“What we have is nothing. Time won’t break it. You did that on your own.” She unlocked the door and climbed out. As the door shut behind her, she broke and sucked in a breath that escaped on the wake of a swallowed sob.
“Ready, Ms. Keats?”
She looked at Dugan and tried for a smile. “I know he wants you to see me in, but I can’t. I need to walk away now.” She approached him and went up on her toes, pressing a kiss to his cheek. “Thanks for everything, Big D. Sorry I never got to make you pee your pants from laughing.”
“You will.”
Sweet of him to act like they would be seeing each other again. She didn’t have the energy to refute it. Turning, she headed through the glass, maple-framed doors. Her fingers shook as she opened the envelope. She wouldn’t look back.
She pulled out a note, several credit cards, and a key. Third floor.
A man at a desk cleared his throat. “May I help you?”
No. No one could. “I’m Evelyn Keats.”
“Ah, Ms. Keats, welcome. Do you have any other bags?”
“No, just this.”
He nodded. He was an older gentleman with wiry gray eyebrows and soft blue eyes. “Very well then, miss.”
Her smile fell short. She nodded and continued on.
There was an antiquated elevator that carried her to the third floor. It was a small, private establishment. She realized there was only one apartment per floor. After taking a deep breath, she unlocked the door and stepped in.
She wasn’t prepared for what she found on the other side. All of her belongings, her favorite blanket from the penthouse, her iPad, her clothing, everything had been moved there. That’s when it truly hit her.
He was never coming back.
A thousand knives stabbed her from the inside out. She gripped the counter and fell slowly to her knees. It didn’t matter that the place was beautiful. It didn’t matter that he had arranged for her to have everything she needed. There was only one thing she needed, the one thing she couldn’t have. Him.
Part VI
Lucian
Chapter 15
Absolute Pin
A pin against the king where no piece can move
without putting the king in check
Lucian watched her disappear into the apartment complex and used every bit of his will not to rush out of the car and go after her. His jaw ticked as he fought back his rage. She was gone and there was no promise of getting her back. Never before had he regretted being a man of his word.
His mind went back to that horrible day last December. Evelyn had been missing for two weeks and the temperature had dropped to arctic levels, the city practically shut down by a blizzard. He’d never felt so helpless in his entire life. Then his fortune changed and he had likely made a deal with the devil himself in order to find her.
Parker had been sleeping outside of the shelter, which had been condemned, doors closed and leaving the homeless without shelter during the worst storm of the decade. Lucian was at his mercy and the other man knew it, took pleasure in it.
Parker had looked like shit when Lucian found him. There was no warm welcome as Lucian approached him on that horrid morning.
A rattling cough preceded his sardonic greeting. “Well, well, if it isn’t prince charming. She’s not here. No one is.”
Dropping all underlying disinclination, Lucian looked at him with all the humility he possessed. “Do you know where she is?”
The other man glared at him for a moment, clearly taking his measure. Lucian poured all his worry and concern into the space between them, and Parker sighed. “No. I don’t. I haven’t seen her in three days.”
Three days. That was something. Eleven days less than the time that lapsed since Lucian had seen her.
“Where was she?”
Parker’s lips pressed tight into a thin, silent line between the scruff of his beard.
“I want to help her, Parker. I swear it. I . . . I care for her.”
“Maybe she doesn’t want to be found.”
Lucian hesitated a moment, then leveled with him. “Look, I know how you feel about her. I could let her go and give you my blessing, but you and I both know I can offer her more. If you really love her, let me help her. Help me find her. Please. I swear I only want to do right by her.”
When several minutes passed and Parker said nothing, Lucian figured he wouldn’t help. Then he surprised him by saying, “You hurt her.”
“I did,” Lucian admitted.
“I don’t know what you did or said. Scout has a habit of fixing everyone else’s problems and not letting anyone help her with her own. What I do know is that whatever you did, it hurt her bad. Scout doesn’t cry and you changed that.”
Guilt and shame cut through him. “I’ll make it right,” he vowed more to himself than to anyone else. “Please just help me. I’m begging you here, Hughes.”