“No,” I told him. “We’re not. We’re going to a West End show together this weekend.”
He took a breath. He actually sucked in a breath. “Are you both out of your fucking minds?! You know they’ll come for you!”
Yes, I knew that, but I also had faith in Lucian, and how strong he was in forging our new life here and making it secure. I didn’t even try telling Tristan that, because his faith in the monster who knocked him unconscious wasn’t likely to be all that high.
“We’ll be alright,” I said. “We have plans.”
“Don’t do this, Lainey. Please, don’t do this. They’ll try to kill you. Run away!”
I sounded weirdly self-assured when I answered, with a strength in my tone I didn’t expect to hear. “I don’t want to run away,” I told him. “I want to stand by Lucian, proud to be a couple. They can come for us if they like, but I’m going to be alongside him, in the spotlight for everyone to see.”
“Then you’re fucking insane. Call me when you come to your damn senses,” he said, and hung up.
Tristan had never once hung up on me in all the years I’d known him. I’d lost my damn senses plenty of damn times throughout our friendship, but never enough to wind him up enough to end a call.
Maybe I really was insane. Maybe both Lucian and I were. Maybe we were so blinded by our love for each other that we wanted nothing more than to show that off to the world rather than accept that it might get us killed. I just hoped the gossips wouldn’t find out where we were headed on the weekend. The last thing I wanted was to be shot dead on the first red carpet we stepped onto.
I headed down to see Francesca after I’d showered and dressed, loving life in a decent pair of jeans that actually fit me. She was all smiles as we sat down to breakfast together, telling me all over again just how good my outfit choices were yesterday.
I saw genuine friendship in her eyes and craved more of that, trusting fate enough to have put a genuine friend in my path in this new world.
She clearly wasn’t expecting me to share my truth with her, not over her breakfast cereal. She nearly spilled the milk she was pouring onto her cornflakes when I looked her right in the eyes and said the words.
“Our families are probably going to try to kill us when they find out we’re here together. I just hope it’s not in the West End on Saturday night.”
She stared over at me for a few seconds before she responded. “Well, yes, I, um… I have heard plenty of stories about the rivalry between the Morellis and the Constantines.”
“Rivalry enough that they would want to wipe us out rather than see us together,” I admitted.
“But surely they won’t be able to?” she asked me. “Not when you’re publicly declared as together and the whole world knows about it. Wouldn’t that point all the fingers directly at them?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I just know they’re going to try. Once we’re established in public and everyone is getting used to it, then maybe they won’t risk it, not without people speculating it was them with a grudge, but straight up that won’t mean anything to them. They’ll be too damn angry at being betrayed.”
“That’s what Devon said. He said the first round of revelations in public will be intense. Likely on both sides of the Atlantic. He said that’s why it’s been so important to get Lucian’s signature on so many deals and partnerships and so much set in stone.”
“Did he say he thinks we’ll get ourselves killed?” I dared to ask.
She poised her spoon on the way to her mouth, clearly taken aback. “He, um… he said there might be some… difficulties.”
I held her stare. “He thinks we’ll get ourselves killed, right?”
“He thinks it might be dangerous for a while, but he doesn’t think the West End will be the venue to wipe you out. He thinks the whole world is going to be cheering and flashing cameras and screaming it all over the globe.”
The idea of that still gave me excited tingles. I so much wanted to be in front of flashing cameras along with Lucian. I wanted people to be screaming it all over the globe.
I poured milk over my own cereal, managing a much easier smile as I shifted our chat onto much easier ground.
“So, tell me some more about Songbirds in the Wind,” I said.
She bought into the change of conversation, giving me a much easier smile herself. “It’s most certainly going to be a good one,” she said.
By the time she finished talking, I had no doubt about that.