When I'm with You (Because You Are Mine #2)(110)
“It wasn’t a problem. Denise is covering things at Fusion,” Elise assured. Elise took Francesca’s hands in her own when they broke apart. “I can’t believe there’s already been a funeral.”
“It was a memorial service more than a funeral. Apparently, Helen had made a request during one of her more lucid periods to be cremated. I had just heard from Lucien early in the morning that Helen had passed away, and before I had a chance to make some last-minute plans at school and pack, Anne was calling to say they’d already held a service and not to come.”
Elise’s heart leapt at the mention of Lucien’s name. Elise repressed an urge to ask a slew of questions about Lucien. She knew from those messages he’d visited Helen Noble in the hospital with Ian, but she had no idea about the outcome of those meetings. Once again, she experienced that terrible feeling of being an outsider.
Alone.
“Don’t you see, Elise?” Francesca asked her miserably. “Ian didn’t give me a chance to even get to the service because he doesn’t want me there. Why is he avoiding me this way?”
Elise shook her head, determined not to show her worry about Ian’s actions regarding Francesca. Although Francesca had immediately flown to London when she’d heard Ian was there, she’d only stayed for three days. After learning that a professor refused to extend a deadline for a project, Ian had insisted she return to Chicago, assuring her he’d contact her when things got worse with his mother. Apparently, Ian hadn’t done that, however, and that’s what Francesca was so upset about.
“He’s confused and grieving. Give him time,” Elise assured, taking Francesca’s hand and leading her to a salon that led off the main gallery hall. “Sit down. I’ll get you something to drink,” she said, spying a pitcher of water and some decanters on a sideboard.
“But I’m his fiancée, aren’t I? I’m supposed to be with him while he’s going through something so terrible. When Anne called and said I shouldn’t come, she said Ian had to leave for an important business crisis in Germany. She was being elusive on purpose. I know it,” Francesca said shakily as Elise handed her a glass of water.
“Ian doesn’t strike me as the type of man who would want you to see him while he’s vulnerable.”
“Well too bad!” Francesca blurted out. “You can’t have a relationship with someone and avoid that person just because you feel vulnerable. Of course he feels bowled over after his mother’s death . . . after what Lucien told him. Who wouldn’t? All the more reason I should be by his side right now. But he’s barely said two words to me since he stormed out of here that night, even while I was in London. He kept insisting I shouldn’t come until Helen had passed. But when Helen did go, he never told me! I’m furious at him,” she said, her voice breaking in anguish. “And I’m sick with worry. What in the world is he thinking?”
“I wasn’t defending him, Francesca. I just meant, it’s not too shocking that he’s throwing up some walls at this point.”
“I have this awful feeling he’s going to leave me.”
Elise’s mouth fell open in surprise at Francesca’s stark declaration. Francesca had never struck her as being prone to hysterics. “Ian leave you? No . . . never. He adores you. He worships the ground you walk on.”
Francesca shook her head as if she couldn’t adequately convey her fear. She set down the water on the coffee table untouched.
“You don’t know Ian. You don’t know what a nightmare this all has been for him. It’s bound to send him into a crisis,” she said hoarsely. She blinked and brought Elise into focus. “It’s been awful for you, too. You knew more about Lucien and Helen than Ian and me on that night, but the rest of it—the part about Trevor Gaines—was a shock to you as well.”
Elise nodded grimly. “And Lucien has been just about as uncommunicative with me as Ian has been with you. Lucien has a good excuse, though. He’s got to be furious at me for forcing the issue that night. He’s always considered me impulsive . . . a loose cannon. I had to go and prove him right, didn’t I?”
Francesca patted her hand where it lay on her knee. “Lucien made a conscious decision that night to tell Ian. You didn’t force him to it, Elise. You acted from the heart. That’s not a bad thing. You were worried Lucien would never get a chance to find out about his biological mother with Helen so ill.” Her expression lightened slightly. “Oh . . . and Lucien told me good news about that when I spoke to him early this morning. Has he told you, by chance?” Francesca asked delicately.
“No. What is it?” Elise asked, the back of her neck prickling with awareness.
“Helen Noble was able to give him his mother’s name. At first, she couldn’t. She was barely conscious when they first arrived. But she rallied just a bit before she passed and became somewhat lucid. Ian and his grandparents got to say their good-byes.” A sad expression settled on her face. “Apparently, even though she was so weak, and so easily disorganized from her psychosis, she seemed to recognize something about Lucien. It sounds as if she’d been very fond of Lucien’s mother, because she smiled and reached for him, and said his mother’s name. It’s funny, the memories that can linger so sharply, even in a mind that was so ravaged like Helen’s.”