His Absolute Proposal: An Illicit Billionaire Love Story (Elise, #3) (7 page)

I wasn't a very good submissive.  The thought made me laugh.  That was all he wanted, but I couldn't give him that.  And all I wanted was for him to stay with me, but now it seemed like he couldn't give me that, either.

We couldn't give each other what we wanted, and apparently we'd never be able to, either.

How long would he be imprisoned?  Would it be a short sentence?  A few months?  No, I doubted it.  Longer?  Years?  Decades...?

I could visit him, I thought.  I would want to, but I knew it wouldn't be enough, either.  Sitting in a chair while speaking to Lucent from behind a thick sheet of glass, each of us watching the other, him in bright orange prison garb.  I wouldn't even be able to touch him.  I just wanted to touch him.  I just...

We were clean.  The shower was off.  I didn't want to leave.  I didn't want to go outside.  Stay with me, Lucent.  I pleaded with him with my eyes.  Please don't go.  If we don't leave the bathroom they'll never know we're here.

Someone knocked on the bathroom door.  This was it.  The end.  Nothing more.  I'd started writing our story the other day, and I hadn't even managed to finish it all, except apparently it was over.  What more could I do?

"Asher?" a female voice called out through the door; it was Jessika.  "There's a police officer here.  Officer Dean Thompson.  He thinks that Lucent and Elise might be hiding in here.  He wants to look around.  I'm... uh... I'm just a little nervous, though.  You know, all that's going on?  I asked him to wait until you were done in the bathroom, so..."

Asher answered her.  "Alright, honey.  I'll be out in a second.  I'm sure everything's going to be fine."

Lucent squeezed me tight, holding me against him.

"Miss Tanner," he said.  "I love you."

"I love you, too, Lucent," I said.  "But you're going to go to jail.  I don't want that.  I don't know if I can keep loving you like that.  I want to.  I want to think that I can be strong and... but I won't be able to see you.  I know that's selfish.  I'm sorry.  I do, I love you.  I didn't mean what I just said.  I won't stop loving you.  I can do it, I promise.  I'll visit you as much as I... as I..."

Lucent let out a soft, quiet laugh.  "Shh, no one's going to jail.  Let's dry off and get dressed.  We're going to be fine."

"I don't know how you can say we're going to be fine," I said.  "We're not going to be fine.  There's a police officer here and he's going to arrest you."

"Do you trust me?" he asked.

"I do trust you," I said.  "But it's just that..."

"No," he said.  "No 'buts,' Miss Tanner.  Except for your delightfully smooth and pert one."

For emphasis, he gave my rear a quick smack.  I really didn't know how he could be playful at a time like this.  It frustrated me, because I wanted to hold him and squeeze him and hug him and not let go.

"Do you trust me?" he asked again.

"Yes, I trust you."

"Then believe me when I say we're going to be fine.  In an hour or less, we'll be walking out of here and by tomorrow we'll be enjoying ourselves on a beautiful beach in Aruba."

"Do you promise?" I asked.

"Yes.  But first we need to dry off and get dressed."

Asher cleared his throat.  We hadn't exactly been quiet, so he heard all of what we were saying.  I blushed, embarrassed all of a sudden.  I didn't think I should be, though.  I meant everything I said, but, um... it was just private, you know?  I still meant it, and I didn't necessarily mind if someone else knew, but it was private and for Lucent.

"I don't mean to be the bearer of bad news," Asher said from the opposite side of the shower curtain.  "There's no towels in here, though.  Jessika and I used one yesterday, but looks like that was it.  It's in her bedroom."

"This leaves us in difficult predicament, now doesn't it?" Lucent said.

"Not really," I said.  Yes, this was good.  I needed a distraction, no matter how slight and small it was.  Coming up with a solution to this minor problem kept me from thinking about Lucent being arrested and going to jail.

"Do you trust me, too, Lucent?" I asked him.  I wiggled around in his arms until we were standing face to face instead of my back to his chest.  I was clean now, though it was mostly his doing.  We hadn't exactly had time to wash our hair, but the rest of our bodies had been soaped up and rinsed off.  It was still kind of a blur to me, because I'd been distracted, but I knew it had happened, and...

Well, we needed to dry off, and I needed Lucent to trust me as much as I trusted him.

"Of course," he said.  "I do.  I trust you completely."

"Good," I said.  "Because I have a plan."

"I'm all ears," Lucent said, smiling.

M
y plan was a simple one.  Since Jessika had let me borrow some of her clothes to change into, I no longer needed my dress.  It wasn't exactly ideal, but it worked well enough to dry us off, especially considering we only needed to dry our bodies.  Lucent's hair was more wet than mine, but it was shorter, so it worked out fine and dried a lot faster.

When I asked him, Asher readily handed me my dress and Lucent and I did our best to dry as much of ourselves off as we could.  Then Asher gave us both our clothes.  I supposed maybe Lucent wouldn't mind changing in front of Asher, but I kind of did, because, um... because that was a little strange.  I didn't exactly want Jessika's husband to see me naked or anything.

We changed behind the shower curtain, feet still wet from the dampness left on the bottom of the bathtub.  It was a little cramped in here, but we made do with the space we had.  Lucent put on his pants first, and I opted for the t-shirt I'd borrowed.  When I went to put on Jessika's old pair of jeans, Lucent reached into his pocket and offered me my panties.

I almost laughed, but stopped myself before I did.  I didn't know how I would have explained a random fit of laughter to Asher.  Not that I needed to, but it seemed best to err on the side of caution, especially considering we weren't supposed to be here and random female laughter coming from the bathroom might arouse the suspicion of the police officer somewhere outside the bathroom.

Lucent said he had a plan, and I trusted him, but I wasn't sure what this plan involved.  Bribing a police officer?  Somehow sneaking out of the bathroom without him noticing?  I hoped it didn't turn violent, but that seemed like a distinct possibility, too.  He refused to tell me.

Also, I refused to accept my panties.  I grinned at him and shook my head.  I did take them, but only to stuff them back in his pocket.

"Really now, Miss Tanner?" he asked me, sly smirk and hushed tone.

"You keep them," I whispered.  "It's incentive."

He lifted one brow, giving me a peculiar glance.  "Incentive for what exactly?"

"Incentive to get us out of here safely, because once you do, and when we're alone together, all you need to do is convince me out of my pants, and..."

I let the last of that idea linger.  I mean, it probably didn't need to linger.  I wasn't exactly subtle right then and there.  I just wanted to be flirty and silly and fun for a brief moment.  I wasn't sure how many moments like this we had left together, to be honest.  I hoped we had a lot more, so many more, but it seemed like maybe we should cherish the ones we had before we lost them.

"You'll be safe," Lucent said.  "Always, Miss Tanner.  I would never hurt you.  I promise to protect you."

"I love you, Lucent," I said.  We were dressed now.  I snuck up on tiptoes and gave him a quick kiss.

"I love you, too, Elise," he said; my name, something special and important.  He returned my kiss with one of his own.

His hands moved to my waist and he held me like that, pulling me closer to him, but not urgent or needy.  It was safe, comfortable, soft and sweet and nice.  It was love; it was us.

It lasted a long time, but perhaps not long enough for my liking.  When we broke away, Lucent smiled down at me.

"Shall we?" he asked.

"If you think it's a good idea," I said.

Lucent pushed aside the shower curtain, sliding it away with a flourish and revealing us to the outside world.  Or, at least revealing us to Asher, who was idly sitting on the turned down toilet seat.  He looked absolutely nothing like the image of a billionaire CEO of a huge corporate enterprise, and the sight of him made me laugh.

Asher grinned at me.  "You like that, huh?"

"Please forgive Miss Tanner's inopportune moment of amusement," Lucent said.

I stuck out my tongue and rolled my eyes at him.  I might have done more, but Lucent swooped in and kissed the tip of my stuck out tongue.  What... um...
what?
  I didn't even know that was a thing someone could do, but he'd just done it, so...

"Everything's going to be fine," Asher said with an odd sense of honest confidence.  "I'm sure of it."

I didn't know how he could be sure of it, but I wanted to believe it, too.

"I don't understand why everyone's acting so grave," Lucent said.  "Everything
will
be fine.  It already is."

"Yes, of course," Asher said, sarcastic.  "That's why we're hiding out in a bathroom?"

"No one said we needed to hide out in the bathroom.  In fact, I believe we should go greet our visitor now."

With that, without bothering to say anything else, Lucent took a step towards the bathroom door, opened it, and strode outside.  I... um... er... this was honestly not what I'd expected.  It seemed a little too full of bravado?  Lucent was generally quite dominant and commanding, but this seemed a bit much even for him.

I scurried after him, following him into the hallway.  Asher shrugged and waited to see what would happen.

My plan to dry us off was simple; we used my dress, which now lay discarded on the bathroom floor.

Lucent's plan for confronting the police officer was, perhaps, even simpler than mine.

Lucent nodded to him in greeting, and the officer nodded back.

"Dean," Lucent said.

"Lucent," the policeman replied.

"Thank you for coming."

"Sure, yeah," Dean said.  "Not a problem.  Someone had to.  You owe me big, though."

Behind the police officer, Jessika stood in the kitchen, looking like she was about to die.  I didn't blame her.  This was kind of a weird situation.  And... they knew each other?

I glanced from Lucent to Dean, trying to figure out what was going on, though entirely uncertain if I actually wanted to know.  Everything had been so strange the past few days, so I couldn't exactly say this current strangeness was much stranger, but I kind of wondered when it would all stop.  When would my life return to normal?

It hadn't been normal for awhile now, had it?  I guess I hadn't realized it up until then.  I didn't know what normal was anymore.

***

W
hat should you do when the entire way you perceive the world just suddenly changes?  Was there even anything I could do?  Part of me doubted it, but another part wondered.  It was like a dream, like imagining I could go back in time and change one single moment in my life to make this other moment different.

I didn't think anything worked like that.  If you changed one thing, you likely would change more and more, until the other moment in time didn't even exist in the first place.  I mean, I couldn't be absolutely sure about that fact, but I'd read more than enough books with similar premises to see where the pitfalls of a story like that could lead.

I didn't have a time travel device anyways.  I didn't even know what I'd change if I could change anything.  I just...

Before now—not right now, and I didn't know exactly when now was, per se—I'd just imagined the world as having rhyme and reason to it.  I wasn't sure about that anymore, though.  This new situation had left me rattled and confused.

Lucent knew a police officer?  Not only did he know one, but he knew him on terms that were favorable enough that the man who should be arresting him just... wasn't?  We were sitting around Jessika's dining room table, which was sort of half in the living room, and half out.  No specific dining room to speak of, just a table sectioned off and sort of out of the way.  I was sitting on the couch near Lucent, who was sitting at the table with Officer Dean, and Asher and Jessika were on the couch with me, albeit further down and not very close.

The whole situation bothered me more than I let on.  Or I hoped I wasn't letting on much.  I didn't want to bother anyone, or do or say anything to upset anyone.  That sounded odd in my head, but there wasn't any better way for me to explain it to myself.  I just...

I wanted normalcy.  I wanted logic.  I felt a little like Lucent, which almost made me laugh despite the serious situation before us.  I just wanted the police to act like police, which I didn't think was happening right now.  I mean, that was just my opinion, so who knew?  It wasn't like I wanted them to arrest me, or for them to arrest Lucent, but the entire situation seemed peculiar.

Officer Dean said that the police force was on high alert, and the police chief refused to accept any possible evidence contradicting Lucent's presumed guilt.  Odd, he said.  It seemed odd to me, too, except then it also seemed odd that there was a police officer here telling us all that.

They thought Lucent had kidnapped me, but of course that wasn't the case.  I briefly entertained the idea of going to the police and telling them that he hadn't done that, except then what?  They wouldn't just let me leave, or that's what I assumed.  And Lucent couldn't go with me.  We needed to stay together.

I thought the world made sense; or, it used to.  I thought that businessmen in power were law-abiding citizens, and I thought that billionaires and their wives wouldn't go to an ill-suited apartment to hide out from the media, and I thought that the police wanted to protect the innocent, and I thought...

No, there was this one thing I definitely knew.  It wasn't a thought, or an opinion, but a fact.  Yes, I loved Lucent, and it didn't really matter what I thought in those regards, because I just knew it.  I smiled in my resolution, finally able to make sense of something.  Granted, it didn't make a lot of sense, but it was a start.  Love was fickle and uncontrollable, so I didn't think it needed to make sense most of the time.  It just was; it existed.