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“Who?” Lauren’s voice is sharp and Natalia says roughly, “Let her finish.”
“I asked if Freddy was there and she said in a smug voice, ‘Darling, another woman is calling for you.’ I heard him ask who, and she said, ‘Who is this?’ I told her my name and as soon as she repeated it, she giggled and the next thing I knew he was on the other end and said my name in a really cold way. I was unsure what was happening and asked him who she was and the silence told me I wasn’t going to like his answer. It turns out I didn’t.”
“What happened?”
Reaching out, I take her hand in mine and smile reassuringly as she gulps. “He told me she was my replacement. That he had been thinking for a while we should cool it. He needed a woman, not a girl, and that we were finished and not to contact him again.”
“Oh Eloise.” We crowd around our friend and hug her tightly as she sobs in our arms and I feel so much hatred for the professor who, as it turns out, wasn’t so great at all.
“I thought he loved me. He told me often enough. We made plans for our future. I was going to leave Andromeda and head back to a life with him. It was all arranged and something happened to change it in a heartbeat. He replaced me like a borrowed book from the library he read already. I feel so betrayed, so used and so stupid.”
A nasty feeling is creeping over me as I think about my conversation with Maxim. Did he do this? Is he responsible for changing Eloise’s plans? Did he lie to me? I can’t shake the feeling that something is wrong about this and yet why would he?
I let my friends offer words of comfort as I struggle to contain my dark thoughts. This all seems a little too convenient. Now she’s back in Andromeda, Eloise is also facing a different future now. It’s doubtful she will go back to the life she had planned, so what now for my friend? She will have no choice but to stay here because her future depended on a life with him.
Thinking of the king and the hard power that surrounds him, I wonder if he is manipulating our lives to suit his own purpose. But Eloise is no longer a virgin. Staying here would be a disaster because only a previously married man could make her his wife. It’s in the rules.
Lauren asks the question we all badly need to hear the answer to and says sympathetically, “What will you do now?”
“What can I do?” She sounds so defeated I hate to hear it and Natalia says sadly, “Well you can’t stay here. It would be a life sentence. Maybe you should think about starting again somewhere new.”
“How? I have no money, no contacts and no idea of what I want to do. My future was with Freddy. I need to go back and try to work it out.”
“No!”
They all look at me in surprise and I say firmly, “You will not go back and plead with that man. He has proved he is not worthy of you and you will show him it’s the other way around. Stay here with me, Eloise, be by my side and we will work something out. No man will ever determine our future without our full cooperation, because why should they have that right?”
“But how can I stay with you, you’re marrying the king?”
Eloise looks so defeated I hate it and say firmly, “I will make my own rules and you are staying with me until we can set you up with the future you deserve. If that involves starting again somewhere new, I will help you and give you the resources and the contacts you need, so, leave it with me. You will have it all, Eloise, I’ll make sure of it.”
She looks so dejected I feel angry on her behalf and say tightly, “He never deserved you. You’re lucky you found out now before you went back. He’s a bastard.”
“A cock sucking, lecherous bastard.”
Lauren sounds so ferocious we all giggle.
“A disgusting piece of human filth who deserves to be castrated.” Natalia adds her opinion and we all dissolve into fits of the giggles.
Eloise dries her eyes and smiles. “Thanks guys.”
As we all crowd around her and push her down onto the couch, her laughter is the only thing we want to hear right now. Whatever happened to make him change will do her a massive favor in the end because now I know the power I have, I’m using it to help my first soul in need. My friend.
