Coming Home

  He sighed and went to peek in the bathroom, then the closet. She set the pot to brew and righted the covers on her bed. No table or chairs were available as she’d yet to purchase those items. Luckily the bed was small and likely didn’t look inviting to a man like Lucian. He was not invited there. However, she needed to offer him a seat.

  Flipping her pillow against the wall, she tried to convert the tiny bed into a sort of sofa. “I haven’t bought any furniture yet.” He stared at her with a look she couldn’t interpret. Fisting her hands so as not to fidget, she moved to the small fridge and withdrew the quart of milk. “Coffee should be done soon. You can have a seat if you want.”

  He slowly crossed the room and sat on her bed. She couldn’t expect him to stand when he was nearly as tall as her ceilings. Removing two teacups from the shelf, the ones she purchased at the thrift store in a set of five for twenty cents apiece, Scout noted how small they were. Trifling, compared to the gargantuan tubs people drank coffee out of nowadays, but she liked them.

  She took the one that had a chip in the rim, not minding the flaw the way Lucian might. She liked that she’d given these five cups a home when they were a step away from being thrown out like yesterday’s trash.

  After filling the cups, she handed Lucian one. He was Alice trapped in Wonderland, right about when she got her head stuck in the chimney. Scout giggled. He simply didn’t fit in her home. He glanced at the petite teacup, swallowed by his large hand, and chuckled. His eyes met her gaze and they laughed.

  “Well . . .” She giggled as she sipped her coffee.

  Dark eyes glanced at the delicate scrollwork on his cup and the tiny flowers. “These remind me of a set my grandmother used to have.”

  “I doubt it. I got them at a thrift shop.”

  His smile faltered. “Evelyn, how much are you paying for this place?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “I don’t want you living like a pauper.”

  “Believe it or not, Lucian, to me, this is living like a queen. I can come and go as I please. There’s running water that’s hot when I want it. I have electric, a bed, and a place to keep food. I don’t need much more.”

  “I thought when you asked for money you’d use it as a down payment on a condo.”

  “No. This is it.”

  She gave him credit. It was clear he wanted to say more about how unacceptable her home was by his standards, but he kept his mouth shut. He scooted over. “Sit down. I want you to tell me again what happened yesterday.”

  She sighed. “I don’t want to talk about that anymore.”

  “Well, I do. Those men will get theirs, I promise you that.”

  “Do me a favor, Lucian. Don’t make me any more promises.”

  His lips parted. “Please sit.”

  She didn’t want to sit on her bed with him. That was dangerous. “I’m fine.”

  “Evelyn, you were attacked less than twenty-four hours ago. Sit down.”

  Relenting, she huffed and sat on the opposite end of the small mattress. “There. Happy?”

  “No, but I’ll take that much for now.”

  She’d invited him into her home, but the sad truth was she was still so very angry with him. “I saw Parker yesterday,” she said suddenly, not knowing where the confession came from.

  Lucian stilled, his lips an inch from his coffee cup. His jaw ticked and his throat worked under the stubble there. His shoulders slowly lifted as his breathing became labored. He said nothing.

  “You did quite a number on his face.”

  “He deserved a hundred times worse,” he snarled.

  “And what do you deserve, Lucian? Whom do you answer to?”

  He stood and placed his cup on the counter. “Evelyn . . .” He paced. “He touched you,” he growled, as if that were reason enough to beat someone until they looked like a rotten piece of fruit.

  “Maybe I asked him to.”

  “Don’t,” he barked, angrily forking his fingers through his hair.

  “Why?” She was poking a surly bear, but couldn’t help it. He was confusing her with all his sudden concern for her well-being, and they needed a reality check. “What did you expect? For all I knew you were never coming back. I was on my own.”

  “I told you I would be back!”

  She laughed derisively. “In thirty days, Lucian. What kind of assurance is that? In my book you were gone and never coming back. You threw me away and he wanted me.”

  He lunged and she backed up, his arms bracing his weight over the mattress. “He had no right to lay a finger on you. Now, unless you want me to track him down and completely emasculate him this time, I suggest you stop taunting me.”

  “Get off of me, Lucian.” The words whispered out in a perfectly calm voice altogether contrary to her emotions hidden inside. He glanced down at their position and stood.

  “I don’t want to ever hear that man’s name again.”

  “That makes two of us.” His sharp gaze met hers, weighing the sincerity of her words. “Don’t look so smug. My feelings toward you aren’t much different.”

  “But there is a difference?”

  Her lips twitched. He might as well know. “You were so afraid of losing me you gave me away. Yes, Lucian, there is a difference. If only you’d realized it sooner. I tried to help you understand. What I felt for him could never measure up to what I felt for you.”

  He blinked, his eyes creasing with regret. “Felt. As in past tense?”

  “The feelings I have about you now are too contaminated by anger to work in your favor. The only way I can process what you actually did, is to completely sever the future from the past. You’re a piece of my past. But that’s it.”

  “That night . . . you said you loved me.”

  “I was confused,” she lied. She should have never asked him up for coffee.

  He approached, lowering himself to the floor. His eyes were tormented as he turned her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze. “I fucked up, Evelyn. I fucked up and I have no idea how to fix it. I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. I can’t concentrate at work. I want you back. Tell me how to fix this and I will. I’ll do anything. I love you.”

  She pulled her chin away and averted her gaze. “You can’t.”

  “That word isn’t a part of my vocabulary and it isn’t a part of yours.”

  Her throat worked. “I don’t know how to forgive you.”

  He ducked his head to her lap, his arms wrapping around her hips and pulling her tightly to him. She lifted her hands so as not to touch him.

  “I’m sorry. I’m so damn sorry, Evelyn. I go over what happened last winter again and again, and I don’t know how else I could have found you. I was scared to death for your safety. I knew the moment I agreed to his terms I’d made a deal with the devil, but there was no way around it. Don’t you think I would’ve done anything else if I could’ve avoided this outcome?”

  “You could’ve told me,” she hissed. It took everything she had not to touch him and offer him comfort as he confessed his regrets. She clung to her anger, needing it to keep her grounded. If he’d actually confessed what was really happening, the truth may not have hurt so much.

  “I thought you would’ve agreed to marry me. If you would’ve agreed to be my wife, all bets were off. I was shocked when you said no.”

  “Is that the only reason you asked?”

  He drew back. “What?”

  “Did you only ask me to marry you to get out of the deal with Parker?”

  “God, no. I asked you to marry me because I want you to be my wife. I still do, Evelyn.”

  “You want me to be your wife, yet you sent me away and let another man seduce me.”

  The muscles in his jaw locked. “You said no.”

  “Oh. So for the first time in your life you decided to accept
defeat without a fight. I thought can’t wasn’t part of your vocabulary.”

  “You said no over a dozen times,” he said with not a little irritation ringing in his voice. “I practically fucking begged and you still rejected me, Evelyn! What more could I have done?”

  “Leveled with me. Trusted me to understand. I have to believe, if you’d taken the time to really explain what happened last winter, I would’ve understood. But you let it go so far, Lucian. I let him kiss me, touch me—”

  “No,” he snapped. “I’m not going to listen to this.”

  “Well, I had to endure it! And the whole time, do you know what I kept thinking? What was wrong with me that I wasn’t enjoying it? I was so brokenhearted over you abandoning me, I wanted nothing more than to forget, but I couldn’t. For two weeks I thought of little more than dying, and then my fake friend showed up and I thought, wow, at least he cares. But he still wasn’t enough. I hated you for hurting me, and I hated you more because I think you broke me.”

  “Evelyn, you’re not broken. That’s love. It makes it impossible to want someone else.”

  “Well, I don’t want to love you,” she snarled, jumping to her feet and dumping her coffee in the sink.

  Lucian turned and slowly lifted himself off the floor and onto the bed. His knees parted as he braced his elbows there and cradled his head. “This is making me crazy.”

  “I think it’s time for you to call Dugan.”

  He glanced at her, shock and fear warring in his expression. “Don’t ask me to leave yet.”

  “It’s getting late, I have work soon, and there really isn’t any point in us rehashing things we can’t change.”

  His head shook. “Evelyn, this isn’t the end of us. I can’t accept that. I won’t.”

  “Your declarations are a little late and hollow. I’m sorry. I won’t change my mind.”

  “What about how happy we were? What about how compatible we are, how well we compliment each other? Do you think it’s easy to find someone like that, someone who does it all for you?”

  “I’m not looking for that. I never was. All I want is a home to call my own and my independence.” It was getting harder to argue with every passing second, because while her head knew what was best, her heart wanted him more than her next breath.

  His brow kinked. “But you were happy.”

  “I was. But that all changed the minute you left me. For as happy as I was, the sadness of being abandoned by you was great enough to make me never want to love again. Life’s hard enough. I choose to live it alone.”

  “You aren’t meant to be alone, Evelyn. None of us are.”

  She’d heard the theory of coupling a hundred times before, yet her experiences left her heart severed, and she never wanted to chance feeling that way again. “Maybe I’m not like everyone else. I’m a nomad. I can’t do things the normal way. I never could. I think,” her chest tightened and she swallowed back the pain. “I think you need to move on as well.”

  “Fuck that, Evelyn. I don’t want anyone else.”

  “Well, you can’t have me.” She needed to get away from him. His presence was suddenly too much. “I’m going to take a bath. When I come out I’d appreciate it if you were gone. Please lock the door on your way out.”

  “You’re fucking dismissing me?”

  What if this was it? There was really nothing more to say. “I get paid at the end of the month. I’ll drop a payment in your office soon after that.”

  “Consider the loan forgiven.”

  “You know I can’t do that, Lucian. You gave me your word you’d treat the loan as such. No favors. It’s business.”

  “This is absurd.”

  “This is the reality of it. The sooner you accept it, the better we both will be.”

  He stood. “You’re wrong. Don’t forget I was your first, Evelyn. Your first kiss, your first lover, your first true friend. You can’t claim to know the outcome with things you’ve never experienced before. You’ll see.”

  What was there to see? The agony of losing him compared to the joy of having him brought about so much turmoil, she couldn’t take the risk again. Her trust had been shattered and she wasn’t sure if there was any fixing that. What else could there possibly be to experience? Their time together was over.

  They stood silently for a minute. “Well . . .” she said, edging her way to the small bathroom. “Thanks for coming to make sure I was okay, but as you can see, I’m fine. It was scary, but I managed.”

  Her shoulders shivered as she sensed his hand brushing over the back of her hair, barely making contact. “You could have called me. You can always call. I know you can handle yourself for the most part, but . . .”

  “My phone got wet somehow. I took it to the phone place, but they said there was no fixing it.”

  “When?”

  “When it first stopped working.”

  “Which was when?” he asked again.

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s all a blur.”

  “You called me when I was in Paris. Service was terrible there. It went right to voicemail, but I called you back shortly after. Was the phone broken then or did you deliberately not answer my call?”

  Breath sucked deep into her lungs and she pivoted. “You called me back?”

  “Yes, I fucking called you back. I was halfway across the world, cursing myself for leaving. Then there was an issue with the engine when all I wanted to do was get back to you before it was too late and tell you what a jerk I’d been.”

  He called!

  This was exactly why she should’ve locked herself in the bathroom ten minutes ago. Information like this was detrimental to her cause. “Were you alone?” she rasped, unable to meet his gaze.

  “Of course I was alone. I was at my father’s. I was miserable here without you and figured, what the fuck, might as well drown in all the screwed-up parts of my life.”

  She blinked as her throat tightened. “So no one went with you to Europe?”

  “Evelyn, why—motherfucker—did he say I wasn’t alone? That son of a bitch!” He pivoted and she tensed, fearing he’d punch one of her walls and break her tiny apartment. He turned on her. “The phone technician said your cell got wet.”

  “Yes, but I never—” She gasped. Parker! He must have heard it ringing when Lucian called. “That fucker!”

  He came toward her and grasped her shoulders, his expression rigid. “Evelyn, I want you to stay away from him. He’s underhanded and he doesn’t play by the rules that he wants everyone to believe he does.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to tell me.”

  “I do.” He shook her. “There are things you don’t know. There was a woman—”

  She jerked out of his grip, her hands going to her ears. “I don’t want to hear this!”

  “I’m being honest with you. You need to listen. You need to know what kind of person he is. He hired a prostitute who looked just like you and sent her to the penthouse.”

  “Oh my God.” She was going to be sick.

  “I didn’t touch her. I knew he was behind it. I sent her away, but I think she stole the lease to the apartment I rented for you and I think that’s how he found you. The only other person who could’ve told him was Slade, but Slade didn’t know.”

  “Slade? What does he have to do with any of this?”

  Lucian sighed. “Part of the deal was I give Parker a job. He was your friend and I had no problem helping him. It wasn’t until he made his other conditions known that I realized my first instinct about him was right. He’s a prick. I gave him a job as a bellhop—”

  “At Patras? I knew I saw him there!”

  “You saw him?”

  “Once. At night. I went to visit the girls at the salon.”

  “Well, he only worked there for a short time. He somehow crossed paths with Sl
ade and Slade found out about our deal. He offered him a job making several times his salary at Patras on the spot.”

  “What’s wrong with that guy?”

  “Who knows? I stopped trying to figure him out, and I’m in the process of buying out his shares and dissolving our partnership. My point is, Parker Hughes isn’t a man you can trust or afford to underestimate. If he comes here, I want you to call the cops or me.”

  “He doesn’t know where I live.”

  “Nothing remains a secret forever. Just promise me you won’t talk to him.”

  “The bastard broke my phone and lied to me. I want nothing to do with him and told him so yesterday.”

  It was stupid to be so angry about a phone in light of everything else, but she couldn’t forgive him for that additional transgression of honor. When she realized her phone was broken, she was completely cut off from Lucian, and her mind couldn’t deal with that. She’d fallen apart all over again and it was Parker’s fault. All for what?

  “Promise me, Evelyn.”

  Not a difficult thing to do. “I promise.”

  He nodded and stepped back. Glancing around, he asked, “Is there anything you need?”

  “No.”

  Lucian swallowed. “Believe it or not, I’m proud of you. Your home’s small, but nice. You did this, Evelyn. You.”

  His praise touched parts of her she’d censored off, and she didn’t need him poking her softer sides. Besides, she couldn’t take full credit for her independence. She wouldn’t be there if not for him. “Thank you.”

  He stepped closer to the stairs, but hesitated. “I’ll have a new phone delivered today—”

  “No, Lucian. I can buy my own phone now. I’ll get one.”

  His lips thinned, but he didn’t argue with her. “You’ll call if you need anything?”

  She nodded.

  He mimicked the motion. “Lock the doors. I’ll talk to your landlord about getting some cameras in that alleyway. I’ll contact FPD about those two men and make sure they never bother you again.”

  She had no doubt. “Good-bye, Lucian.”