novelxo Devious Vow: Chapter 31
I scream when he walks through the door, his shirt covered in blood.
“It’s not mine,” Alistair instantly chokes out.
Before he can stop me, I slam into him, wrapping my arms around his body and holding him tight. Alistair’s muscled arms surround me as he buries his face in the crook of my neck.
“I’m sorry,” he hisses, hugging me tightly. “Christ, Eloise, I’m so fucking sorry for everything I said—”
“No, I’m sorry,” I choke, twisting to kiss his face and lips over and over as tears pool in my eyes. “I’m sorry, and can we go straight to the part where we forget that stupid argument ever happened?”
He smiles, cupping my face and kissing me. “I had no right to attack you like that, or your father—”
“It’s okay,” I choke, a tear sliding down my cheek before I kiss him again. I pull away, my hand flying to my mouth when I truly take in the sight of him. “What…”
“Roberto Chinellato,” he growls, unbuttoning his blood-soaked shirt and dropping it on the floor. “He was shot right in front of me in the yard at Fairview.”
“Oh my God!” I blurt. “Are you—”
“I’m not hurt,” Alistair murmurs. He starts to pull my t-shirt over my head, and I realize it’s because I have blood all over me from hugging him.
He drops my bloodied shirt to the floor, and then he’s pulling me close, lifting me into his arms, and kissing me as he walks toward the shower.
“I just need you.”
I don’t love the idea of Alistair having dinner with Massimo. So I find myself pacing the suite after he leaves for Keens, chewing at my cuticles—a habit I seem to have picked up in the absence of drinking the last few days.
Since my marriage to Massimo, I’ve explained away the amount of drinking I do as “necessary”. Darkly, like self gallows-humor, I’ve jokingly referred to it as my “medicine”—something I need to get through even a single day living under Massimo’s reign of terror.
But Alistair is right: it’s too much. It’s taking over, and becoming a problem. It’s not “medicine”, it’s a crutch, and I know I have to stop.
It’s thinking back to Alistair catching me drinking vodka out of a fucking paper coffee cup that stops me from calling down to room service—though I wouldn’t put it past Alistair to have thought that far ahead and warned the concierge desk about letting me order a drink.
Part of me wants to be annoyed by that.
The other part silently thanks him.
I jump, startled, when the house phone rings.
“Ms. White?”
I’m incognito, obviously, so I have a code name.
“Yes?”
“We have a package down here for you that was just delivered by courier. It’s addressed to a Ms. LeBlanc, but the courier was most insistent that your suite was the intended recipient.”
My brow furrows, but then it clicks.
“Is it from a Rosa Faucher, in Paris?”
“Yes. It was first delivered to a loft building in Soho, who redirected it here via the courier. Shall I send it up, Ms. White?”
Alistair’s building. “Please, and thank you.”
A few minutes later, a bellhop delivers a documents mailer to my door. I retreat to the living room and to what has become my favorite reading chair in the few days I’ve been here. I tear open the mailer, and sure enough, it’s the papers Rosa said she found while cleaning my dad’s office.
Immediately, it becomes apparent they’re not all meant for me. Yes, the envelope on the top of the stack has a post-it note with my name on it. But the three other documents “attached” to it seem to have been included only accidentally, when the envelope for me managed to get stuck in the same paperclip that’s holding the other three pages together.
The first is a valuation of a building in Montpellier, France that it seems my father was at one time interested in purchasing. The second is just the itinerary from some vacation he and Marie took three years ago. But when I flip to the last document, I stiffen.
It’s a copy of my father’s living will.
I’ve read bits of it before, of course, after it was made known to me that—surprise—I was being forced to marry Massimo Carveli, sadistic psychopath extraordinaire.
Just the same, I scan through it. Some clauses are to be enacted in the event of his “incapacitation”, like a coma. Things like his underbosses taking over various aspects of the business and voting in a new head of the organization from a list of trusted men. Other clauses only become relevant in the event of his actual death, like the stipulation that his wealth and assets be evenly distributed amongst Marie, Camille, and myself.
I scan the parts I’ve read before, and then, for whatever morbid reason, I flip to the last page.
The page where my fate is sealed to Massimo.
I sigh as my eyes drop to the bottom of the page…and then I frown.
There is no “marriage in the interest of the organization” clause.
My brain glitches as I re-read the page again, over and over. Have I missed it somehow? I flip back to the beginning and read the whole thing through again more carefully, but there’s nothing.
Not a goddamn thing about me marrying Massimo.
I stare at it a moment longer, theorizing that this must be an earlier draft. But then I skip to the last page again, and glance down at the signatures. It’s been signed by my father, and two of his lawyers, on the date of the original signing. Underneath, there are additional signatures from the last time the will was approved and ratified.
What the fuck.
I freeze when I look at the date next to my father’s last signature.
…Three days before he fell into his coma.
My pulse races as I keep staring at the will, not quite sure what the hell this means. Quickly, I snatch the envelope with my name stickied to it and rip it open.
It’s a photocopy of a letter, but it’s not written to me.
It’s to Luca Carveli, Massimo’s father.
Dear Mr. Carveli,
In the age of mobile phones and email, I know this may seem outdated. But, like you, I am an old-fashioned man, and I consider important matters deserving of the respect of a hand-written letter.
While you and I have not always seen eye-to-eye, and indeed, have at times been enemies, I’ve always respected you as a man of business. We are both old-school fighters trying to carve a place in this modern world for our children and their children. Yes, we have had our differences, and bloodshed between us. But business is business, and you have, at least to me, always conducted yourself with honor.
I want to thank you again for your condolences when my first wife passed. And I hope you know I grieved for you when your son died.
I stiffen, staring at the words.
When your son died.
What? Massimo is, unfortunately, still walking amongst us. He’s also an only child.
My eyes dip back to my father’s immaculate penmanship.
I cannot imagine a loss like that, and please know I held you in my thoughts and prayers during that trying time.
Now, regarding your proposal. I have given the matter much thought, and I agree there are many benefits both our organizations could reap from such an arrangement. However, I have always cherished the hope that my daughters would be able to choose their own destiny in life and would not be forced into the sort of arrangements that men like you and I were expected to enter into in our youth.
To that end, and with my most sincere apologies, I cannot agree to your proposal that my younger daughter, Eloise, marry your younger son, Massimo.
I hope that you know this letter comes to you with my most sincere respect and admiration.
Best regards,
Andre LeBlanc
The letter, like the will, is dated three days before my father’s coma.
What. The. Fuck.