Modern Romance March 2021 Book 5-8 Carol Marinelli (ebook reader computer txt) 📖

Leading Helene along a narrow path toward the main residence, he ran through his plan. It was basic and would see to her safe return, without putting him in the uncomfortable position of having to explain things to the authorities.

He trusted her, as foolish and novel as the experience was, to keep her word, and more, to stand by him should he face legal action. In a matter of days, she had swept in like a hurricane, devastating thirty years of planning in one fell swoop, and yet he could not hold it against her.

He had set out to seduce her, but he feared, in the end, she might have seduced him.

The path he took them on led to a hidden doorway built inexplicably into the hillside. He reached for the handle as if he had every expectation that it would be open, and it did.

Inside was a dark corridor, lit with flickering exposed light bulbs.

Confident in the confirmation of his memory, he led them down the corridor, around a corner and up a small darkened stairway that led to another door.

This door was locked. Drake pulled out a key, the action practiced, and the door opened into a completely innocuous storage closet.

Behind him, Helene’s voice was filled with wonder. “It’s some kind of smuggler’s tunnel.”

Drake shot a grin at her. “Exactly. It was built during the war of the city-states of the midcentury.” The intimate pride in his voice was undisguisable. Like Calla, Andros was his home. But Andros was also more than that—it was his birthright, his childhood kingdom.

That he’d been forced away from it because of her father was a knife in the chest that never stopped throbbing. Or hadn’t, at least, until he’d swooped in and stolen Helene d’Tierrza into his life.

He should be the current Duke of Andros. He had created in Calla what he missed so sorely, and yet leading them through staff corridors, deftly avoiding being seen, he could not deny it was still a mere facsimile of the home he craved. Like Yancy Grove, Calla was a lovely getaway. Andros was home, the place he was most at ease, even when surrounded by enemies with his plans in tatters.

They came to another doorway—this one he listened at first.

After seconds stretched into minutes of taut silence, his ear glued to the doorframe, he held two fingers up to signal quiet, then retrieved the same key he’d used on the earlier door.

As before, it worked easily. Drake stepped through, followed by Helene.

They stood in another quiet room, a pantry, though it was obvious from the lack of dust and tidily stacked dry goods that this room was in regular use.

“Through that door is the kitchen. The day staff will be in there. They’ll be able to make arrangements to get you back to the capital.”

She nodded, looking up at him, her eyes full of things she had to say.

She opened her mouth, then closed it and shook her head, then opened it again. “I’m sorry,” she said.

They weren’t the words he wanted to hear. Though what he hoped she would say he had no idea. Pulling her into his arms, he rested his nose on the top of her hair and drew in a long inhale. Then he tilted her chin, angling her face toward his one last time. Running his thumbs below her eyes and along her cheekbones, he leaned closed, pressed his lips against hers and kissed her goodbye.

And then, without speaking, he turned and left. If he had stayed a moment longer, he wouldn’t have been able to leave at all.

CHAPTER NINE

A WEEK AND a half later, Hel was in the worst shape of her life.

Despite being in the comfort of her own bed, and the warm bosom of most of her dearest friends and family, she’d slept horribly and felt sicker and sicker with each passing day since leaving Drake in Andros.

Once she’d made herself known, it was a simple thing to get dropped off at a public location, from which point she called the palace first and her mother second. Everyone accepted her story of escaping her unknown kidnapper and returning—how could they not? She was Helene d’Tierrza, captain of the queen’s guard, indefatigable and unbeatable.

And right now, she was a strange shade of grayish green. Strange, because she hadn’t experienced a second of seasickness through her adventure with Drake, and yet was feeling all of its symptoms now.

She wondered if there was such a thing as land-sickness, and if so, if one could suddenly develop it after having spent a short time sampling the seafaring life.

Real or not, it certainly wasn’t helping her track down what had happened with Moustafa.

All that she’d been able to discern was that her cousin, in a move that made absolutely no sense to her, had sent the queen to the summer palace and placed Jenna on a leave of absence the very same day Drake had abducted her.

Zayn had quickly followed behind Mina, traveling to the summer palace and conducting business from there through Hel’s absence. Though he had personally called to tell her how glad he was to know she was safe, and they’d spoken at length about her supposed escape, she had not known at the time to speak to him about Moustafa.

Mina, too, between being at the mercy of Roz for wedding planning and being completely in the dark as to what had led Zayn to reprimand Jenna, had been unable to explain the situation.

Trying to untangle the mess with a hollowed-out and aching hole where her heart should have been, and a nagging and persistent sense of nausea, was presenting her with an entirely new kind of endurance training.

Thankfully, though she never would have imagined thinking this, Mina was gone. The fact that Hel was not on official duty was a shocking saving grace. Normally, her work energized her. It was the thing she lived for, but now, the