After She's Terminal The Alpha Regrets (Elaine and Lucas) novel Chapter 7

Chapter 7

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Chapter 7

Elaine slid into the driver’s seat of the matte black Maybach and shut the door on the rest of

her life.

She had not driven the car in two years. It had been Lucas’s father’s wedding gift, the kind of gift meant to settle a question and not to be enjoyed. Lucas had allowed her to drive it twice, both at sanctioned outings, riding beside her with one hand on the door. The rest of the time she had driven the cream family sedan her stepmother had chosen for her. The Maybach lived in the garage, polished weekly, and no one had ever needed to wipe a fingerprint.

She put both hands on the wheel and laughed at her face in the rearview mirror.

The engine started under her like a low animal waking up.

She pulled out of the gate.

Harriet was waiting at the corner of Bedwood and Sixth with the crimson shopping bag from earlier still on her arm. Her mouth dropped open when the matte black grille slid against the

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“Tell me you stole this,” Harriet said, getting in.

“It’s mine. I’m still the Luna. There’s nothing that says I can’t drive my own car.”

“Goddess.” Harriet stroked the dashboard the way she’d stroke a cat. “Where are we going, Lu? It’s nine o’clock.”

“To spend money. Then to a hotel.”

“Lucas’s villa is twelve minutes that way.”

“I’m aware.”

Harriet’s smile arrived slowly.

“Drive faster.”

*

At Avilo on Fifth, the night-shift girl actually curtsied when she saw the Luna at the door, and Elaine almost laughed. She could not remember walking into a store without first asking someone whether what she wanted was appropriate.

She bought everything Harriet pointed at, then three things Harriet didn’t.

In the dressing room she sat down on the velvet stool with the curtain still drawn. From her clutch she took the leather planner she had been using to track council appointments. She turned to a blank page near the back and smoothed it with her palm.

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Chapter 7

Things I was never allowed to do.

1.Cut my hair.

2.Buy a dress I think is too expensive.

3.Eat nothing but dessert for a meal.

4.Try on something scandalous.

5.Say no to anything that makes me uncomfortable.

6.Buy gifts for people who actually love me.

7.Get a tattoo.

8.Kiss someone just because I want to.

9.Sleep in. Wake up late. Stay out late.

10.Dance like no one’s watching, even if they are.

She tapped the pen against ten. She added a eleven.

11.Stop apologizing.

She closed the planner.

When she came out, Harriet pretended she had not been watching the curtain.

“Well?”

Elaine glanced at the list once, in her head. She thought about the cake.

“The patisserie on Fifth,” she said. “Then a room with a view I don’t have to clean.”

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They split an opera cake at a corner table by the window.

Elaine ate the ganache off the top with the flat of her fork while Harriet laughed at her. She had not put a sweet thing in her mouth, not properly, since the engagement diet her stepmother had put her on four years ago. She closed her eyes when she swallowed.

“You all right?” Harriet asked.

“I forgot what it tasted like.”

“Eat the rest, Lu.”

She ate the rest.

*

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Chapter 7

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At the Reverie, the night manager asked no questions when she said presidential suite and no calls. He saw her ring. He saw her face. He chose well. A bellman took the suitcases up.

The corner room had a long view of the river through plate glass. She was still in the crimson. She had not wanted to change. Her shoes were off. Both feet were cold against the marble. She held the fluted glass of something Harriet had ordered.

Once, the silence at this hour would have made her listen for his car.

She had thought she might cry.

She wasn’t.

Far across the city, in the upstairs lounge at the venue, Liam Vance leaned a shoulder against the doorframe and watched a redhead try to refill his glass for the third time. He waved her off, less gently than he had meant.

He was thinking about a woman in a red dress.

He had stepped into the corridor an hour earlier just as she had stepped out of it, and he had lost a full second of the conversation he was meant to be having. He hadn’t asked whose she was. Asking would have made him a worse friend than he was already feeling like, and he had three votes to broker before midnight. 1

He had pictured her face three times since. He had seen pretty women. He had not seen one

like her.