LUCIEN: A Standalone Romance

by Glenna Sinclair

  I groaned. “Even though one of the emails came when I was an hour’s drive from the office.”

  “You have a bachelor’s degree in computer science. You could have sent the email on some sort of delay.”

  “He’s really thought it all out.”

  “My dad’s pretty thorough in his job. You’ll probably have a bill waiting on your desk when we get back to Houston.”

  I nuzzled her neck, making her close her eyes and move back, closer against me.

  “Does that mean you can just be my girlfriend instead of my bodyguard?”

  “Do you want me to be your girlfriend?”

  “I want you to be my everything.”

  She didn’t say anything. She didn’t move. She just lay there, almost as though she hadn’t heard what I’d said. I wanted to repeat myself, but I was afraid it would be pushing my luck. But then she reached back and touched my hip.

  “I’m good with that.”

  Relief rushed through my body. It was like seeing lights in your rearview mirror and then seeing the police car speed around you and chase down the guy in front of you. It felt like I’d just dodged a bullet.

  “Are you going to give your sister a job?”

  “I don’t know. That’s kind of Jacob’s department.”

  “I still don’t think it would be a good idea.”

  “Everyone agrees with your idea, but I don’t think anyone has the heart to follow through on it.”

  She rolled over and looked at me. “Then your parents should probably accept the fact that she won’t go back to school and she’ll probably be one of those women who depends on her man for everything.”

  I ran my finger over her nose. “You think so?”

  “No.” She smiled. “Rachel’s too smart for that. Your parents should just back off, let her make her own choices.”

  “I think so, too.”

  I kissed her, loving the feel of her, the taste of her. She rolled back over, pressing her ass hard against my hips. I couldn’t resist. I slid myself inside of her, heard her sigh as she again rotated her hips, a low moan slipping from her lips as I reached around and pressed a finger against her clit. I couldn’t get enough of her. No matter how many times we laid together, I only wanted her again the moment we were apart. I’d never felt this way with another woman, never felt so insatiable.

  My CGM began to alarm as I slowly rotated my hips against her. She reached back and ran her hand over my hip, encouraging me to move in a new rhythm, in a rhythm that satisfied the need deep inside of her. The CGM sounded again as that rhythm built, as our breathing grew rapid and out of control. I wanted to scream, wanted to tell diabetes to leave me the hell alone for once. I knew I’d been without my pump too long, knew that my sugars were rising too high. But I didn’t care in that moment. I wanted to be with her and only her, to forget about my other mistress. My other constant companion.

  When we reached our ending, she leaned over and grabbed the device off of the side table.

  “You need to put your pump back on,” she said.

  “I need a shot,” I said, almost reluctantly. “But I didn’t bring a vial.”

  “There’s a drug store around the corner.”

  “But that would require getting out of bed, getting dressed, and leaving you.”

  She kissed me softly. “I would prefer you to leave me temporarily rather than in an ambulance for God knows how long.”

  I groaned. “Why do you always have to be so reasonable?”

  She just smiled.

  Reluctantly, very reluctantly, I climbed out of bed and redressed in my jeans and t-shirt, hooking the insulin pump up and blousing enough to start the downward slide. I grabbed my keys and wallet.

  “I’ll be back in twenty minutes.”

  “Be careful.”

  She snuggled against the pillows as I headed for the door, looking for all the world like she was content to take an early evening nap. I paused in the doorway and watched her a moment, finding it difficult to actually walk away. But I did.

  Fuck diabetes!

  Chapter 22

  Adrienne

  The sound of the door slamming pulled me out of the light doze I’d settled into. He’d forgotten his CGM device, and the alarm continued to go off even though the huge number had fallen a little. I’d read some about diabetes when I wasn’t following him to his parents’ beach house or trying to figure how someone used his computer to send those emails. I knew that number was dangerous. But I also knew that Lucien had dealt with this condition long enough to know what to do in situations like this.

  I grew restless after just a few minutes. I climbed out of bed and pulled on his t-shirt, one I’d taken from his bedroom a few nights ago, and wandered out into the sitting room. My cellphone was in the pocket of my jeans in the bathroom. I heard it buzzing despite the distance. I thought about ignoring it as I stood at the windows and looked down on the city, but decided it might be important.

  And it was. It was a message from Robert.

  “Text message from a phone registered to Callahan Biomedical. Not Montgomery or Callahan’s phones.”

  The message was in reference to a text message I’d received last night that appeared to be from the same person who’d been emailing both Lucien and Jacob from Lucien’s computer. The fact that the text came from a phone other than Lucien’s or Jacob’s seemed to suggest what I’d been saying all along, that Lucien wasn’t orchestrating a hoax. I sent both the screen shot of the text messages on my phone and Robert’s message to my dad.

  And then I remembered the camera I’d set up in Lucien’s office.

  It’d only been a day, but I was hoping it had caught something. Or, more importantly, someone.

  I tugged my laptop out of my overnight bag and curled up on the narrow couch in the sitting room to pull up the footage. There was nothing going on right now, but I rewound the footage to late last night and…was that…?

  “Lucien!” I called as the door opened. “You’ll never believe who I caught on camera breaking into your office!”

  But it wasn’t Lucien who walked through the door.

  Chapter 23

  Lucien

  The line at the pharmacy was impossibly long. But when I finally reached the counter, it was only a matter of moments before the harried pharmacist handed me a vial of fast-acting insulin and a handful of needles. I didn’t even need a prescription.

  God bless America.

  I gave myself the shot in the elevator, eager to simply jump into bed with Adrienne and get back to what we’d been doing before my diabetes rudely interrupted us. I shoved the card key into the door lock and called her name, but she didn’t answer. I thought she was probably asleep. But when I stepped up to the door of the bedroom, my shirt already coming up over my head, I realized the bed was empty.

  “Adrienne?”

  I walked over, shifted the blankets a little, as though she were tiny enough to hide in the rumpled mess we’d left behind. The bathroom door was open, the light on, but she wasn’t in there, either.

  Her bag was still sitting on a low bench in the corner of the room, her shoes tucked underneath. She—unlike my mother and sister when we traveled together—had only brought one pair of shoes. She wouldn’t have gone out without them, would she?

  I went back to the sitting room, the cold fingers of fear beginning to dance in the depths of my belly.

  “Adrienne?” I said again, aware that I’d checked every possible place she could be and that saying her name was useless. But I felt compelled to do it anyway.

  And then a cellphone began to buzz loudly. I spun around, trying to find it.

  There, on the couch.

  The screen was brightly lit, announcing that there was a new text message.

  I hesitated. This was Adrienne’s phone. Why was her phone here, but she was gone? Where had she gone? Why had she gone?

  All her things were still here. Her bag, her shoes. Her cellphone.

  She
might have stepped out to get ice without her shoes. Might even have left without her phone. But she didn’t have a key to the door. And I was pretty sure she hadn’t put any pants on.

  Where the hell…?

  The phone buzzed again, the screen announcing another message.

  I clicked it.

  If you want to see your girlfriend again, you will do exactly as I tell you.

  That was the first message.

  Call the police and you will never hear from me again. Or see her again.

  That was the second.

  Suddenly, what had begun as concern for the patent on a device that could revolutionize diabetes care and make my brother and me very, very wealthy had become a life or death situation. And I had no clue what to do next.

  Chapter 24

  Adrienne

  My hands were tied behind my back, the plastic cables cutting into my flesh. My ankles were bound together, too, those cables rubbing uncomfortably against my ankle bone. I was in the dark, not because it was dark inside the vehicle—a van, I thought, but wasn’t sure—but because there was some sort of bag over my head.

  I was being kidnapped.

  That was definitely a first.

  I’d thought the threats against Lucien were mild. Someone playing games with him. I never believed he was behind it, like my father did. Although, this was a pretty intense way to prove it to him. I hoped Lucien had called my father. The police wouldn’t even get involved for twenty-four hours, and by then there was no telling where I might be or where the kidnapper might be.

  This was clearly a serious attempt to get Lucien to cough up the Alzheimer drugs his company was developing. I should have seen it sooner.

  I knew who my kidnapper was. I’d put a camera into Lucien’s office to reveal the identity of the person sending emails from Lucien and his brother’s computers in order to create drama between them. Jacob ran the drug division of the company and Lucien the medical device/apps sections. Someone leaked information on an artificial pancreas Lucien was developing to cause him to turn on the few people within the company who knew about it. Only Lucien turned to my dad’s private investigation company to find out who was behind it instead of accusing his brother or coworkers of creating the leak. So this person began sending threatening emails to Lucien that they knew we would trace back to Jacob’s computer. But then we discovered that the emails had actually come from Lucien’s computer. To my dad’s credit, it did look like Lucien was behind the whole thing. That’s why I put a camera in his office and how I now knew who the person behind the whole thing was.

  She wanted Jacob and Lucien to have a falling out. She wanted to create discord in the company. And when that failed, she followed Lucien and me to San Antonio. Maybe she hadn’t intended to kidnap me. Maybe she’d planned to threaten Lucien face to face. But that’s not what happened. She broke into our hotel room when Lucien stepped out for a few minutes, and…as they say, the rest is history.

  I was in the military. I knew how to take care of myself. But I was caught by surprise. I mean, really, who’s prepared for someone to walk into your hotel room while you’re sitting there with only a shirt on? I thought it was Lucien who came into the room, and by the time I realized it wasn’t him, she’d already clocked me over the head with something heavy. The back of my head throbbed from where she hit me. By the time I woke up, I was already in the back of this vehicle, whatever it was.

  I could take care of myself, but I couldn’t loosen these cable ties. For the first time in a very long time, I was vulnerable. All I could do was lie here and hope that Lucien would find me.

  Chapter 25

  Lucien

  My head was spinning. I knew I had to act, but I wasn’t sure where to start.

  I walked slowly through the room again, this time more methodically. There had to be a clue. Something that would tell me what had happened in my absence. Had there been a struggle? Had Adrienne fought her kidnapper? Or was it someone she knew, someone she allowed into the room without realizing what their intention was? Or had they taken her by surprise?

  We’d gotten in late last night and gone for a walk on the Riverwalk this morning. And then we spent most of the afternoon alone in our room. Adrienne’s clothes were all there. Mine, too, with the exception of one of my shirts. Her cellphone was still here, obviously. Her laptop bag.

  I picked up the bag and realized immediately that it was empty.

  They took her laptop? Why would they do that?

  I was being harassed. Someone was trying to create discord at the company I ran with my brother. Adrienne thought they wanted an Alzheimer’s drug my brother was developing. She thought whoever it was wanted my brother and me to turn on each other to make us vulnerable, to make one of us weak. I refused to believe it, but now… What if she was right?

  What if they’d taken her because they thought they could use her to get what they wanted?

  Jacob had a wife, but they were separated. He still loved her. Would go back to her in a heartbeat. But maybe the person doing this didn’t know that. So they picked on me and Adrienne. They took Adrienne.

  I couldn’t go to the police. But I couldn’t sit here and wait for a text message telling me what I was supposed to do to get her back.

  I made one phone call, my eyes closed as I listened to the ringing on the other end. I really hoped this wasn’t a mistake.

  “How long has she been gone?”

  I glanced at the screen of my phone. “Nearly three hours now.”

  Ruben Garcia studied my face like he could see beyond the flesh and bones and read my thoughts. As though he could see any deception hidden just beyond the outer façade. But there was nothing more to know.

  “I called you as soon as I realized what was happening.”

  “Why would someone kidnap my daughter?”

  I shook my head. “I was hoping you would be able to answer that.”

  Ruben Garcia was a scary looking man. He was about five foot six, but he was all muscle. He’d been a cop for most of his adult life, opening a private detective agency after he retired. His daughter followed in his footsteps, going to the military and then joining his agency when she came back. That’s how we met. I hired Ruben to figure out how a reporter found out about a diabetes device I’d developed through my company that was days from being granted a patent. He sent Adrienne to pretend to be my girlfriend so that she could figure out who’d leaked the information. One thing led to another… It wasn’t pretend anymore. And whoever leaked the information was clearly the one behind all this.

  “You thought I was doing this. But I’m not. And now Adrienne—”

  “I still don’t know that you’re not behind this,” Ruben said. “All I know is that my daughter goes out of town with you without telling me, and now she’s gone.”

  “I told you, I stepped out of the room for a few minutes.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “Because my blood sugar was high and I needed a bolus. I forgot to bring a vial of insulin…”

  “Convenient, if you ask me.”

  Ruben didn’t move, but it felt the same as it would have if he’d come chest to chest to me, if he’d gotten into my face. And it was starting to piss me off.

  “She would still be here if you’d done the job I hired you to do and found out who was behind all this.”

  Ruben’s eyebrows rose, and I felt the stilling of movement in the men he’d brought with him. There were two of them, going through our things, invading our privacy like it would lead to clues I’d missed. But now they were watching, waiting. No one stood up to Ruben except for his daughter herself.

  “Someone wants something from my company,” I said slowly, never taking my eyes from Ruben. “They took Adrienne to get it. I suggest you go back and figure out who the hell it is behind all this.”

  Ruben didn’t respond until I turned and started for the door.

  “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “I
’m going back to Houston to talk to my brother and to see if I can figure out what’s going on.”

  “You aren’t going anywhere.”

  I turned. “Do you really think that standing around here is going to solve anything? It’s been three hours, and whoever this is hasn’t texted again. For all I know, they have no intention of ever texting again.”

  For a brief second, I thought I saw panic in Ruben’s eyes. It was only then that I realized I was talking to the father of the woman who was missing, the father of the woman I was quickly falling in love with. We both had more to lose than either of us wanted to admit.

  “I need to be in Houston so that I can give this kidnapper whatever they want,” I said, my voice softening. “I want Adrienne back as much as you do.”

  Ruben’s eyes fell to the floor for a moment.

  “Okay. But Sergio goes with you.”

  I didn’t know which of his goons was Sergio, but I nodded as I headed for the door again. I needed to find Jacob. If the point behind all this was that Alzheimer’s drug, I’d need his help to do what came next.

  Chapter 26

  Adrienne

  “Stand.”

  The vehicle had stopped moving, and I heard a door open, but it was still pitch dark. I didn’t think I had a blindfold on, but I couldn’t see anything. I’d only been a few hours; it should still be daytime outside. Yet…darkness.

  “Where am I?”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “We’ve been driving long enough to be back in Houston.”

  “Or we could be in Austin or Dallas or half a dozen other places. Stand up!”

  She was right, of course. I had no idea what direction the vehicle had been moving in. But instinct told me we’d come back to where it’d all started.

  I stood unsteadily, the plastic cable tie gone from around my ankles, but my hands still bound behind my back. A hand kept me upright with a hard grip just above my elbow. It must have been a van. I could feel the roof, but I could almost stand completely upright. I was led to the open doorway and instructed when to step down. And then a doorway, and light so bright that I had to close my eyes until they adjusted.