Page 68 of Hush Money

A long pause.

“You don’t know me.” He gives me a hard stare. A chilling stare. “At all.”

There it is. Another of my worst fears as he continues through his checklist. And yet, masochist that I am, I plow ahead anyway. “Tell me what’s going on. You’re keeping a secret from me.”

“Fine. You’re right.” He leans in, and there’s a dark and horrible glee in his expression now. He wants to throw this next thing in my face, whatever it is. “I was never going on a cruise for vacation. Think about it. I have a yacht if I want to sail around the Mediterranean. Why would you believe such a ridiculous story, Ms. Scott?”

My breath catches, because that was not at all what I expected. “You what?”

“You heard me. I engineered everything. Your upgrade to first class. Your sitting next to me on the flight. The cruise. Everything. I was on my way to a meeting in Boston, but you were quite the distraction, I have to say. So I followed you because I was bored and I wanted to fuck you. Now I’ve fucked you. Repeatedly and well. You can’t complain about that, can you?” He smirks, his insolent once-over one for the history books. “So I’m done here.”

“It’s not true,” I say, but I know that it is. Still, what else can I say? That I always marveled over how easily things fell into place between us and how easily he was suddenly inserted into the center of my life? No. This sounds like exactly the sort of thing he’s capable of. This is how his mind works. He’s proven it as recently as yesterday, when he tried to engineer a local job for me without giving a damn about what I wanted. This is all true. I know it is. And yet… “I don’t believe you.”

“Believe it. I’m a million times more manipulative and controlling than you ever feared, aren’t I? I saw you, I wanted you and I had you. Think of me as a skilled fisherman. I’ve had my fun. Now I’m throwing you back.”

I stand there like an idiot, too shocked to move or speak.

A fisherman. Which makes me a particularly stupid fish.

“Are we done here?” He pushes away from the table and grabs his file, keeping his face lowered. “I’ll give you a couple minutes to pack up the rest of your toiletries. I can give you a ride into the city and drop you off at the penthouse before my meeting. Don’t worry, I won’t be there. You can have the run of the place until your apartment is ready in the fall.”

A sudden wave of grace hits me. Like I said, I am my father’s girl, which means that I’m strong. Plus, I’m a survivor. Nothing that will ever happen to me will be worse than watching Dad take his last breath. “I don’t need you to drive me anywhere, thanks. I also don’t need your penthouse. Mrs. Hooper will let me stay at her apartment for as long as I need to. So I’ll have your driver take me to the train station. Better yet, I’ll call an Uber.”

“Don’t be stubborn, Tamsyn,” he says, scowling.

But I’m already turning my back on him and starting to leave—until something strikes me as funny. I pause to let the laughter come, tipping my head back with it even if it does make me look slightly hysterical.

Lucien goes very still. “What are you doing?”

“I’m just thinking about how you and Ravenna both accuse each other of cruelty.” I wipe my eyes, giving myself a pass on the tears. They don’t count as crying over him if they’re tears of ironic amusement. “You’d better cancel the divorce, Lucien. The two of you were made for each other. And I’d hate for you to both be free to inflict all that cruelty on other people.”

With that, I walk out, thrilled to hear the sound of his absolute silence behind me as I go.

EPILOGUE

LUCIEN

My arms are on fire but I keep going, my powerful strokes slicing through the water with the unrelenting mechanical ease of a ship’s propeller. Fatigue set in several laps ago, making my lungs heave and my thighs shake. I don’t care. Early every morning for the two days since I brutally ended things with Tamsyn, I’ve pushed myself to go farther and to get there faster than I did the day before, relishing the buildup of physical exhaustion. Which, by the way, is nothing compared to my mental exhaustion.

Part of me wonders if my goal is to drown myself at the bottom of this godforsaken pool that no longer provides an ounce of peace or relaxation. But I don’t think that’s it. It’s just that I’ve discovered that exertion to the point of collapse produces this blissful five seconds or so—never any longer than that—where I don’t see the devastation on Tamsyn’s face as I ripped her heart out and mine with it. She’d looked at me with exactly the sort of shocked revulsion I’ve always feared, especially when I rubbed her nose in the fact that I followed her to Europe because I was so determined to have her. I never planned to tell her that. And if I had, I would have certainly found a gentler way to do it than that.

Not that any of that matters now.

The bottom line is that I, who have always accused Ravenna of wearing a mask, ripped off my own mask and let Tamsyn see the real me underneath. The manipulator. The international stalker. I did it because I knew that was the quickest and most irrevocable way to kill her love. To drive her away and keep her safe from Ravenna. And it worked. I therefore regret nothing. Not even Tamsyn’s heartbreak, not if it keeps her alive.

It was all for the greater good. Everything I’ve done in the last few days has been for the greater good.

But it all took a toll.

And I can’t swim another fucking lap.

I heave myself out of the pool, water sluicing down my body and my foul mood even fouler because my body gave out before I reached my temporary state of Tamsyn-free nirvana. So you can imagine my annoyance when I pull off my goggles and discover Maddie standing there waiting for me, my towel in hand as she hurries closer.

I scowl. Not this again. She’s been quite the fussing mother hen since Tamsyn left, and I don’t have the energy or the inclination to reassure her—again—that I’m okay.

“What is it, Maddie?” I bark, grabbing the towel from her and roughly drying myself off. “Now is not the time.”

“Where have you been?” she says quietly, her concern level higher than ever. “We’ve been looking for you.”

---