Page 173 of The Scandal You Started
Not really. Not like this.Please not like this.This wasn’t how it was meant to end.
Rayna’s burning eyes frantically flew around the room as her mind struggled to figure out what to do. But there was only one thing to do.
She had to get to him, to the lab. She had to stop him before he really left. Before it was too late.
Rayna tried to get out of bed faster than her feet could kick the blanket off, causing her to tumble off the mattress with it tangled around her ankles. She landed hard on her hands and knees, juddering her down to her teeth, but she scrambled straight up, tripping towards the woven laundry basket between the two windows.
She picked up the cotton trousers draped on the basket’s lid and yanked them on over her boxer shorts. She let the string hang undone, didn’t bother with a bra under her T-shirt, and grabbed a pair of trainers scattered by the ensuite wall.
Heart thudding in her throat at the same speed she ran down the stairs, she collapsed onto the squeaky third step and forcedher feet into her shoes. She let out a cry of frustration as she struggled to get them on, scared she was wasting time, shaking and sweating even more because of that fear. But once they were on her feet, she rushed into the living room.
Except in the cream bowl on the slim bookcase by the clock, rather than finding her car keys, she found another note.
Do not come after me, my love. Please do not make this harder than it already is.
“Dominic, you bastard,” she sobbed in agonised fury when she realised what he’d done as she rummaged around the shelves.
He’d hidden her keys, forcing her to waste time she didn’t have searching for them.
Choking on his betrayal as her eyes welled with tears, she rapidly thought of a solution and then chased it. She left the living room and went straight out of the farmhouse. The door slammed shut behind her as she clamped an arm over her chest and jogged down the gravel path.
She bashed a fist on the Griffins’ front door and smacked the door knocker in rapid succession too, struggling to get her erratic breaths under control.
Within two seconds, the door flew open, and her frowning uncle filled the frame with Boris wagging his tail by the man’s side.
“Rayna?” Declan said, concern shifting the angle of his brows. “What happened? What’s wrong?”
“Dominic…he left,” she stammered out. “He’s trying to leave. I–I need to get to the lab, but he hid my car keys.”
“Edmund,” the older man roared, turning away from her. “Car keys.”
Barrel-chested like Declan but with shoulder-length hair of the same blond waves as Winnie, Edmund, the Griffins’ eldestchild, swiftly appeared in the kitchen doorway with a set of keys in his hand, and his three-year-old son on his hip.
Edmund threw the keys to his dad. “Go get him, Rayna,” he said in a deep, encouraging voice.
She just about managed a frantic nod before Declan nudged Boris back and closed the door.
Rayna hadn’t ever thought so before, but the room that housed the POTeM was too far away from the entrance lift of the lab.
She was convinced she wasn’t going to reach it in time as she ran through the corridors with Declan trailing her. But eventually, the room came into view, the light above the big metal doors shining green. She didn’t know how to feel about it.
If the light was green, then the door was unsealed, either meaning she was too late, or Dominic was still being prepared for his return journey. At least it wasn’t red, though. She’d never have been able to get in if the room had been sealed.
Panting as she stopped, Rayna jabbed the room code into the number pad on the wall with shaking fingers, then tried to keep her thumb still over the reader.
The second the door clicked, indicating it was unlocked, her uncle tore it open, and she hurried in ahead of him.
In the silver room of the POTeM, two consoles, with buttons and screens and keyboards, encircled the round, elevated platform of the time machine, with several big, metal triangles lying flat around it that would rise as a journey was made. Wires came out of several nodes on the back wall, snaking around the metal flooring before connecting to the machine and consoles.
From the corners of her eyes, Rayna saw a few scientists falling still around the room, but her attention was on the three men standing on the platform.
Victor had his back to her before he turned, a tablet in his hand and shock behind his glasses that screwed into concern. On his left, River lowered his guilty expression to the floor, wearing dark brown half dress, a simply tied cravat, and trousers tucked into black riding boots.
And Dominic?
He looked every bit the imposing marquess he was meant to be with a dull blue, pinstriped waistcoat under his navy morning coat, and reddish-brown boots coming up to the cuff of his fitted, buckskin breeches. His neckcloth was starched to perfection, a silver signet ring glinted on the end of his left hand, and in his right, he held a black top hat and a pair of gloves.
It was everything he must have worn when he’d first arrived, right down to the stubborn set of his shaven jaw, and the hard shell cast over his piercing gaze.
