Chapter 25
A lexandra
Thanking Raphael’s team, which I immediately trusted far more than my own, I leapt up and stalked to the house, needing to release some of the energy that built up inside me. Thoughts of the palace, and the knowledge that I really had been targeted, had me ragey.
Raphael followed, catching my hand as I stormed up the steps and into…
We both stopped and stared.
The interior of the house was wall-to-wall junk. Piles of boxes, bags, and loose items, with a narrow path carved through.
Daisy stepped down the path with a bulging black bin liner. “Coming through.”
We hustled out to let her pass.
She jerked her head at the hall. “Fun, isn’t it? That’s why I was asking for help. It took a week to get this far inside.”
Raphael regarded the sheer magnitude of mess. “This is the afterboob job, right?”
I choked on a laugh. It felt good to think of anything but my situation. “What?”
Daisy tossed the bin liner into the skip and dusted her gloved hands. “The owner of this property is an elderly lady who is in a hospice and very poorly. A hoarder, obviously. She’s given permission to her only relative to clear the house, but on the condition that he doesn’t throw away a treasure that is somewhere inside.”
I hiked up my eyebrows. “What kind of treasure?”
“That’s the mystery. She wouldn’t tell him. He employed us to tackle the project.”
Raphael’s hand ghosted over my lower back. “The afterboob reference was a typo in Daisy’s email.”
Daisy rolled her eyes. “I am never going to get over that. Anyway, I better get back to it. At this rate, it’s going to take us weeks.”
“Can I help?”
She blinked at me. “I’m sorry, I just hallucinated. Say again?”
“Seriously. I am furious at what I left behind in London. I have energy to burn, and attacking a stack of junk feels like the healthiest way to do it. Put me to work.” I swung to Raphael. “Is that okay? Can we stay here for the day?”
I wanted him. I wanted to climb his big body and take out my energy on him in energetic and emotional sex, but I didn’t think he’d allow it. Last night, he’d stopped me. He’d lavished attention on me but hadn’t let me do the same.
He gifted me a soft smile. “Whatever ye need.”
Neither of us were ready for that.
I turned back to Daisy and saw the arguments form in her eyes, but then she registered the certainty in mine and nodded.
“I’d love that. Protective gear is in the back of my car. Masks on inside the house, mandatory. Don’t take off your gloves. We have permission to throw everything away but are making efforts to recycle what’s salvageable. But the main objective?”
I answered for her. “Find the treasure.”
“You’ve got it.”
Raphael ushered me back to the car and helped me find the protective equipment Daisy mandated. When I was kitted out, he glanced around us as if to make sure we had privacy, then bundled me in a hard hug. A fresh burst of emotion sank through me, and I clung on to him. It took a moment to clear, and Raphael just held me.
“I’ve got half a mind to go back there and track down that arsehole myself.”
I inched back to witness the wildness in his eyes. “Please don’t leave me.”
He brushed his thumb over my cheek. “Okay. I’m all yours.”
His gaze locked on mine as if he needed to communicate more than his words. He broke it with a huff of breath. “But there is something I need to go and do. I’ll be about an hour. Come with me, or stay here with my team guarding ye while Daisy puts ye to work.”
I straightened from the hug and tried to cool myself. “I left my phone in the castle. If you go anywhere near there, could you please grab it and give it to Valentine? He can send the message to Sir Reginald if he doesn’t mind. If I turn it on, I’m worried I’ll not be able to stop myself from replying to people.”
“I’ll sort it. Anyone I should look for messages from? Dori, perhaps?”
“Please.”
I gave him my passcode, and Raphael escorted me to the door then left me in the hands of Daisy. The blonde business owner directed me into the living room where space had been cleared in the middle, but wall-to-wall possessions crowded in on every side. Cross-legged on the floor, Mia tore off bin liners from a roll.
She handed one to me. “That pile all around the chair is empty food containers. Must’ve been where the lady ate her dinner. I tried tackling it but kept retching.”
I took in the space. “I’m on it. Guts of steel.”
Mia’s eyes crinkled, and though her mouth was hidden by a white mask, I knew she was grinning. “It’s the baby in mine that’s objecting.”
“You’re pregnant? Congratulations!”
“Thank you. It’s one of the reasons Valentine isn’t straying far from my side. He’s doing all the lifting and carrying. I’m being very careful with the dust and gross stuff. Daisy is going to tackle the bathroom and kitchen, when we get to it.”
In easy conversation, the three of us got to work. I threw myself into shovelling out food containers by the bag load, throwing them into the skip outside or handing them to Ben or Valentine who were always nearby. Jackson had the task of clearing stacks of books and boxes of paper from the hall then examining them in the light, setting aside anything that he thought Daisy and Mia might need to check in case of treasure status.
I discovered that Ben and Valentine were brothers, though they looked nothing alike, and both Daisy and Mia were getting married soon. They’d had a joint engagement party, organised by their fiancés, and I started to get the sense of the world Raphael lived in.
Not only the clean air and open space, but the good people. The respectful men who worked hard and were dedicated to not just their team but their women, too.
“I was obsessed with your cousin’s wedding,” Mia told me. “Sorry if I’m talking like I know your family. I just saw it on TV. It was incredible, and their romance was so swoonworthy.”
“It was quite the spectacle, and their romance is real. They’re the most in-love couple I ever saw.” To their twin sighs, I tied off what had to be my fifth bag and dragged it to the door. “It was a long day, though. I was a bridesmaid, which meant being ready with my hair done and gown fitted perfectly by eight a.m. I wasn’t allowed to slump in case I creased the dress, only perch on a stool. And eating anything remotely messy was out of the question. I remember being hungry, cold, and desperately wanting to wear a tiara like one of my aunts had from the royal collection.”
Turning, I found both women staring at me.
Daisy blinked. “Please tell me you’ve been able to raid that collection since?”
My mask hid my grin. “Not once. If I’d stayed in London, I mean, I was supposed to host a banquet…” My words dried up so I started again. “One of the royal jewellers would’ve come to my apartment today with a set for me to try on. A tiara, necklace, and earrings.” I wouldn’t have had a choice over which. Just another one of the controls Sir Reginald had.
Daisy’s eyes were kind. “Why do I get the impression you’re better off here?”
“You have no idea.” The fact they had no clue why I was a stage-five clinger to Raphael spoke greater volumes over the safety of his team and the information they held.
Mia tilted her head. “Would that be what your wedding is like? All carriages and horses and crowds?”
A shadow appeared in the door. I twisted to find Raphael had returned. Unlike us, he wasn’t masked up, so I could see every bit of his frown.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
He shook it off. “Nothing. Message sent. I took the liberty to check Dori hadn’t contacted ye.”
My heart sank. Through all the running away and delicious hiding I was doing, I still worried about my friend. “Nothing?”
“Sorry.”
Daisy stood and stretched. “Coffee break. Good work everyone, especially you, Alex. I can tell you how wonderful, and weird, it is to have the extra pair of hands, but you’re really helping.”
We headed outside into the fresh air. Raphael snagged Valentine, pulling him over into a huddle.
“New objective,” he told his teammate. “The man I asked ye to track down using a passport trace.”
Valentine nodded. “Count Ferdinand Dorian Christian Sonderburg. Try saying that drunk.”
Despite myself, I laughed. “I call him Dori. Thank you for tracing him.”
“You’re welcome. Want us to bring him back?”
I blinked, but Raphael was already nodding. “Exactly what I was going to suggest.”
He thought having Dori back would help my sadness. My heart swelled and swelled.
“What have ye tried?” Valentine asked.
I shrugged. “Messaging him, calling him. He’s ignoring me. I think he might be hurt over a woman.”
Briefly, I gave the background of why I believed Dori went to Italy. “What’s north of Milan? Lake Como, where this engagement party was taking place.”
“He followed an ex,” Valentine surmised.
“Looks that way. I just don’t get the obsessive element. He isn’t like that. He drops women regardless of if they’re hot. He’s a loyal friend but doesn’t cling to relationships. I’ve never once in fifteen years of knowing him seen him behave like this.”
“Suggesting whatever is going on for him is cataclysmic,” Raphael said softly. “People turn their lives upside down when it comes to the one.”
Valentine’s gaze drifted to where Mia stood at the cars with Daisy. “Aye, they do. Raphael can tell ye about the time I messed up so badly with Mia that I had him fly me across the country to reach her when she needed me. There’s no lengths a man won’t go to when it’s right.”
His gaze held Raphael’s.
“I just want to help him,” I mumbled.
Valentine smirked. “Then let’s bring your boy home. Local number trick?”
“Exactly what I was thinking,” Raphael agreed.
“Wait, what local number trick?”
Valentine took his phone and opened an app, tapping around in it. “If someone is ghosting ye, dial them from another number. A local one has more chance of being answered, particularly if you’re away from home. I can simulate one for central Milan. Ready now?”
My heart thumped. Raphael’s hand found mine and held it. I managed a nod and gave him Dori’s number.
Valentine called it through his app.
The line clicked, then a sleepy voice answered. “Hello?”
Oh God. It was Dori. He was okay.
For a moment, I couldn’t speak. No, more than a moment. My voice dried up completely.
Dori tried again. “Is that the Leonardo? Is there a problem?”
Raphael stared at me then spoke where I couldn’t. “Dori, this is Raphael Gordonson, Alex’s,” he stumbled over the description, “friend.”
A pause followed, then Dori swore. “Hot Bodyguard. Fuckkkk.”
“Alex is worried about ye.”
“She should be. I’m a fucking wreck.”
“Let me come get ye. I’ll bring ye to her.”
Dori swore again, the sounds changing as if he’d gone outside. “Are you in Milan? If so, you’ve overshot me by a whole country.”
“You’re in France?” I finally found my voice, my tone coming out as a squawk. “Switzerland? Austria?”
Dori made a sound I’d never heard before. Almost like a sob. Definitely grief. “Darling girl, you’re there.”
“And worried sick about you.”
“I really fucked up this time. Of all the shit I’ve ever pulled, this was the worst.”
“I want to hear all about it. But when we’re face to face, and I can see that you’re okay. Just tell me where you are.”
“Paris,” Dori bit out. “With no passport. I can’t travel to England.”
“That’s a good thing because Alex isn’t in England,” Raphael reported. “I’m going to share my details as a contact, but first, give me the address you’re staying at in Paris. We’ll fly over and pick ye up.”
Dutifully, Dori recited the address of a Parisien hotel. “Do you own a plane, Raphael?”
“Pretty sure that’s the first time you’ve used my name, and no, I pilot helicopters. I’ll borrow one to fetch ye.”
“The slutty jumpsuit makes sense now, for fuck’s sake. By which I mean thank all the angels in Heaven. Alex, can I talk to you in private for a moment?”
I took the phone and moved away, Raphael and Valentine instantly getting into the flight distance to Paris and the logistics of the trip.
“I’m alone,” I told my friend.
“I’m guessing Scotland then? I’m happy for you.”
“Don’t be. Raphael is the one good thing in my life. The rest of it is crumbling to pieces.”
“Then we make a matching pair. That isn’t what I wanted to say. The king’s man has been ringing me. I didn’t answer; it’s not just you I ghosted, but everyone. I did listen to the last voicemail I got, though. He said I needed to tell him where you were. This was only an hour ago. Darling girl, are you on the run? Did you leave that train wreck of a family behind at last?”
For the first time in what felt like weeks, I took a full and deep breath, the clean Scottish air clearing my brain of the noise that had been building with the pressure my family had piled on me. “I think I have.”
“Can’t wait to hear all about it. Tell your boyfriend I’m going to sober up. I’ve been drunk for a week, and travel sickness is a bitch, even in a helicopter. I’ll hit the health centre and sweat it out.”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I said automatically, my gaze on him as he consulted his phone with Valentine and wrote something on a piece of paper.
Dori’s drawl of amusement brought me straight back to earth. “Right. Because a man in love wouldn’t risk everything, including his pilot’s licence, to illegally transport some idiot he barely knows and definitely doesn’t like across an ocean, just because a girl wants it. Love you. Hugs soon.”
He hung up on me, and I stared at the phone. I had him back, almost, and yet another reason to fall in deep for Raphael.
Yet a small warning played in my head, born from a couple of things he’d said or done, in amongst the hundred others to the contrary. He said he wanted to keep me, if he could, implying it wouldn’t be possible, then he hadn’t let me reciprocate in bed.
If I was certain of what I felt, of the terrifying, unstoppable want, I needed to get brave enough to ask him the questions that scared me. What about me was making him say no, when more and more, I needed a yes?