The Grand Pact (The Grand Men #1)(81)

But then, who would pull us back from all the shit?

Who’d save us if it wasn’t for our saviours?

“Luce, I’m worried. I just need to know you’re okay.”

“I’m okay.”

“But you’re struggling?”

I toy with my lips, not knowing what to say. “I feel better now. The last couple of weeks were hard.”

Different.

“Well, that’s good. I can’t wait to see you. Meg is trying to get time off, but it’s not looking good. Scar is going to stay back with Ellis and Ave.”

“It will be really good to see you. Do you remember Max—”

“Shit! Shh…” She tuts. “Ellis is up… Mase!” She calls out then there’s silence. “Damn it. Just a sec, Luce.”

I smile as I hear Ellis’s little sleepy voice paired with his sniffles.

“Back into bed, baby.”

“I go down to Ave room, Mummy.”

“No, Ave is learning to sleep on her own.”

“But she is so far way.”

“Come on, back into bed. You have nursery tomorr—”

The phone disconnects, and I pull it from my ear and check the screen. Something about the call makes me feel a little bit lighter than I have in weeks, and it makes the prospect of Nina coming to New York that much more exciting.

I need her.





Five weeks post-Elliot call


Elliot: I’ve called you seventeen times in the last month. How many times have you called me Luce?

Elliot: I just want to give you a chance to do this on your own Princess: What do you think I’m doing?

Elliot: Being a mad bitch

Elliot: Don’t be shocked. It’s true

Princess: I don’t want to fight about it

Elliot: If I call will you answer?

Princess: Not right now. I’m with friends.

Elliot: Where?

Elliot: Share your location

Elliot: Luce

“One cosmopolitan for the lady.”

I look up from the phone as Maxwell hands me his homemade cocktail. “Thank you, Max.” I take the drink, my phone feeling like a lead weight in my lap. “I feel like we should be helping them,” I say, looking through the terrace windows and into the kitchen where Alec and Polly are washing up our dinner dishes. The terrace spans the entire back of the house, with bifold doors that are currently only half-open.

“You cooked. They clean. It’s the rules.”

“And what did you do?” I ask, my top lip curling as I bring the salted rim of the glass to my lips.

“I washed the kidney beans.”

“Washed the kidney beans,” I repeat with a chuckle. “Of course, you did. Sorry, Nigella.”

He shakes his head laughing, then drops his eyes to his beer as his features warm. “You must be excited to see Nina. Was that who you were texting?”

“No,” I mutter, thinking back to Elliot’s messages.

He’s barely texted for the past two weeks, but he calls almost every night. I want to answer, but I also know that if I do, I’ll let him pick me straight back up. Which gives him too much of an opportunity to drop me again. There was truth in his words, as much as I didn’t want to see it at the time. He was wrong to think he was getting in the way of me living out my dream—he was very wrong about that. But me not living my dream the way I intended to, without restraint, without slipping into routines, and confiding myself to a hotel room for the majority of my nights, he was right about that.

He just failed to see all the ways he made me stronger.

“No, that was my friend, Elliot. And yes, I am excited. I’ve never been away from her for this long. Or my family.”

“Only another ten months, and you’ll be home. Long gone from this place,” he says nonchalantly, clearly trying to make me feel better.

“That’s odd, right?” I say, looking around the room as I rest my head on my hand. “This has been such a life-changing experience already. I met Ralph, and you guys, who I already know will be friends for life, and yet one day, this will all just be a memory. A story I’ll tell people about the time I took a year-long internship in New York. A small scene in maybe my most pivotal chapter yet….”

Maxwell smiles over at me. “You sure know how to get deep inside that pretty head of yours.”

Outta your head.

I crave the words as fiercely as I crave the rasp they’d be spoken with.

“It’s a talent,” I say as I knock back the rest of my cocktail.

“It won’t be as insignificant as you think,” he tells me, and the way he says it has me lowering my glass to my lap again. “You’re pure, Luce. Sweet, kind, and ruthlessly transparent. You wear your heart on your sleeve, yet you have this grit and determination cloaked around you like armour—and you know it. That’s a talent. We might not be in the middle of a war, but I’ve seen grown men lie in their beds weeping while they’ve missed home, and then when they wake up, I’ve watched as they’ve taken it out with them onto the battlefield. It’s dangerous to act with emotion, but it’s human nature. You have a self-awareness that’s hard to come by.”

“Indecisiveness will get you killed,” I recite the words he once spoke to me.