The Grand Pact (The Grand Men #1)(96)

I sigh and lower my tone. “You’re okay, Luce, you can breathe. You can breathe,” I plead with her to take a steady breath as I close my eyes. “Listen to me, okay? Listen to my breathing. Take a breath in and slowly let it out. Like this.”

I inhale, then slowly exhale into the phone. “Do it with me, baby.”

I listen as she pulls in a breath and lets it out.

“That!” I snap open my eyes. “Again, keep doing that.”

I do it with her.

“You’re amazing. You’re okay, Luce. I’m right here.”

I listen as the minutes tick by and her breathing starts to even out, her panting turning into soft weeps.

I swallow around the ache in my throat and ask, “Luce?”

“Yeah.”

Fuck.

She’s okay.

She’s okay.

I look to George and nod, my skin prickling as relief settles over me and a different type of adrenaline rushes through my veins.

“I’m okay,” she repeats my internal thought, her voice cracking as she continues to cry.

Silence stretches between us, and it only brings everything back. From the moment I touched down in New York to the moment I was lost inside of her.

“Elliot…I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to hurt—”

I push the phone towards George, and he takes it before I turn.

“Elliot…” he calls to my back.

I walk down the corridor, clenching my eyes tight as stars build behind them. I pull my tie free, feeling like I can’t breathe and needing to be away from everyone.

Elliot: Cancel the meeting

Jasmine: I will reschedule

Jasmine: Do you need anything?

I step into my office and shut the door. My eyes close in reverence as I fight to find my calm.

Fight to find a way out of the hell she’s dragged me back into.

The ache in my throat gets tighter and tighter until it burns so bad it makes my eyes sting.

After a week of nothing, I feel everything unleash.

I pick up the plant in the corner of my office and hurl it into the glass wall.

“Fuck you!” I roar, watching as it shatters the floor-to-ceiling pane.

My chest heaves, and I grab up the coat stand. I slam it into my desk, knocking everything to the ground before my foot connects with the monitor and then again, and again.

“Fuck!”

I feel rage like never before. I want to hurt something, make it broken and battered, no matter how unjust it is.

“Elliot.”

“Get out,” I bellow, and shame fills me, knowing everyone will hear me. I face the only solid wall with my hands on my hips. “Leave me alone, Lowell,” I warn.

“Go home for the day. Lucy—”

“Don’t.” My voice cracks, and I snap my mouth closed, my jaw cracking with the force. “Don’t fucking talk about her.”

“Mate—”

“She found someone else.” I slam my fist into the wall, cracking the plaster. “While I was waiting here every day, trying to give her what I thought she needed!” I hit the same spot, my knuckles splitting as the plaster gives way. “She was fucking somebody else!” I keep going, my eyes blurring as the wall is splattered red. “I didn’t think about anything but her.” I wince as something snaps in my hand. “I didn’t go out. I didn’t sleep and barely ate.” I turn, my chest rising and falling fast as I fucking cry.

Mase stands with his hands joined at the back of his head. He runs his tongue over his teeth at a loss, but his agitation is clear. “Don’t do this to yourself.”

“I hate her. I fucking hate her.”

Mase pulls me into an embrace, clasping the back of my head as I eye the mess on my office floor.

“No, you don’t.”





Lucy





Embarrassed doesn’t even come close to how I feel. Not only did George hear me having a panic attack down the phone, but he also would have heard everything that came after. Or what didn’t come after.

It wasn’t the time to have a conversation with Elliot, but not saying anything when I had him on the phone felt wrong.

I wish I had a better coping mechanism. I wish I’d called Nina, or Mum, or even Maxwell. Anyone who could have talked me around.

Something had me choosing Elliot, though. In that moment, he was all I could think about, and there has to be a reason for that.

I know it only happened because Maxwell is coming home today. He went on a last-minute job for Alec last week, and I know when he gets back, I have to talk to him. With him coming home, Elliot still not returning my calls, and Polly still out at her mum’s, I felt completely off when I left for work this morning. Then, when I arrived and found three of my projects wiped from the files on my computer, something broke inside of me.

Files don’t just disappear.

I went for a walk to calm down, and the further I walked, the worse I seemed to get. Before I could even think about getting on top of my thought process, I was lost to it.

I couldn’t breathe.

I drop my eyes to the kitchen island as my phone lights up with a call. Nina. I’ve replied to one of her texts in the last week, and she’s left me three voice mails which I’ve refused to listen to.