Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
ALORA
What?
Why is she still texting him?
Jealousy runs through me and I quietly put his phone back down, grab my robe and make my way downstairs.
The coffee machine percolates as a million scenarios run through my mind, have they spoken? Do they still see each other? I know she meant a lot to him because he’s hell-bent on not letting her find out about us…maybe I’m a secret because he’s still with her?
Stop it.
I make my coffee and head out into my back garden; I need to stop being insecure.
This isn’t who I am.
I’m not even going to ask him about it, I already know they’re still friends and I want to respect that.
I turn on the hose and call my favorite person in the world. “Hello, my darling,” he answers.
“Hi, Dad.” I smile, and suddenly the world is right again.
Two weeks of loving Edward Prescott….
He’s the sky, the moon, and all the stars in the night sky, I worship the air that he breathes.
We walk through the markets in town, the morning sun is shining and my arm is linked through his.
He’s wearing jeans and a T-shirt with a baseball cap and sunglasses, his usual disguise.
We haven’t been to his place yet because he seems to have unofficially moved into mine.
On the weekend we pottered around my neighborhood.
Dinners in small intimate restaurants, walks at sunrise and drinks at sunset in my garden.
We were normal, more normal than I could have ever dreamed.
I never imagined that it could be like this. So in tune with each other that it’s like he’s an extension of me.
We’re inseparable, so in love and haven’t spent a single night apart. My second bedroom has somehow turned into his wardrobe, it’s filled with designer suits, shirts, and shoes. I have a stupidly expensive Aston Martin in my garage and Rolex watches just lying around in my bathroom.
It feels so natural and right, we laugh and talk about everything and yet at the same time nothing at all.
EDWARD
Bang.
My eyes flutter as my sleep is disturbed by an echo in the distance.
Bang.
I roll onto my side in the darkness.
Bang.
My eyes spring open, what the hell was that?
I reach over and grab my phone off the nightstand to see the time.
3:08 a.m.
Bang…. It’s coming from downstairs.
The hell?
Someone’s in the house.
I sit up and reach over to wake Alora; her side of the bed is empty. Where is she?
Bang….
My eyes dart around in a panic and I get up, tiptoe to the bathroom, and flick the light on. She’s not in here, and then I see it. A large droplet of blood on the bathroom floor.
Fuck.
My heart begins to pump and I pull on a pair of boxer shorts and slowly slide open the bedside drawer and grab the gun from the black bag.
Adrenaline screams through my veins as I pull back the slide and cock the gun. I go to the door and peer around the corner. Lights are on downstairs.
Bang.
I hold the gun up and walk down the stairs, if they’ve touched a hair on her head I swear to god….
I make my way to the second level and check the bedrooms, in one of the bedrooms the window is open and the curtains are blowing in the wind. I creep down the next flight of stairs, the lights are on and my eyes fly around.
“Alora,” I call.
Silence….
“Alora.”
I can hear water running in the bathroom and my heart hammers in my chest.
Am I going to find her body in there? Is she dead in the bathtub…? Is this some fucked-up scene from a horror movie?
Holding the gun to my chest, I walk toward the bathroom.
Bang.
I look up at the ceiling, that sound came from above, it must be from the open window on the second level.
“Alora,” I call.
I close my eyes, deep down I always knew this day was coming. I knew that one day someone would make me pay. With my heart in my throat, I slowly push the door open to see Alora is standing under the shower with her back to me, she’s naked.
“What?” My eyes fly around to see nobody in the room with her. “What are you doing?”
It’s then that I notice that the water running down the drain is red. Oh my god.
“What’s wrong?”
She turns and, catching sight of me, jumps in fright. “Argh, what are you doing?” she screams. “You scared the hell out of me.” She takes AirPods out of her ears.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I point to the floor of the shower. “Are you hurt?”
“Why do you have a gun?” she stammers.
“Because I thought you were down here getting fucking murdered,” I snap.
“No.” She screws up her face as if I’m an idiot. “I have my period really heavy and I needed a hot shower to stop the ache.”
“Are you fucking kidding me right now?” I fume. “I saw the blood and you were gone and I was calling out to you,” I whisper angrily.
“Oh…I didn’t hear you; I didn’t want to wake you up, so I came down here and thought I’d listen to my audiobook while I stood under the hot water.” She shrugs as she holds her AirPods up. “I didn’t realize I dropped blood upstairs. Sorry.”
“My god.” I drag my hand through my hair. “I just lost ten fucking years of my life.”
“Who would be down here killing me?” She screws up her face. “What’s wrong with you?”
My shoulders slump and I look down to see the water in the bottom of the shower is fully red. “What is happening here?” I gesture to the floor.
“My period.”
“Surely it’s not that much blood, you’ll need a fucking transfusion.”
“This is normal, what are you talking about?”
“I don’t know about that; I think we need to go to the hospital.”
“You can’t be this clueless about periods.”
I stare at her as I reconcile what I know about women’s monthlies.
Nothing.
In fact, I have never even had a partner bleed in front of me.
“Edward?” She frowns.
I shake my head in confusion.
Why haven’t I had a partner bleed in front of me…now that I think about it, it’s fucking weird.
“See you upstairs.” I rush back upstairs, put the gun away and climb into bed.
Adrenaline is still pumping, and I pull the blankets up around my ears as an unknown emotion fills me.
Twenty minutes later Alora comes into the room, she flicks the bathroom light on as she dresses and cleans up the blood. I lie with my back to her pretending to be asleep. She eventually climbs in behind me and cuddles my back. “Sorry for worrying you.”
I lie still as I try to make sense of my emotions.
“What’s wrong?” she asks.
“Nothing. Go to sleep.”
“Edward.” She pulls my shoulder, rolling me onto my back. “What’s wrong?”
“Why wouldn’t I ever have seen a woman have her monthlies?” I murmur.
“Never?” She frowns.
I shake my head. “Not once.”
“Hmm.” She thinks for a moment. “I guess it’s a very personal thing for women.”
I stare at her and an overwhelming sense of sadness fills me.
“They didn’t trust me enough to….”
“Hey.” She leans over and kisses me. “Not necessarily. They probably had IUDs and didn’t even have a period.”
“That doesn’t make me feel any better,” I murmur.
“Why not?”
“Because I never even noticed. Not once has the thought ever crossed my mind.” My eyes search hers. “Am I so self-absorbed that I don’t even know a woman’s body other than for my pleasure?”
She nods as if finally understanding my point. “Maybe…in the past.”
We lie in silence, surrounded by darkness, and while I reflect on one of my countless flaws…. She holds me in her arms and loves me.
ALORA
I sit in the back of the car as we drive through the streets of Monaco, I’m consulting on a house here today and Philippe and Stefan are taking me there.
I glance at my watch. “We’re early, can we grab a coffee and kill some time before we go to the house?” I ask.
“Sure thing.” They make a turn. “We’ll go to the main street.”
“Okay.”
Ten minutes later they park the car and we get out and walk along, I see a café. “I’ll go in here.” I walk in. “Bonjour, can I have a café Americano please?”
“Of course.” She turns to make the coffee and I glance out to the street to see a beautiful blond woman go to walk into the café toward me, Philippe intercepts her at the door and begins to walk her backward as he says something in French.
What’s going on? She seems to try and catch my attention before Philippe turns her away from me.
What?
Stefan steps in and grabs her too and then they pull her around the corner and out of view, what the hell is going on? I walk out the front to see both boys missing.
“Café Americano,” the lady calls.
I look left and I look right, no sign of them, what the fuck is going on? It’s not like them to leave me here alone.
I walk back in and collect my coffee and then back out into the street, a good five to ten minutes later Philippe comes around the corner; he seems flustered. “Let’s go,” he says as if hurried.
“Who was that woman?” I ask.
“She was ….” He pauses as if searching for the right answer. “She looked dangerous, I didn’t want her near you.”
I stare at him as I reconcile his words, they bounce around in my head like an echo.
Bullshit.
“Where is Stefan?”
“He…is getting some lunch. We will meet up with him later.”
Why are you lying to me?
Who was that fucking woman and why wasn’t she allowed to talk to me?
EDWARD
“And this point here.” I point to the screen.
My phone vibrates and the name Philippe lights up the screen.
“I have to take this, excuse me.” I stand and walk out of the boardroom. “Yes,” I answer.
“Isadora just tried to approach Alora,” he snaps.
I clench my jaw. “Where was she?”
“In the street, Alora was in a café and she saw her and tried to enter.”
“What did you do?”
“We stopped her.”
“Where is she now?”
“Stefan has her.”
Fury fills me. “I’m on my way.”