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PROLOGUE
Then
‘ARE YOU HURT?’
Eve shivered as Gage pulled his coat close around her, covering the wet clothes clinging to her body. A cold trickle of rainwater drizzled down her spine from the hair plastered to her head. She reached her hand to her temple, probing the area where a dull throb ached. ‘Only a bump, but I’m okay.’
‘Where?’ Gage’s voice sounded urgent. A torch flicked on. She winced as the brightness of it cut through the dark.
‘Here.’ She touched her head again and his gentle fingers brushed her own out of the way, tracing over her skin where it hurt the most. She shivered again, but not from the cold. This one was something warmer and suffused with pleasure.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. His soft lips touched the middle of her forehead. He bent down and placed the torch on the floor, the small halo of light like a cocoon around them. ‘Anywhere else?’
She shook her head. ‘What about you?’ He’d been driving when they’d slid off the road in the deluge. They’d been in a rush, trying to get away quickly because she was sure her sister, Veronique, had seen her sneak out of the house to meet Gage and run.
‘I’m fine,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry about me.’
She searched his face, shadowed as it was by the grim darkness that surrounded them in the abandoned building they’d found after grabbing their packs and fleeing the wrecked car. He looked okay, but he’d never tell if he wasn’t. Gage always tried to protect her from every hurt. She wished he’d let her protect him sometimes.
‘Did we have to leave the car?’
‘It wasn’t going anywhere, and we can’t drive with that damage. It’ll draw attention. At least it’s off the road and not a hazard.’
Gage wrapped his arms round her and drew her close. She nestled into his damp chest as rain pattered on the roof above them. In places where the roof wasn’t secure water leaked through, pooling on the floor.
‘It’ll be okay, cher. We’ve got some money.’ He squeezed a pocket on the coat she wore. A few thousand dollars wasn’t much, but it would get them where they needed to go, she supposed. Gage promised it would, and he always kept his promises. ‘We’ll hole up here tonight and catch a bus to Montgomery first thing. It’s only a few hours away. Then we can get married and no one can stop us. Not your family, not Mom and Dad...’
His voice trailed off as sadness tainted it. Gage loved his parents, but the Caron and the Chevalier families had loathed each other for as long as she and Gage had been alive. His mom and dad had made it clear to him they didn’t approve of their relationship, even though he’d tried to convince them that while she was only twenty and he twenty-three, they loved each other and that’s all that mattered. It hadn’t changed their minds.
As for her family...a knot tightened in her stomach, a sickening ache that had been present for so long she barely noticed it some days. She couldn’t think about what would have happened if they’d known. Eve wrapped her arms tightly round Gage’s strong torso.
‘You’re sure about this?’ she asked. They might love each other, but he was still losing something by being with her—the support of his family, who were important to him.
Gage pulled back and looked down at her. The pale yellow torchlight bled the colour from his eyes, making them appear greener than the unearthly blue that filled her waking thoughts and dreams for the future. ‘I love you. And we don’t need anyone’s consent to marry in Alabama, not like home.’
If only she’d been twenty-one, they wouldn’t have had to run. But they couldn’t wait. She was afraid of the parades of eligible suitors her father had forced on her, and what they might mean. Now, with her enrolment in a French finishing school finalised, t
here was no escaping the truth. It was a choice between running or not seeing each other for a year, maybe longer. No contact at all. The thought was unbearable. She couldn’t. It had made the decision easier for her, at least. For Gage, she knew it had cost something more, even though he didn’t say so.
Gage ran his hand through his wet hair, his normal blond darkened by the rain. She couldn’t miss the tightness round his eyes, that look of worry present most of the time in recent months. ‘You’re not having second thoughts, are you?’
‘Never.’
He smiled, and it was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. The chill dissolved as she was warmed from the inside out. The mere memory of his smile made every day better. Even the ones where even the music turned up too loud at home couldn’t drown out her mom and dad’s shouting. The days when her mom took to her room, with only her pills and gin-spiked iced tea for company.
Gage cupped her jaw. Dropped his lips to hers. His mouth was so tender and gentle she melted into him, her hands gripping his wet Henley. She needed more than this, kisses in a grimy, falling-down building.
Once they were married they could find a hotel, make love in a proper bed like they had a few weeks before, when they’d sneaked into the guesthouse on his parents’ property. It could have been the Waldorf the way he’d treated her like a princess on the crisp, white sheets. A flush of desire flooded through her at the memory of his bare skin slipping over hers. How he’d filled her, body and soul. She’d cried in his arms because he’d made her feel so perfect, at a time where everything had seemed broken.
His tongue touched hers and she threaded her fingers through his hair as they deepened the kiss. She needed him close to her again, craved it in a way she could never explain. He was her everything, the only man she ever wanted. Soon no one could stop them. The thrill of that thought surged through her, the realisation that in a matter of days she’d become Mrs Gage Caron.
He stopped, wrenched away from her and bent down, the loss immediate and shocking. Everything plunged into midnight as the torch was shut off. ‘Wha—’
Gage pressed his finger against her lips. Behind him the ghost of a light flickered, a brief flash in another part of the building. The scrape of something. Shoes on floor? She froze, her heart pounding in her chest like drumsticks, drowning out the sound of anything else. Gage’s breath caressed her ear. ‘Someone’s here.’
His warmth had left her. She didn’t know where he was, but he wouldn’t leave her alone. Not ever. She flinched at a rustling sound nearby. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw him hunched close, stuffing things into his pack.
‘Hide,’ he whispered, his voice like a mere breath over the sound of rain falling on the roof above them.
‘It might not be my father.’
‘Can’t take that chance.’
‘What about you?’
She could barely make out the shake of his head. ‘You take the money, head to Montgomery and I’ll meet you. Call me when you get there. Now up.’
She looked into the black, ominous rafters above her and hesitated.
‘You scared?’ Gage asked.
Terrified. But his words lit a fire in her belly. After they’d first met as children, spying each other through an ivy-covered hole in the wall that separated the Chevalier and Caron family estates, he’d ask that whenever she hesitated. She’d never backed down from his challenges, always pretending they hadn’t bothered her a bit, even when they had.
‘It’s just like climbing the old magnolia. Remember?’ Gage’s face was hidden by the darkness but brittleness cracked in his voice, telling Eve just how scared he was too. Her mouth dried. She nodded, peering into the rafters again.
‘I remember.’
She’d never forget sitting in those branches, looking down at the world as if one day they could bend it to their every whim. Her mom would have had a conniption to know her precious baby girl was up a tree, especially with a filthy Caron. But with Gage anything had seemed possible, no matter how bad things had been. Up there, in their world of fantasy, trying to shut out real life and touch the sky, had been the place her childhood crush had turned into full-blown love.
