~*~
Have you ever stopped and thought that everything in your life was perfect? Maybe not exactly perfect, but that it was going well, especially after a lot of difficult times before then, and when you suddenly stopped to think about it, you realized just how well it was going? And then at that exact moment of realization, when you knew for a fact that things had been difficult, but now they've been going well for awhile, that's when it happens.
That—that precise and exact moment—is when your life is thrown into chaos again.
That was sort of what happened to Lucent and I, except I wasn't even awake at the time. I was sleeping, dreaming of something, happy and comfortable, laying on an overlarge couch, with Lucent's arms wrapped around me, the both of us slumbering beneath a thick glass ceiling in a room hidden beneath a lake. The stars and the moon twinkled and shined above us, vague and ephemeral through the glass and the water. Everything seemed perfect, and if I were awake to realize it, that's exactly what I would have said.
Unfortunately I would have been wrong. Very, very wrong...
***
I awake to a start and a screech, someone screaming at us from somewhere. The voice was electronic and harsh, like the sound of someone speaking through an old telephone system, a slight crackle of electricity mixing with the frantic sounds of someone shouting, someone telling us to wake up, someone...
Lucent's mother. And his father. Mostly her, but a mix of him, too. Quick, sharp and jagged, hushed but magnified by the intercom system. I hadn't seen it before, but it must exist, because they were speaking to us through it now, and...
"Lucent, Elise," Angela said. "There's something wrong. We don't know what's going on. There's police cars outside, though. They're flashing their lights, surrounding the house. I'm not sure why. It's a little past midnight and your father's going to go to the door in a second, Lucent. Just... this doesn't look good. Oh, no, not good at all. I don't know what to do. John, what do we do?"
"We go to the door," Lucent's father said. "And while we do that, they both get the fuck out of here. I'm not letting them in without a warrant, but I don't know why they'd have five squad cars in our driveway if they didn't have one."
I clung to Lucent, gripping his shirt tight in my fingers. We were both sitting straight up now, staring towards the wall where the intercom voices were coming from. Lucent seemed altogether far more calm than I thought he ought to be, but what did I know? Maybe he dealt with this all the time? Maybe he...
A loud thud of a knock sounded through through the intercom, and we could hear the real knock coming down the secret hallway leading towards this hidden room beneath the lake, too. It sounded muffled through the hallway, which I thought made some sense. Maybe we were safe in here? With the door closed, we could hide, right? We could keep safe, we could...
"We need to leave," Lucent said, speaking quickly.
He slid away from me and slipped off the side of the couch, moving to stand. I followed him, but with much less poise and sophistication. My knees trembled and I couldn't stop my body from shaking. I had to clamp my jaw shut to keep my teeth from chattering. This was... this was... oh God, what were we going to do?
I asked. I asked him that exact question. "Lucent, what do we do?"
"We leave," he said, as if this made any sense.
"Where? How are we going to get out without someone seeing us? Can't we stay hidden in here until they leave and then we can—"
He cut me off with a shake of his head. "No. Unlikely. If they went through all of this trouble, they may have brought a canine unit to track us. Hopefully not, but it's a distinct possibility."
"Dogs? I don't know how we're going to escape from dogs, Lucent."
Really? I hadn't even considered it, but this was growing more and more serious with each passing second, wasn't it? Except, it had been serious before. I just... I hadn't thought about it. I guess I'd never fully realized exactly what I was doing or what we were dealing with. Yes, I understood it on a conceptual level, but the reality of our situaton and the idea of it were two entirely different and separate things.
Realistically, people didn't find themselves on the run from the police for serious crimes they didn't commit. Realistically, people didn't suddenly learn that their boyfriend, husband, soulmate was dealing with illegalities, some of which included money laundering, bribery, human trafficking, and more. Granted, the human trafficking part was um... I mean, they went back to their country after, so did that count? Well, yes, because they'd come here illegally in the first place, and then what they did here was more illegal, still, so it definitely counted.
Also, I reminded myself, with more than a hint of fond memory, Lucent wasn't just my boyfriend or soulmate anymore. He was my fiance, and we were going to be married.
He was going to be my husband. Or, he would be my husband if we somehow managed to escape this horrifying situation we were in.
"This way, Miss Tanner," Lucent said, bringing my mind back to the forefront of our situation. "I apologize, but I don't have time to explain the specifics behind our immediate departure."
Despite his terse words, Lucent reached for my hand and squeezed it softly in his. I gained strength from his gentle touch, but I thought I also gained strength from his commanding presence, too. When I looked up, when I glanced into his eyes, I saw something else entirely, though.
Fear. Yes, Lucent was afraid, too. Not, I thought, afraid for himself, but afraid for me. Afraid because of what he'd gotten us caught up in, but more afraid that he'd gotten me caught up in it, too. This was beyond us, completely and absolutely, and the only thing we could both do now was rely on the other.
I didn't want to be afraid, I wanted to be strong, too. I trusted Lucent and I promised myself I would follow him anywhere; I wanted to be someone he could trust, too, someone he could follow when he needed to.
I squeezed his hand and took the first step for him. He turned towards me, giving me an odd, curious smile, and then we went.
I didn't understand where we were going, but Lucent led me towards the entrance to the hidden room. We stepped back into the hallway and I made to keep going, to bring us back to the finished basement of his mother and father's lakehouse, but he held my hand tight and pulled me back.
"No," he said. "We can't leave that way."
He reached up and tapped something in the ceiling; some panel. A small piece slid away, revealing a tiny row of buttons. Lucent pressed a few of them in rapid succession and then a piece of the flooring just inside the hidden room fell away, some empty, blank gap taking its space.
"It's a slide," Lucent said, answering my confusion as best he could. "It's safe. It spirals away and leads to a mining shaft. It's supposed to be in case of emergency only, but I've done my best to maintain it. It should be difficult, if not impossible, for anyone to follow us. If they find this room, they'll may believe the scent is from some time earlier. There's more of our smell on the couch than there is on the floor, so it should throw them off."
I hope. He didn't have to say it, but I could see it in his eyes. There was just... there was something else, too. Something missing. I knew what it was, but I didn't think I could say it out loud. I didn't want to scare him. I didn't want Lucent to be afraid. I...
"Can you go first?" I asked.
He nodded. "Yes, that's fine." Tapping something else on the buttons above us, he added, "Hurry, though. The door to the slide will only remain open for three minutes, then it's set to close and seal itself from the inside."
"Seal itself?" I asked.
He smiled. "It's nothing to worry about. Just a precaution. It should form a more complex seal. I can fix it later, once everything is done. It won't be useable again until then, though. Not that it matters."
No... of course not... it wouldn't matter...
I smiled, trying to act normal, as if nothing were amiss, as if everything was fine. Lucent squeezed my hands, hopefully taking my sudden nervousness as being related to our
obvious predicament. Which it was, but...
He let go of my hand and smiled at me, reassuring. Crouching down to the floor, he swung his legs down into the gap, his feet touching the beginnings of the slide. His hands gripped the edge and he pushed himself out, holding himself up and above the slide before carefully lowering himself down.
I didn't wait. I couldn't. I needed to go. I needed to do this. Right before Lucent dropped, just after he lowered himself to the point of no return, he turned back towards me. I didn't wait, but I glanced back, too. All he saw was my back, running down the hall. All I heard was silence as he fell away into nothingness.
~*~
This book is still being written, finalized, and polished, and will be available soon. If you want to be notified of when it's release, definitely sign up for my newsletter, though!
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Sample (Concurrent)
Please enjoy this sample from His Absolute Authority, the third book in the Jessika's Love Story series that follows alongside the events in His Absolute Proposal, by Cerys du Lys
~*~
I looked through my closet at all my old clothes. They brought back so many memories. I didn't know if every memory was a good memory, but I started thinking of things that I hadn't thought about in forever.
Before I met Asher, I'd struggled to make ends meet. I worked day to day at a temp agency downtown, doing odd jobs here and there. Mostly secretarial work, to be honest. I was good at typing and answering phones. Or, I used to be. I supposed I was still technically good at both things, but I didn't do either of them under the same pretext anymore. Typing to write stories and books was an entirely different kind of skill compared to writing up office notes or typing copy from a printout. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing to type fast for creative writing, but it wasn't absolutely necessary, either. Sometimes it worked better if I just paused and sat there and thought about what I wanted to write next.
I preferred being able to choose, but sometimes it was a lot harder, too. I remembered having to type up pages and pages of notes that one of my temp job bosses gave me. It was mindless and simple. Type, type, type, flip to the next page, type type type, flip, type. Not all that much to it, to be honest.
Creating stories was something else entirely, though. I liked to languish on words and choose them specifically for their meaning and the sounds they made in my mind. A person in one of my stories might stand, or they could rise to their feet, or perhaps they jumped up. It was all the same sort of thing, but depending on the situation, sometimes one way sounded better than the other. Sometimes the words surrounding other words, surrounding even more words, made the story flow nicely, or seem like poetry, or gave it simplicity, or any number of things.
That was kind of like my life right now. I was in my old apartment with Asher, staring at my old clothes, in my old closet. It was a simple place, and the clothes were plain. We'd made love earlier, and we were both naked now, which made everything even simpler still.
Except... well, on the floor, discarded, was one of my nicer outfits. The clothes I usually wore now were probably more expensive than anything I used to own. If I totaled up the price of everything on the floor, it very well might have cost more than everything in my closet all together. And there were a lot of clothes in my closet.
The apartment was simple and the closet and clothes were simple, and in a lot of ways I felt simple, too. Everything surrounding me was a lot simpler, except my life was anything but simple right now.
Asher was a billionaire. He owned his own company, Landseer Enterprises, and it was large. We went to work every day in some massive tower named after him. I supposed it wasn't strictly named after him, but his last name was the same as his company's name, so it stood to reason that it kind of was.
We usually lived in a mansion, which was nice in its own way. It was kind of too big for anyone, but there were always a lot of people there. It had the most beautiful library, too, which I loved. I liked our bedroom, because in a way it was smaller than every other room; though that wasn't saying much, because it was still huge. It was nice to just sit in there and relax and pretend that it was an apartment in the city instead of a room in a mansion. We had our own private bathroom directly attached, so I could stay in our bedroom, sit on the bed and watch TV, or use my laptop, and not have to worry about becoming lost in all of the excess space surrounding us.
Sometimes I preferred going to the guest house for that reason. Maybe that sounds stupid, but I still didn't really understand why we needed so much space. I never told Asher that, because it wasn't really my right to. It was his home and he'd owned it and lived in it long before he knew me. I loved looking at it and sometimes I liked wandering through the mansion, but it just never seemed like a home. It looked too large, and too clean and pristine. There were art portraits hanging on the walls, and expensive vases on pedestals near many of the windows, with a library that looked like it belonged in a public city building instead of a private home.
It was...
"How about this?" Asher asked. He placed a hand on my hip while reaching over my shoulder with his other hand. His chin rested near my neck and we stood there, him behind me, cheek to cheek.
My skin grew warm at his touch and I leaned back against him, feeling our naked bodies pressing together. I wanted to be closer to him. I didn't feel quite at home in the Landseer mansion, but I felt wonderful when I was next to Asher, no matter where we were.
He pulled out a soft white t-shirt. By all accounts, it looked incredibly plain.
"That?" I asked, taking it from him. "It's just a white t-shirt."
"It looks comfortable," he said.
"I'm sure it is, but..." I started to glance over my shoulder towards my discarded clothes on the floor, but Asher's head was that way. When I turned to look, my lips brushed against his and I inadvertently caressed the edge of his cheek with a kiss.
He spun me towards him, both his hands on my hips now, holding me close. We were tight together, and naked. My breasts pushed against his chest and my stomach touched his. His fingers pulled me closer to him. I leaned back slightly, relishing his touch and our closeness. I looked up at him, loving him. I had the white t-shirt in my hands, but I dropped it to the floor and wrapped my arms around him.
He bent down slightly and offered me a kiss. I accepted it gladly, and offered him one in return. Soft and sweet, we stood there, our lips and bodies coming together.
"Why didn't you bring any of this?" he asked. "You could have packed it when you moved in with me."
"I know," I said. I didn't know how to explain it to him, but I wanted to try. "Asher, it's all just... it's nothing, you know? It's just a bunch of cheap clothes. I think that t-shirt cost me less than five dollars somewhere. It's a plain white t-shirt. They sell them almost everywhere. All my old clothes are like that. There's nothing special here. I think the most I ever spent on something was thirty dollars on a nicer pair of jeans or a good skirt and blouse for job interviews."
Asher shrugged and squeezed me tight. "It doesn't matter how much you spend," he said. "If it's yours and you want to keep it, then don't feel like you have to hide it from me. I'm sure I've got plenty of cheap clothes at home, too."
I had to laugh at that. "I don't think so," I said.
"No?" he asked.
"I know you don't look at the price tags of almost anything, but I do. We go shopping together, remember? Yes, your suits and business clothes are obviously more expensive, but your casual clothes aren't exactly cheap. I saw you buy a pair of sweatpants for over a hundred dollars once. For sweatpants, Asher. They were nice sweatpants, but that's a bit much, you know?"
He smirked at me. "Is it?"
"You're just teasing me now. You have to know that's not exactly normal."
"Maybe," he said. "Fine, I admit that I don't bother looking at the price tags of things like that. I wouldn't mind, though. If you want to go bargain shopping sometime, we can."
"You want to go bargain shopping?" I asked.
"It could be fun?" he said. "We could see how much we could buy with, say... two hundred? Cash, so that we don't spend more than that. If we go over, we'll have to put something back."
"Two hundred dollars each or total?" I asked.
"Which is better?"
"You're asking me? Shouldn't you know this?"
He grinned at me, laughing. "I've never gone bargain shopping before!"
"What? You've never gone bargain shopping? How is that possible?"
"Well..." He was about to explain, but I stopped him.
"Fine, I understand how it's possible, but that's so strange. It's fun to shop like that."
"You'll take me, then?"
"Maybe." I turned to look towards my closet again. "I'll need to get you some clothes for it, though. I have plenty, but you'll need an outfit first."
"You need a special outfit to go bargain shopping? I didn't think it'd be that difficult."
"Asher, you can't just walk into a bargain store wearing a bunch of nice clothes. That defeats the point. Also, I think it'd be rude. People might think you're making fun of them."
"Uh...?"
I rolled my eyes at him. Really? He didn't understand? "Have you ever heard of an ugly sweater party?" I asked.
"Those parties that happen around Christmas time?" he answered.
"Yes, exactly. You go to the party wearing the ugliest sweater you can find. Except, you know what? For every ugly sweater, there's someone who thought it looked nice. I know there's a thing where some companies intentionally make ugly sweaters, but that's not how it's supposed to work. You're supposed to find one that wasn't supposed to be ugly, except then sometimes it gets mean."
"How is that mean?" he asked.
"I don't expect you to understand, Mr. Landseer, billionaire CEO of Landseer Enterprises, but..."
His eyes sparkled, amused. "Yes, go on, Mrs. Landseer, trophy wife of the billionaire CEO of Landseer Enterprises..."
His Absolute Proposal: An Illicit Billionaire Love Story (Elise, #3) Page 19
