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Lilah breezes past him, her hands reaching for me from her perfectly pressed Dior outfit. I don’t want them either. Nor Pascal’s. I don’t know what I want but it isn’t any of these people or their concern. I was ready to leave them all, get on with life, and now I’m here on this plane, landed in Christ knows where to help? No. I scuttle back away from her, remembering her holding a fucking knife at my throat.
What the hell was that?
“No, get off me,” I snap out, about ready to slap seven bales of shit out of her. Perhaps feisty Beth gets this shit achieved. Snivelling Beth gets nothing done, and she sure as hell doesn’t appear to be able to say no to Alex. Which is what he needs. “No more. I’m done.”
I stand up, hands snatching at my top and feet marching me out of the bedroom into the main cabin. I am. I’m leaving so I can get on with my life. I can’t do any of this and be happy with myself, or them. They can all go live in Pascal’s castle and pretend they know what real feelings are, and how normalhumanity deals with them when they’re tested.
“Elizabeth…” Alex.
“No, shut up. I’m leaving.”
I stomp straight through the cabin, grabbing at my handbag, and onto the door, not even a look back at any of them. I’ll find some normal person, get them to take me to an airport that isn’t this one and then buy my own ticket back to the UK. I will. I’m doing this. Without them. On my own. I even have my passport this time because I constantly keep it with me. Have done ever since Alex kidnapped me all those years ago. I’ve become clever like that. Prepared. Ready to deal with whatever shit he puts me through. Why I’ve even thought about loving him still is beyond me. What an arse. Telling me he loves me after all this? Months of being on my own to deal with the pain and thoughts and …
“Where, precisely, do you believe you are going, my Rose?” My eyes narrow as I step out into fresh air, a huff coming with the same thought. I will not let him caress his way into my mind.
“Home. Without any of you.”
“To what end?”
“What?” He takes my arm and links it through his, guiding us down the metal steps to the ground below. A limo waits there, as it always does with these three.
“To whom do you run?”
“It doesn’t matter to whom. Not you. Or them.” He chuckles, and let’s go of me the moment we get to the tarmac, his hand immediately reaching back for Lilah behind me.
A long sigh leaves him as he gazes around the country we’ve arrived in, and he taps the floor with his cane for a few moments. Then, for whatever reason, he stares at my stomach. He stares so intensely my arms unconsciously wrap around myself for protection. Not that I know why. It’s not like I’ve got anything in there to protect anymore.
“You feel vacant, yes?” I frown and look at the floor, unsure how I feel, but I suppose vacant is a reasonable description. “Unfulfilled?” Tears threaten my eyes. I feel them filling me from the bottom up. I shake my head and look around, searching for escape and ignoring the way he tips his head at Alex and Lilah, cane pointing towards the car. They walk towards it in my eye-line, Alex looking back at me the entire time. Not that I’d know because I’m not fucking looking at him. Arse. “It would be foolish of you to run now, my love,” he says, the moment the door slams behind him. “You have not had your revenge yet, hmm?”
“I don’t want revenge. I want out, Pascal.” He tuts at me as if I’m a child.
“Stop pouting, Elizabeth. You do not want out. Should that be your need you would not have boarded the jet at all.” He puts both hands on the top of his cane, his body leaning on it as he sighs out another breath. “I cannot correct this situation until I have corrected my own, my love. Stay. Please.” Courtesy? I roll my eyes at the sound of it coming from him and look away again.
“What situation is it anyway? I don’t even know why we’re here.”
“Lilah has found documents that considerably change my standing. My inadequate cunt of a brother is not heir to my family’s lineage. It appears I am.” Oh. My mouth opens, not sure what to say. “And I will miss you if you leave me to manage this without you.” He will? That’s ridiculous. My hands hug my stomach more, shoulders shrugging the wind away. “And then Alexander will be most aggravated should I not manage him correctly because of your disappearance, hmm? It could be most dangerous for my well-being. And sanity.” I look back at him, remembering all the bruises on his body that come from an aggravated Alex.
“You’d enjoy that anyway.” He smirks and taps his cane again, his body rising to full height as he moves it towards me. “Don’t, Pascal. I can’t anymore and I ...” Fucking tears. I pull them back in, annoyed with them, and lift my chin at him. “I won’t. It’s not the same for me. I don’t have your strength against him and …”
“You do. You have it whenever you ask me for it, my love. We are all one, Elizabeth. One heart. One union, no?” No. No, we’re not anymore. Alex stopped that when he pushed me and his baby to the side. Pascal gets closer, his fingers reaching for my hands to pull them away from my clasp around me. “He is grieving, too, my love.” What? Both my arms are unfolded, his cane placed in one of my hands and the other wrapped around the back of his neck, his own holding it there “Let me help him acknowledge it before you run. You may cling onto me as long as you wish. Trust, hmm?” My eyes narrow to slits. Trust?
“Lilah had a knife at my throat.”
“Hmm.” His lips are getting closer to mine. “And you looked most distressed. Did your cunt flex at the thought?” No. His brow arches. Maybe. Bastard. And now I’m looking at his lips. This is not getting a grip of myself. “Get in the car, my Rose.” I think I growled.
“One week, Pascal,” I mutter.
“Indeed,” he replies, brushing his lips over mine. I move back, still managing some superiority over his ability to make me do anything.
“That’s it. And if he’s not, well, better than whatever this has been, then I’m done.” He smirks and lets me go completely, nodding at his cane.
“And there, my love, lies your power. Use it wisely, hmm? He is delicate at present.”
I don’t know what that means. Power? And delicate? Alex has never been delicate about a bloody thing, and my ‘humph’ of no clue whatsoever, as I walk to the car, suggests as much. Pascal chuckles. Conceited bastard. I need some of that haughtiness. I lift my chin higher, attempting to pull myself above all this confusion and pain. It’s of no use to anything while I’m still in their company. And frankly, he’s right. As always. Iwasaroused with a knife at my throat, annoyingly. Although, I need to have words with both Lilah and Alex about them fucking. That wasn’t okay. Well, maybe it is in some fucked up scenario that I can’t compute yet, but really? No.
The door opens, Alex’s hand coming out of it for me. I don’t take it, I just slide in with Pascal’s cane in my hand, a death-grip on it for some reason. Maybe it’ll help me get through this all somehow. Or maybe I’ll hit someone with it and make myself feel better about something.
Who bloody knows any more.
