“I’m not walking away from you for good. This isn’t easy for me, either. Don’t be so melodramatic, Elise.”
She stiffened. Is that what he thought? That her eagerness for him was silly? Hysterical? Childlike? Hurt gripped at her entire body.
“Elise—,” she heard him say.
But he was talking to a closed door.
* * *
Fifteen minutes later, Lucien stood next to Ian and Francesca at the terrace bar, careful to keep his gaze from wandering toward the entrance to the penthouse. No one had made a big deal about his and Elise’s earlier absence, either having not noticed or being too polite to comment about it. Ian likely had observed, but knowing his friend, he assumed it related to sexual games that were none of his business versus being something to remark upon.
No great obvious harm had occurred with his hosts, but why was Elise taking so long in returning? He was starting to get worried. He hadn’t meant to hurt her. If he’d been able to resist her in the seductive embrace of secretive darkness, this would never have happened.
Someone had altered the music selection to a more mellow pop mix. The dancing had ceased. Things felt flat with Elise missing. She’d always been the effervescence to a social gathering, the spice. The flickering flame. Perhaps her spoiled mother had noticed that from a young age, and started requesting her only daughter be excluded from dinner parties and other gatherings, Lucien mused. Madeline Martin did not enjoy competition.
He, Ian, and Francesca remained in comfortable silence, Francesca in the curve of Ian’s arm, Lucien leaning against the bar. When Ian glanced up and noticed Lucien studying his face for signs of how he was reacting to that phone call earlier, Lucien casually took a sip of his drink. As usual, Ian kept his emotions well hidden. He wanted to ask if everything was all right, but resisted. He couldn’t tip his hand.
He watched as both Caden and Justin again glanced toward the stairwell that led to the penthouse, their disappointed expressions informing him better than anything that Elise was nowhere to be seen.
“Elise is Louis Martin’s daughter, isn’t she?”
Lucien remained outwardly calm, even though his heart began thundering at Ian’s unexpected question. It shouldn’t have surprised him that Ian knew precisely who Elise was. Ian made it his business to know anything that concerned him, even remotely.
“Yes, Martin’s only child,” Lucien replied evenly.
“His heir,” Ian clarified, watching Lucien closely.
Lucien nodded.
Francesca shifted in Ian’s arms, perhaps noticing the sudden tension in the air.
“I think I’ll go down and check on Elise,” Francesca said, indicating she’d been thinking along the same lines as him. Lucien nodded, relieved. Elise would be more likely to allow another woman into that locked bathroom if she was upset than she would him. He knew that much about women.
In Francesca’s absence, Ian refrained from asking him more questions about Elise, seeming to guess that Lucien wasn’t inclined to gossip on the topic. Instead, they discussed the hotel Lucien was buying and his ideas for it. He straightened from his leaning position on the bar when Francesca returned five minutes later without Elise. He must not have been able to hide his worry, because Francesca spoke to him, not Ian.
“Elise wasn’t feeling very well. I just put her in a cab.”
“What was wrong with her?” Lucien demanded.
“She said she felt a little sick to her stomach, that’s all,” Francesca assured, her gaze on him.
“But you didn’t believe her?” Lucien asked.
“I didn’t disbelieve her, but . . . she did seem a bit upset,” Francesca said cautiously. Ian waited silently, watching him. Lucien set down his drink. Well, there was nothing for it now. Ian and Francesca, at least, both clearly knew he’d been dallying with Elise in the penthouse earlier. He was uncertain what else they understood or speculated about Elise and him, but that much they knew.
“I’d better go after her,” he said, buttoning his jacket. “Thank you for the evening, and again—congratulations. It gives me hope, seeing the two of you so happy,” he said, shaking Ian’s hand and giving Francesca a kiss. He left without bidding good-bye to the rest of the party. He didn’t want to put it in Justin’s or Caden’s head that Elise had left.
He didn’t want either young man to track her down, because that’s precisely what he planned to do.
* * *
Elise warily left her room at the Cedar Home Extended Stay Hotel and locked her door behind her before she hurried silently down the long, dim hallway. Her ears were acutely pitched for the sound of the door of Room 16 opening, but the nuisance that was Baden Johnson remained absent.
She didn’t breathe a sigh of relief until she hit the landing on the staircase. The elevator in the rundown hotel had been broken ever since she’d moved in. She flew out the door of the stairwell into the dark night.
Unfortunately, her father and mother had high hopes about her returning to Paris and conveniently marrying Erik Cebir, Swiss heir to the Cebir pharmaceutical fortune. When she’d continually refused to go along with their plans, her father had cut off all her credit cards. Her first and only paycheck from Fusion wouldn’t come until next Tuesday, so she was barely scraping by. Consequently, when she hadn’t had sufficient cash to pay the cab, she’d been screwed. The surly driver had been impervious to her charm, insisting she must go upstairs and get the money or he’d put in a call to the police.
“Here,” she said, shoving her hand through the window of the driver’s side.