Chapter 25
ERRYN
“Helena, just let me order something,” I said, leaning against the kitchen doorframe and leaving a safe distance between myself and the absolute fucking disaster in the kitchen.
She was playing a selection of her god-awful music, dancing as she chopped something on a cutting board, while a pan on the cooktop started to smoke alarmingly.
“Why, when there is a perfectly good kitchen here?” she asked.
“There was a perfectly good kitchen,” I muttered as I crossed the room and took the pan off the heat. “Is that pasta meant to be on the ring that’s currently rivaling the temperature of the sun?”
“Hmmm?” She looked at me, then down at the cooktop and swore, sliding the pot of pasta onto the element.
I eyed the chicken breast she was dissecting on the counter. “What the hell are you doing to that?”
“Taking the nasty bits off,” she murmured, peering closely at it before slicing another hunk off the already dwindling meat.
“Oh, good grief,” I muttered, rolling up my sleeves and pushing her gently to the side. “Let me.” I took the knife from her hand and dropped a kiss on her cheek as she glared at me in outrage. “Go rescue whatever is in the oven. I can smell it burning.”
She swore again, and I chuckled as she dove for the oven, retrieving a pan with baked feta and tomatoes before she took to it with a masher and turned it into pink mush. I decided not to look too closely.
I picked up the second breast and began to clean it, slicing the tendon she had clearly been so offended about off the side.
“And that bit,” she said, leaning over my shoulder.
“What bit?” I asked.
“The slightly pinker bit.” She pointed at a perfectly adequate part of the meat, and I slid my gaze to her. “It’s just meat.”
She fidgeted, looking from me to the chicken and back as she scratched the back of her neck.
I sighed and cut it off too.
“And that,” she leaned over my other shoulder. “Can I do it?”
“Helena, it’s perfectly clean.”
“It touched the bone,” she whispered. “It’s bonified.”
I closed my eyes for a moment and huffed a laugh, flipping the breast and slicing that off too.
“Happy?”
She scrutinized it again. “And that.”
I cut it off.
“And…that.”
I cut it off too as she hovered over my shoulder, pressing kisses against the side of my neck and taking subtle little sniffs of my perfume that I pretended not to notice.
“Better?” I asked, holding up the meat.
She nodded, and I laid the massacred breasts into the air fryer pan she held out for me, then watched her turn it on before she came back to rescue the now-boiling-over pasta.
I had Uber Eats on standby, and I leaned against the counter with a glass of wine, watching her as she carried on.
“Any news from Theo?” she asked.
“Vanguard is alarmingly silent for someone whose daughter is at stake. Theo’s team has issued a follow-up to the ultimatum,” I said. “I’m going to see for myself tomorrow.”
Helena threw me a look.
“Oh?”
I smirked at her. “Such pretty green eyes you have there, Lena.”
She narrowed said eyes at me. “I bite too.”
“Oh, I’m well aware,” I said, sipping my wine. I turned my attention to my phone, attending to a few emails and enjoying the easy company of cohabiting with Helena.
It was…nice. Even with the stress of everything that had happened in the last couple of months, she made me feel alive in the quiet moments. It had been a long time since I enjoyed the idea of coming home, even if home was a hotel with an obliterated kitchen.
I looked up as Helena placed a bowl in my hand.
“Ta-da!”
“Helena, what is it?”
I eyed her creation—a pasta, feta, and shredded chicken concoction—dubiously garnished with basil.
“Just try it,” she sighed. “It tastes better than it looks.”
She picked up her own plate, her food separated into neat little portions, and watched me with hopeful expectation as I gingerly took a bite.
It was heavenly.
“See!” she said, throwing me a bright smile as she pushed out a chair with her foot and plopped down at the small kitchen table, tucking into her own food.
“I have a gift for you,” I said quietly.
Her eyes snapped to mine.
“Huh?”
“Under the tree,” I said. “Technically, it’s a couple days early, but—”
She was out of the seat in a flash, disappearing into the other room and coming back a moment later with the package I had hidden.
“Open it,” I chuckled, pulling her into my lap.
She perched on my knee, leaning against me as she ripped it open, throwing a sidelong glance at the little box it revealed.
I just blinked at her, waiting.
She opened it and frowned, pulling the small, delicate metal cylinder necklace out, with designs etched into it, revealing a small dark object inside.
“It’s…pretty,” she said hesitantly.
“Smell it,” I said quietly.
She slid her gaze to me, then back to the necklace, moving it slowly toward her nose and taking a very hesitant sniff. Her face went blank, and she grabbed it in her palm, inhaling deeper.
“Is that—” she trailed off, sounding a little choked.
“My perfume,” I finished. “We can top up the wick in there when it starts to fade. I noticed you liked mine.”
She blinked rapidly, slipping the chain over her head as she sniffed the cylinder again. “I love how you smell,” she murmured. “It makes me sad when you fade from my clothes every day.”
“Well, now you have it with you all day,” I murmured.
She gave me a long, slow kiss that left me light-headed, whispering her thanks against my lips before slipping back into her seat with a small smile, her hand clutching the necklace to her chest.
I watched her as she hummed happily to herself, wishing I could capture this moment and keep it forever. And I suddenly realized what the warm feeling in my chest was as I sat in a messy kitchen, content to see Helena happy.
I’d fallen for her without even realizing it.
And I wanted to keep her.
The quiet moment didn’t last.
They never did.
Twenty-four hours passed. Then forty-eight.
Vanguard’s silence was beginning to itch under my skin.
None of my calculations had included the possibility of radio silence after I’d revealed my cards, though I knew the silence was not indifference.
I just didn’t like the feeling of not knowing what was coming next.
I stood by the window of my office, the city beyond the glass blurred by a steady curtain of rain.
My phone rested loosely in my hand, the dark screen reflecting the grey light of the sky above London as I mulled over my options.
I hadn’t been able to contact Vanguard at all.
The ultimatum was unanswered, and there had been no acknowledgment of Octavia, even after Theo had sent him proof of her capture.
If my opinion of him wasn’t already in tatters, I’d have been disgusted.
I hated that a far too dominant part of me felt sorry for the woman I was using as a pawn.
No wonder she had done everything she could to get away from her father.
I jumped as my phone rang suddenly, breaking the silent gloom, and I took a moment to settle my racing heart before I answered Theo’s call.
“Loxley.”
“What connections do you have to the press?”
I let her question sink in for a moment, already knowing I was going to dislike this conversation. “Why?”
“Because I’m sending you a link that I need to go viral.”
I was going to need a gin for this, I could tell. “Pardon?” I asked, licking the juice off my finger after dropping a lime wedge into my drink.
“I’m being stonewalled,” Theo said. “And I need you to be clear with me about something.”
“Go on,” I murmured, taking a sip and letting it burn its way down my throat.
“From what I see, Vanguard keeps his nose clean,” Theo continued.
“He’s calling your bluff. But I don’t need to know what his angle is to know a public scandal is something he wants no part of.
If we go public—frame this as a terrorist group demanding financial ransom—he’ll be forced to make contact.
Otherwise, he risks the story turning into powerful financier refuses to pay ransom for kidnapped daughter, and that’s the kind of attention a man like him can’t afford. ”
My mind skipped three steps ahead. He absolutely could not risk that kind of scrutiny, given the direction he intended to steer the Triarchy.
A scandal like that would poison every political door he intended to knock on before he ever reached them.
No serious politician would touch him with a barge pole if the press began circling a story about a daughter he had spent thirty years pretending didn’t exist.
Theo’s plan, I realized, was stronger than she even understood.
“Send it to me,” I said after a moment. “I’ll have it off the ground by morning.”