Page 97 of Blind Devotion
“Men in this industry think it’s their due to be possessive assholes. Which means he’ll recall his men home, with you in tow, regardless of what you want, if anyone realizes who you are before this helicopter takes off.”
“He knows how much this means to me. He wouldn’t.”
“You underestimate my brother. Either way. Better to ask forgiveness than permission. He’ll find out soon enough. By then, it’ll be too late, so he’ll have to meet us there.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do. Turn here.”
We walked through an aisle that smelled of leather and air freshener. Alizé guided me for a few steps until we reached whatever seats she deemed good enough. Comfortable, almost plushy seating.
“Are you sure this isn’t a plane?”
“De Villiers only fly in style. None of that two-seater hard-ass crap. Sports cars. Private jets. Luxury choppers. We don’t skimp out. Adrien has even been known to hold a board meeting in here. So just enjoy the ride. Mimosa?”
Popping open a champagne bottle, she poured the bubbling liquid into glasses. A refrigerator hummed as she took out the orange juice.
“You see. My brother’s a lot of things, but when it comes to you, he’s one hundred percent predictable.”
Maybe to her, but not to me. He was still a mystery in a lot of ways. As she passed me a champagne flute and the engines spurred to life in an oddly muted fashion, I accepted that maybe that was one of the things I loved about him.
We fought. So what? All couples fought. It didn’t have the power to end us unless I allowed it to. Not him, me, because I already knew where he stood. He’d said it over and over. He didn’t want to lose me. All he’d done while keeping this secret was try to protect what we now were to each other. I could respect that. I, too, wanted to keep what we had. It was real. It wasn’t arranged, and it wasn’t forced on us. This was just two people falling in love despite the circumstances.
Maybe I was clinging to an ideal I’d had as a kid, something that never really made sense to begin with. If I let that go, well, then all that was left was a desire for closure for the girl I had been and the promises he broke back then. I didn’t blame him for where I ended up. That blame lay solely with my father, but I needed to know if Adrien regretted his choices and if it would happen again.
We landed at the Lyon-Bron Airport with the sun still high in the sky, both of us tipsy from the number of mimosas Alizé kept mixing. At this point, we were both swerving in place, laughing at the most inane things. Like the way our driver’s cap was too large for his head and covered half his face. Or how his “Bonjour” was more strongly accented than my brother’s French. Or how the doors to our private car closed so quickly behind us, our bodyguards didn’t make it in before we were moving.
“Do you think they’ll catch up?” I asked with a laugh.
Alizé’s responding chortle quickly cut off.
“Eh…well, this isn’t ideal.” I heard a smack of flesh on flesh. “Come on, Alizé, time to sober up.”
I giggled, tracking her blurred movements in the dark vehicle. “What are you doing?”
She contorted herself in her seat, whacking my arm or kicking my leg. “I always plan for shit like this.”
“What shit?”
“Here, this one’s for you.”
She shoved a small cylinder into my hands.
“Why would I need lipstick?”
“Take off the lid.” There wasn’t a trace of humor left in her voice.
I did, pricking my finger on a sharp edge in the process. “What the hell?”
“Pepper spray and knives. A girl’s best friends. We need to be ready.”
As I sucked the blood from my thumb, Alizé continued to wiggle in place, and the car bumped along the road. Granted, the little I could see was shit, but even I could tell the green blobs zooming past us weren’t city buildings. So that I wouldn’t freak out, before leaving Adrien’s home, I had memorized the vocalized online directions from the airport to the hotel. There should have been traffic and noise. Buildings and people. It was too quiet here. My jaw started to tremble, and my hands clenched in my top, twisting the fabric. My buzz was gone, replaced by the heavy pounding in my ears.
“Tell me this isn’t what I think it is.”
“It’s exactly what you think it is. They’ve locked the doors. When the car stops and they open one, we fight and run.”
Oh god, not again. I gripped my chest, my heart thumping fast and hard. “Our guards?”
