so she had. If he had any doubts about her determination to run away, they’d dissolved when he’d got the phone call from Daniel.
She’s here, King. And she’s not in good shape.
Kingsley was already on his way to the door when Daniel cautioned him to wait a day or two to let Elle calm down and rest. It was a smart idea even though Kingsley rebelled at the idea of leaving her alone another minute. But she wasn’t alone. Daniel had loved her once and still cared for her. Anya adored her for bringing her and Daniel together. The house was beautiful, idyllic. She would calm down out there, recover, and when Kingsley showed up in a day or two, she’d be less likely to put up a fight about coming home.
But an hour later, the second call had come.
She’s gone, King. And she stole my fucking car.
Kingsley had hung up and stared at the phone in his hand. Then he laughed. A sad tired laugh with no joy in it at all, but still, he laughed. Because of course. Of course she’d stolen Daniel’s car and driven away in the night. He should have seen that coming.
Once upon a time, he and Søren had made an idle wish to someday have a girl who was wilder than him and Søren put together.
Be careful what you wish for.
In the back of his mind he wished Sam were here. He could use a sane and rational voice of comfort right now. She was always good at helping in a crisis. But Sam had left him six years ago shortly after that first night he and Søren had topped Elle together. Sam had met someone, fallen in love, but even that might not have broken up their partnership. Except Elle had quickly become the most important woman in Kingsley’s life. She brought Søren back to Kingsley’s bed, something Sam could never do. The first time Sam had seen Elle walking around the house in one of Kingsley’s shirts, that was it.
Sam wasn’t angry, wasn’t hurt. She just knew it was time for them both to move on. Sam told him she loved him and then gave her two weeks’ notice and started packing for LA.
His sister was dead because of his love for Søren.
His Sam was gone to California because of his love for Elle.
His Elle was gone because of his love for his stupid foolish dream to have children, a dream he put before her.
They were all gone. Maybe they were on to something.
Kingsley thought about going back home, but he couldn’t face Søren right now. Søren was nearly catatonic with shock when they’d last spoken. “You’ll find her,” was all Søren had said to him before the first phone call from Daniel had come. They’d been sitting in the music room, Søren at the piano but not playing.
Kingsley had nodded. “I’ll find her.”
He wanted to ask Søren “Why did she leave?” but he also didn’t want to ask it. Søren might tell him, and the last thing Kingsley needed was to hear what fate Kingsley had abandoned Elle to. Søren out of control was a sight as rare as a volcano erupting and nearly as terrifying.
It would be easy to find her. She’d stolen Daniel’s car. All he had to do was call a few contacts in the police department with a description of the vehicle. In a few hours they’d know which direction she’d gone. From there they could extrapolate her likeliest destination. If she used one of the credit cards, they could pinpoint her whereabouts precisely. A quick jaunt on an airplane to wherever she’d gone and by tomorrow night she’d be back in Manhattan whether she wanted to be or not.
He could find her. Easily. Søren had asked him to find her, and he couldn’t tell Søren no. He wasn’t strong enough to tell him no, and he would fail her again as he’d failed himself. Over and over in his head he cursed himself. He’d gotten her pregnant and then abandoned her to deal with it on her own. Then she’d faced Søren on her own. And Kingsley had the shard of carved bone in his back pocket to prove that conversation had not gone well. He’d never met a stronger woman in his life, a woman as free and as fearless as she. If she said Søren had crossed a line with her, Kingsley believed her.
Kingsley owed her. She’d fled somewhere—he didn’t know where but he assumed she’d picked a place she felt safe. What right did he have taking her away from there if that’s where she wanted to be? But he would do it, and he would do it for Søren, and he would do it because she’d become such a part of his life he couldn’t imagine waking another morning to find her gone.
If Kingsley went back to the town house right now he’d call all his contacts and find her. Søren would be sitting there, waiting, depending on Kingsley to find her.
But.
But if he didn’t go back to his town house...
Kingsley pulled his mobile phone out of his jacket and dialed a number.
“Don’t speak,” Kingsley said before his assistant could say a word.
Silence was his answer. Good.
“Answer the next question I ask you only with a yes or a no. You understand?” Kingsley asked.
“Yes,” Calliope said. Her voice was calm, controlled. She betrayed nothing. He’d trained her well.
“Is he there?”
“No.”
“No?” Kingsley repeated. “Good. Now you can talk. Did he tell you where he went?”
“No,” Calliope said. “He told me to tell you he had an idea where she might be. Then he got on his motorcycle and drove away.”
Kingsley’s brow furrowed as he leaned back against the lockers.
“He’s not going to get her back,” Kingsley said.
“Are you going to find her then?”
Kingsley didn’t answer. He had a decision to make. Calliope made it for him.
“She wouldn’t leave him without a good reason, right?” she asked. “She wouldn’t leave him unless she had to. I know her. I know how much she loves him.”
“So do I,” Kingsley said.
“Did he hurt her? Like in the bad way?” Calliope asked, her voice awash in fear and confusion. Kingsley could sympathize.
Kingsley didn’t answer.
“King?”
He had a decision to make. He made it now.
“I need you to do something for me.”
“Anything,” she said.
“I need you to move into the town house. Someone needs to take care of the dogs. Can you do that for me?”
“I practically live here anyway. Dad’s not going to be thrilled, but I’m eighteen. Not much he can do about it. Sure. Anything you need.”
“You can have any room that isn’t mine or isn’t hers. There’s ten grand in cash in my bottom desk drawer. The combination is—”
“I know the combination.”
“How?”
“You hired me because I’m the sort of girl who knows combinations, remember?”
“Good point.” He almost laughed. He did know how to pick an assistant.
“Shut the house down. Close it. Cancel all the parties. Cancel everything, even the newspaper.”
“Are you going somewhere?” she asked.
The Virgin Page 5
