His Absolute Betrayal - Elise's Love Story: The Billionaire's Continuum (#2) (A Contemporary Romance Novel) (4 page)

"We discussed this," he said.

"We certainly didn't discuss that," I said.

"Why do you think we came here?  What did you think the point was?"

"I thought," I said, pushing him away and returning to my seat.  "I thought," I continued, having lost my train of thought, "that we came here because of what happened?  With the man in that room and worrying about maybe someone else or something?  I don't know exactly, but I didn't think we were running from the police.  Why would we do that?  We didn't do anything wrong, did we?"

"No," Lucent said.  "Not quite."

"So..." Margaret interrupted.  She picked up her own cup of coffee and pointed to it.  "I'm going to take this?  And go over there?  You two can talk.  I'll just start opening up shop.  I would maybe suggest you figure this out quick, though.  Rob's going to be here and who knows what'll happen then?"

"We'll be gone shortly," Lucent said.  "Please, Miss Mitchell, if you can keep what I've told you private, that would be appreciated."

Margaret started to leave, but not before giving me a quick hug.  I hugged her back, entirely unsure why we were hugging or what the point of it was.  It seemed like some kind of consolation, but I didn't think I needed to be consoled?

Except, maybe I did.  Apparently I was on the run from the law, with police out searching for me.

My friend went to do her opening library tasks, leaving me and Lucent alone.

"Do you want to tell me what that was about?" I asked him.

"I was planning on it.  It didn't seem important at the time, and I didn't have a chance to do it before now, either.  If you'll recall, we were both somewhat distracted this morning?"

"Yes, this morning, but we've been here since last night, Lucent."

"I found out late last night.  I anticipated something like this happening, but I didn't know exactly how it might come about."

"You anticipated the police hunting through the city for us?  We're fugitives, is that it?  Why don't we just go to the police station and correct this."

"That's ill-advised," he said.

"Why?" I asked.  "I don't see why it would be.  We didn't do anything wrong."

"We didn't," he agreed.  "That's not what it looks like, though.  The police investigators found my coat at the scene of the crime, along with other evidence that the fire in the data storage room wasn't an accident.  It's possible there's more going on, as well, though they aren't going to publicly acknowledge that for the time being.  I am assuming that last part, because that's how police procedure usually takes place."

"They think we started the fire, then?" I asked.

He nodded.  "Indeed."

"So why don't we just go and tell them we didn't start the fire?"

"Of course," he said, rolling his eyes.  "Why didn't I think of that?  What do we tell them, then?  That we just happened to find our way into a room that should have been inaccessible, and I mistakenly left my coat there?  The signs of arson can just as easily be explained away, too."

"Look," I said.  I didn't know what to do.  I wanted to slap him or push him or shove him, but he was seated rather firmly and I didn't have a lot of room to slap him, so I stole his coffee instead.  Probably the most idiotic and juvenile thing I could do at the time, but I didn't care.  In protest, annoyed, I took a deep chug from his cup and swallowed fast.

"Look," I said again.  "Don't sass me, Lucent."

"Don't
sass
you?" he said.  He looked down at his coffee, indignant.  Then he stole mine and drank a large gulp.

"Don't steal my coffee, either!"

"Miss Tanner, I believe you stole my coffee first."

"You deserved it.  You lied to me.  You've got the police involved, too.  You make it seem like I'm dumb for wanting to go tell them we didn't start a fire.  I admit that maybe they don't have any reason to believe us, and I can't figure out a good explanation for why we were in that room either, but why don't we tell the truth?"

It seemed logical to me.  Maybe it wasn't actually logical, but it seemed it.

"I wish it was that easy, but I doubt they're going to believe us.  It's a difficult situation to believe."

"You just don't want to," I said.  "You don't want to because of that hard drive, is that it?"

"Among other things," he said.  "Yes, that's one of the primary reasons I'd rather not resort to that."

"Then what?  We just hide out?  Forever?  Where do you think we should go, Lucent?  If they're looking for us, where can we even go?  We can't go to Landseer Tower, and I don't think we can go to your apartment, and we definitely can't go to mine.  If this is really a big problem—though I don't even know if it is or if you're exaggerating some of this—I don't want to drag Vanessa into it.  I don't want to drag Margaret into it, either, but apparently she knows, so that's not going to work."

"We can—" he started to say.

I interrupted him.  "We can't go to Margaret's place.  I know she knows this now, and maybe she'd be willing to help, but I won't do that to her."

"I wasn't going to say that," he said.

"Fine.  Sorry.  Sorry for interrupting you."  I wasn't actually sorry.  I was still mad at him.  But maybe he had a good idea.  Lucent usually had good ideas, and he prepared for a lot of things I'd never think to prepare for, so I thought I should at least listen to him.

"Let's go get breakfast first," he said.  "We can discuss this there."

"Breakfast?" I asked, incredulous.  "Where?  Do you just want to walk into the grocery store and grab a danish from the bakery?  Now's not the time for breakfast, Lucent."

"Miss Tanner," he said.  "Regardless, we need to eat.  Better to do it now, than later.  Fortunately, here, we have the opportunity to purchase a decent meal while remaining hidden."

I looked to the near-empty vending machines and the empty mini-fridge.  "There's no food here.  Also, Rob's going to be in soon.  We have to leave before that.  I'm not going to drag him into this."

"I understand that.  Can you please just calm down?  I know what I'm doing."

"Do you do this often, Lucent?" I asked.  "Have you been on the run from the police on more than one occasion?"

My tone was sarcastic, but a part of me really wanted to know the answer.  I thought I knew Lucent well before this, but after the revelation last night of some of his illicit secrets hidden on that hard drive, and the knowledge that the entire thing held even more secrets about him, I wondered if I even knew him at all.  It didn't sound so bad, to be honest.  I mean, it sounded bad, but it didn't seem like anything too terrible.  He hadn't killed people, right?  He'd smuggled men into the country in order to build a secret passage of tunnels and a saferoom at the Landseer estate, but that was a good thing?  It was defensive and protective, so I found it difficult to think of it as bad, at any rate.  Maybe I was irrationally rationalizing in his defense, but I didn't know what else to do.

What else had he done, though?  I didn't know.  If I had a chance to look at the files on the hard drive, I might be able to find out.  I tried to convince myself that it didn't matter, that I didn't want to know, that it wasn't actually that important.

It was, though.  I wanted to know.  I wanted to know everything, even though I realize it might hurt me in the end.

What if Lucent wasn't the person I thought he was?  What if he was different?  I wanted to think of Lucent as
mine
, because I thought of myself as his, but if the Lucent that truly existed wasn't the same as the Lucent I thought existed, maybe he was never mine to begin with.  Maybe he'd never been mine, and it was all some elaborate ruse.

It hurt to think that.  I didn't want to think that.  How had we met, though?  It sounded so insane thinking back on it.  Trapped in a library, yes, and during a snowstorm at that.  It seemed like a weird random coincidence at the time, but it wasn't actually.  It was nothing like it.

And that didn't seem so bad to me, either.  Maybe I was screwed up.  Maybe I had a bad sense of judgment about other people.  I probably did.  I didn't like admitting that, but I probably did.  First with Cole, and...

No.  Lucent was nothing like Cole.  Not even remotely similar.  Cole was bad.  What he did was wrong.  He...

Except, how was what Cole had done any better or worse than what Lucent did; what Lucent was doing?  Granted, they were, perhaps, different sorts of crimes and different types of criminal intent, but did that matter?

I wanted to think it did, but I wasn't sure if I could ever fully convince myself of that.

I needed to know what else was on that hard drive, but I knew I didn't have any chance of finding out right now.

"Fine," I said.  Lucent was brooding after I'd harassed him about being on the run from the police.  Maybe that was a little harsh of me, but it was the truth.

"Fine, what?" he asked.

"Lucent, I'm sorry.  This is all just so strange and confusing to me.  I don't understand it.  But... I agree, alright?"  I touched his hand softly.  "We just... we'll go and figure this out, and then we'll go from there.  Together.  Both of us, you know?  Please don't hide things from me again."

"Elise," he said.  He said my name and it both hurt to hear and made me so happy.  "I apologize.  Perhaps it was selfish and I should have told you last night when I found out.  I wanted you to sleep well, though.  I didn't want to leave you restless and disturbed throughout the night because of something I'd done that I couldn't do anything to fix."

"Lucent, I..."  I stood from my chair and bridged the gap between us, stepping the half-step to be directly at his side.  "I love you," I said.  "I do.  I swear it.  Everything's just really confusing and complicated right now."

He stood, too, and pulled me into his arms.  "I know.  I'll fix it, I promise.  I love you, too.  I don't know why this happened, but I realize it's my fault.  I don't want anything bad to happen to you.  I swear to you I'll keep you safe."

I hugged him tight and smiled up at him.  "What about you?" I asked.  "Who's going to keep you safe?"

He looked down at me, one eyebrow quirked up.  "I don't think that's important," he said.

I shook my head, then stepped up on tiptoes to give him a soft kiss.  "I do," I said.  "I'll keep you safe, too.  I promise."

Lucent and I left the library before Rob arrived.  I needed to say a hasty farewell to Margaret, too.  It wasn't regular or normal, though.  Usually I felt at ease with her, and a lot more calm.  That was more than I could say for most people, because honestly I didn't feel calm around almost anyone.  Today, right now, I'd lost that.  It wasn't this, and I knew it, but in a lot of ways it felt like I'd lost a friend.

Margaret smiled, though, and hugged me.  She said everything would be fine.  She laughed and joked and talked like she always did.  It did comfort me, but I didn't know how to show it or how to thank her for it.  I felt tight and tense and overdrawn, like I was ready and willing to break at any moment, even if I didn't actually want to.

Sometimes things just happened, you know?  Sometimes people just snapped.  I wondered if this was what that was like.  Did the people who were just about to go over the edge into temporary insanity know it beforehand?  Could they feel it, maybe a buzzing in their heads, a tense, unknown urge building within their bodies, ready to let go at any moment?

I didn't know.  I'd never done anything like that before.  I'd never been like that.  The closest I'd ever come—at least that I could remember—was when I acted out of sorts and sought a way to reunite with Lucent.  That was months ago, though.  It seemed like that had happened forever ago, but it was less than a year.  It seemed like a lot of things had happened forever ago.  A lot of things had changed, too.

This was one of them, but I didn't know if it was a good or a bad change.  Maybe no one could classify life that way, either.  Maybe we only ever understood good and bad by looking at the outcome far after the fact, and deciding it based on consequences, benefits, and reactions.

I felt oddly detached and philosophical at the moment, but not for any intelligent reason.  It was easier to break away from the situation and forget about it if I just threw myself into something else entirely.  If "throwing myself" involved ignoring the fact that Lucent was apparently a criminal and currently we were running away from the police, well... so be it.

We went out the back door of the library, the same way we came in.  Before we left, I grabbed the small black box of a hard drive.  I'd left it there, just sitting right there on the floor.  I briefly wondered what it'd be like if we left it there forever.  What happened if anyone left anything somewhere forever?  Would someone find it some day, discover its meaning amidst the futuristic rubble left behind from the library, and seek out its meaning?  Like an archaeologist discovering ancient clay pots, I wondered if they'd try to find context in this.

A hard drive was slightly different than a clay pot, though.  Also, I doubted it'd be lost in time for centuries, either.  More than likely, if we didn't take it with us when we left, Rob or Margaret or one of the other librarians would pick it up and search through its contents instead.  Not a great situation, especially considering what sort of data it held.

So, I took it with us.  Lucent and I stepped into the back parking lot.  I blinked against the brightness of the early morning sun.  The cool summer air chilled my skin.  It would warm up soon, though.  I didn't know a lot of things right now, but at least I knew that one thing.

We walked alongside the library.  Lucent strode ahead, taking long, purposeful steps.  I felt alone next to him, trying to walk faster to keep up.  We weren't equal right now, we were separate, even if we were together.  I didn't like that.

I rushed forward and took his free hand in mine, joining us together again.  He stopped for a second and turned to look at me, his expression one of confused, indifferent concern.  Lucent had this way of looking at things, appearing almost intrigued, and yet... maybe not?  That was how he looked at me now.  I didn't like that, either.