Breaking Out (The Surrender Trilogy 2)

She was too afraid to ask, afraid he might confirm her suspicions, or worse, lie to her. The only thing that distracted her from the suspicious hurt knifing through her gut was her instinctual need to survive. It became imperative that she find a new job. She needed to be able to support herself, and she was not going back to St. Christopher’s if she could avoid it.

She started playing around with her new craft materials. She wasn’t sure what she was aiming to make. She didn’t use her favorite piece. Rather she played with the others, in case she messed something up somehow.

This was the only distraction from her fears that Lucian was somehow keeping something horrible from her. Using the wire, she formed loops and wound the metal around the sea glass in different, intricate designs. She used various widths of wire and tightly wrapped a thicker strand with thinner wire in order to reinforce it. Before she knew it, she had a bracelet.

She clamped the ends with clasps and soldered the details into place where she could without detracting from the artsy appearance. When she showed Lucian what she’d created, he turned her wrist this way and that and seemed quite impressed. So she made another one and another and eventually tried making a pendant and a ring.

Lucian put a call into his jeweler and had an interesting bar delivered that helped with sizing and allowed her to form the band in a perfect circle. After she made about eight pieces, each one unique, she decided to make something with her favorite piece of sea glass.

Lucian sat, working at his desk as she sorted through her jar of sea glass. She couldn’t find her favorite, so she carefully poured the pieces out on a black velvet cloth. It wasn’t there.

Stupidly, the missing piece breached some protective wall she’d been hiding behind. Symbolic of every anxiety she had of losing the grip on everything she loved, she completely overreacted to the missing piece of sea glass. Her search became frantic.

She’d never owned beautiful things until recently, and she found a peculiar attachment to this piece, now missing. Panicked, she climbed down from her chair and began searching the floor.

“Evelyn, what are you doing?” Lucian asked, not taking his eyes from his paperwork.

“I’m missing one.” She dragged her fingers over the carpet, clearly seeing it wasn’t there. Lifting back up to her worktable, she dumped canisters of typewriter keys, jars of silverware, and her pliers all onto the surface. “It’s not here!”

He was suddenly behind her, his warm palms weighing on her shoulders, gentling her alarm. “Hey, what isn’t there?”

“My favorite piece, the one I love.”

He paused. Why did that word keep intruding in her neatly organized life? Lucian seemed to flinch every time it passed her lips, never in reference to her feelings for him.

He cleared his throat. “The purple one?”

“Yes!” It was irrational to care so much that a piece of glass was gone, but she did.

“I’m sure it’ll turn up.” Rather than help her, he walked away. At the sideboard he poured himself a cup of coffee and watched her with a curious look on his face. It irritated her that she was overreacting, but she couldn’t help it. It also annoyed her that he didn’t seem to care.

“I think you need to get out of the condo for a bit.”

She scowled at him. “I don’t want to get out of the condo. I want to find my fucking piece.” Her crass words were overdone and frosted the air between them like shards of ice, cooling the otherwise pleasant morning.

His mug clanked down with a snap, and he walked into the bedroom. She continued to sort through her belongings, slowly righting her canisters and restoring the items she had spilled.

Lucian returned with a new tie dangling from his neck and a suit jacket on. “I’ll be back in a little bit.”

“Where are you going?” There was accusation in her voice. Something coiled for a fight deep inside of her.

“I need to take a ride downtown to meet with someone.”

Someone.

Her body stilled, and she had the sudden urge to throw herself at his feet and beg him not to go. He was going to go see her. The girl he was renting an apartment for. Anger was overthrown by dread. “Okay,” she said slowly, not sure why she wasn’t stopping him. Perhaps she needed to see if he would actually go, so blatantly, right before her eyes.

As he adjusted his cufflinks, pain, jealousy, fear, and anger twisted inside of her until it took everything she possessed not to fall apart in hysterics.

“I should be back shortly. Housekeeping—”

“Lucian, do me a favor and give the babysitters the day off.”

His lips thinned. Rather than argue, he turned and left. She was in a miserable mood. Maybe she did need to get out. But where could she go? Everything was messed up and she feared leaving, feared she might not be welcomed back.