Eluded (27 page)

Hesitation overpowered his grasp
of the knife as he held it millimeters from my face. When I looked
up into his eyes, I realized that he didn't have the power inside
of him to kill me. That maybe I would live to see another
day.

"I've got your passport. I've got
your ticket. In the morning you're going home," he said, then
reared the knife back and stabbed it into the bark. I flinched and
closed my eyes. He pulled his body away from mine, relieving the
pressure of being pinned, then walked away.

I stood against the tree,
breathing heavily for what seemed like eternity, trying to
understand what had happened. Tomorrow I would be on a plane, back
to America, kissing my mother and hugging my dad. I loved London, I
loved being overseas, but I had a feeling that traveling wouldn't
be in my future.

Happiness filled me, then a rush
of sadness. The idea of leaving Abbot ripped me into little shreds.
Could I walk away from him so easily? Sure, he was dangerous, a
skilled killer, but there was more to him than that, and I wanted
it.

The ride back to the city seemed
to drag on forever as my high faded into sickness. I needed food. I
needed sleep, and most of all, I needed Abbot to know how grateful
I was. Grateful that he didn’t give up on me, despite the lies I
spewed to Liam and that camera.

We pulled up to a building just a
few blocks away from Derrick's, and he walked me inside.

"You need rest," he said, placing
his hand on my shoulder. "I've got to make sure Sophie is alright,
and then I'll be back. You're safe here." He looked into my eyes
and gave me a faint smile as he walked away. After the shock faded,
I would be left alone to fight through my personal demons,
something that I wasn't ready for yet.

LAUREN

Thirty-nine

T
he morning came too
quickly. Abbot waited for me in a black suit and tie with the
suitcase full of my things that were confiscated from Derrick's. I
opened it and pulled the engagement ring from the little side
pocket, then noticed I was still wearing the ring Derrick had given
me on our wedding day. I slipped the ring from my finger and placed
it with the other one. After all that, the ring had stayed there
untouched, and I wanted to bury the new one with it. It was
bittersweet in a sense.

For a moment, I wondered what
Henry was doing. I had heard he stopped looking for me after a few
weeks—the bastard—but I didn't expect anything else. The way he’d
reacted was proof enough for me. I really had meant nothing to him
or Derrick. "I know about the marriage," Abbot said. "The only one
that needs to be annulled is Sophie's. Yours was never
filed."

Just as if he had summoned her,
she walked through the door with a big smile on her face. I wanted
to burst out in tears just seeing her. We hugged each other for
what seemed like forever, then pulled away, both of our faces were
streaked with tears, though this time, they were joyful.

"Thank you," Sophie said. "Thank
you for being strong. Thank you for saving me. If you wouldn't have
been there . . . "

I shook my head and grabbed her
hands. "Sometimes things are meant to happen."

She pulled me into another hug and
whispered in my ear, "I'll miss you dearly,” before pulling away
with a smile. Everything that had happened was unbelievable, but
Sophie being Abbot's sister topped it all. "Please keep in touch,
Lauren." She handed me a piece of paper with a phone number on it.
I’d hold onto that piece of paper for dear life. Sophie understood
what we had gone through and to see her with color and health in
such a short amount of time brought a smile to my face. Then, as if
she couldn't tell me goodbye, she turned to Abbot and said, "I'll
be waiting for you in the Rover."

Once the door clicked closed, he
handed me my passport, along with a small cardboard box. Inside sat
a small white and pink polka-dotted cupcake. "Happy Birthday,
Lauren," Abbot said. "I know it's not much but—"

I stared at the cupcake for a few
minutes. In the last few weeks, I had lost track of time, so much
so that I forgot my own birthday. Without thinking, I sat the
cupcake down on the table, ran to Abbot, and wrapped my arms around
his waist. He looked down into my eyes, then our lips crashed into
one another. I wanted to take him all in with my kisses and never
let him go. Pent up emotions stirred within us and created a
dangerous concoction of feelings that I didn't understand. We
started slow and then our kisses became more passionate, more
intense, and I had to take a second to catch my breath.

"Lauren," he said between
kisses.

But I didn't want it to stop. I
never wanted that moment to stop. I knew what he would say, and I
didn't want him to say it. I wanted to get lost in the moment and
never be found. I wanted to forget everything that had happened
over the last few weeks and move forward with Abbot. But he didn't
listen. I expected this almost. "Lauren, we can't."

I placed my finger over his mouth.
"Just shut up." Then I kissed him again.

He ran his fingers through my hair
then tightened his fist. The pent up feelings that I’d experienced
flooded out of me in the form of kisses and brushes of skin. Our
tongues swirled together in a match that neither one of us would
win.

We smiled, taking turns nibbling
on each other's bottom lips. Heat rushed through me, and I knew he
was experiencing the same thing, as our breathing increased. He
made me feel something real. Feelings that made me want to scream
out to the entire world. When I was with Henry, I lied to myself
and to everyone around me. I acted like I knew what love was, real
love, but it wasn't like this. Before there was no passion, no
burning fire that spread across my body, not a single ounce of
emotion.

His hands rested on my waist, and
he pulled me closer. The warmth of his body radiated from him, and
he smelled like soap, skin, and man. The way he looked at me when
we broke from the kiss made me feel like I was the most beautiful
person in the world. I had never seen him so happy. I had never
seen him smile so genuinely.

"Your plane leaves in two
hours."

"I only need an hour," I
said.

Abbot shook his head, then the
happy man that I had seen moments before disappeared. He wouldn't
be with me in the way I wanted, and my heart broke knowing he
wouldn't change his mind.

"Please?" I said.

He shook his head
again.

"We can't. It's easier this way.
It's easy for me. It's easier for you. Once you get back to the
States, you can get on with your old life and you can pretend like
this never happened. You can pretend that I don't
exist."

"You don't mean that."

"I do. We've got to
go."

He grabbed my suitcase with
determination in his eyes. I sucked in a deep breath and exhaled
through my nose. I had been denied, and it felt so wrong and dirty.
Abbot hesitated before he opened the door. My body was inches from
his back.

"Why are you doing this? It
doesn't have to be this way," I said, my voice was small and
meek.

"It does. Now that Sophia is here
and safe, it has to be this way. We all want to forget." He opened
the door and didn't turn around to wait for me.

I wanted to scream out. I wanted
to beat the shit out of him. I wanted to curl up in a ball and cry
my eyes out. My heart was broken, my ego was snapped into two, and
there wasn't an ounce of happiness left inside of me.

When we walked down the stairs,
Abbot loaded my things into a cab and waited with the door open. I
looked at him and knew it wasn't supposed to be like this. It
wasn't supposed to end this way. Before I got in, I grabbed his
hand and kissed his knuckles. "Right now, I feel like I'm making
the biggest mistake of my life in leaving. It shouldn't be like
this."

He wrapped his arms around my body
and kissed my forehead. "Love is merely a madness; and, I tell you,
deserves as well a dark house and a whip, as madmen do; and the
reason why they are not so punished and cured, is, that the lunacy
is so ordinary, that the whippers are in love too."

"Shakespeare," I whispered, and
before he walked away, I continued, "Our doubts are traitors, and
make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to
attempt."

He stopped for a second, almost
contemplating turning around, but he took a few steps forward, then
walked away without looking back.

"Abbot," I said more loudly, but
he wasn't stopping this time. Instead, he got inside of the Range
Rover and drove off into the distance.

"Miss. I've been instructed to
bring you to the airport. You've got a plane to catch."

I slid across the seat in the back
of the taxi and leaned my head against the cool window as
everything inside of me turned to mush. Tears didn't fall, though I
expected them to.

Out of all the horrific things
that had happened to me, I didn't expect Abbot's denial to be the
one that completely broke me. But somehow, it was.

The taxi didn't stop for anything.
Abbot had even paid the driver to walk me through the airport to
the waiting room. I leaned back in the seat, stared out the window,
and watched the planes land and take off. Inside, I felt numb, and
there was nothing to relieve it.

I wondered what I could have done
differently. I wondered if I would have stayed how my life would
have turned out. As I stared out, someone sat down beside me. For a
moment, I thought it was Abbot coming to me, but it wasn't.
Instead, another familiar face smiled at me.

"Liam. What are you doing
here?"

"Claire." He raised his eyebrow at
me.

"Oh, of course. I completely
forgot. Sorry, there's too much on my mind right now."

Liam smiled and pulled a book from
his bag,
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
. I shook
my head because I knew Abbot had given it to him.

I scooted deeper into the hard
plastic seats and rubbed my face with my hands. It was like I had
imagined it all, that I didn’t feel those heart-stopping emotions
stream through my blood. I wanted to melt away to
nothingness.

After an eternity of sitting,
which was really only an hour, Liam and I boarded the plane.
Conveniently, our seats were right next to one another. Something
told me Abbot had planned this before we shared any special
moments. But being a stubborn man, Abbot went forward with his
plans. Not even love could help him change his mind.
Ridiculous.

The clouds spread and separated as
the plane pierced through them. I closed my eyes and rested my head
on the cool glass. I wouldn't look back and relive those moments
before I got on the plane. No. I couldn't.

When I got back to the land of the
free and the home of the brave, I'd cleanse myself of it all. I'd
forget Abbot. I'd forget Derrick. I'd forget London. I had already
forgotten who I was before I arrived.

Abbot set fire to my love and
burned it down to ash.

The prospect of being back home
scared me shitless.

After hours on the plane, Liam and
I walked to baggage and waited for our suitcases to come around. He
was nothing but smiles, and I was the complete opposite. Once they
arrived, we grabbed them, and before Liam walked away, he gave me a
big hug.

"Find your woman," I
said.

He smiled. "I plan on
it."

Before we went our separate ways,
he placed his hand on my shoulder and squeezed, something I had
seen Abbot do to him so many times before.

"He's a stubborn arse. But don't
give up on him." Then he let go and walked away.

"It's too late," I
said.

Liam said loudly, "No it's not."
But he didn't stop walking.

"Yes, it is," I said under my
breath and went the other direction.

LAUREN

Forty

ONE WEEK LATER

I
t wasn't easy being back
home. The rumors had spread and were sprinkled with little truth
about me being kidnapped. No matter what was said, I denied it all
and changed the subject. I didn't want the attention people gave me
in the grocery store, or the phone calls from the local news
station that wanted to interview me. Weren't there other things in
the world to talk about? People who hadn’t been a part of my life
for years wanted to become friends because they were nosy.
Unfortunately for everyone, I didn't need or want to talk about
what had happened to me. It was too humiliating, and I didn't want
to have to relive it. I already did that too much without being
forced into it.

Everyone thought I was dead. There
were even plans to hold a candle ceremony in my memory in a few
weeks, but I had arrived and ruined that. Lindsey's would still
happen, though, and I'd have to make an appearance. That alone was
enough to make me stay indoors for the next eighty years. Every day
her death affected me. Every day I wanted to call her and tell her
all the little details of what had happened to me when I was
captured. I couldn't stop blaming myself, but my therapist said I
would eventually be able to.