“Perhaps, but perhaps not.” Lamberti stood tall, coming around the desk with his bulging gut preceding him. Closing in on Elena as she made her way backwards towards the door.
“Good day, Mr. Lamberti,” Elena said all in a rush as she swung the door open and staggered back out into the lobby. Only two of her guards remained and she beelined for their safety as Lamberti continued his lumbering chase.
She breathed a sigh of real relief as they closed in around her, their cold glares driving Lamberti back. The confusion on his face was comical as he looked from the guards to Elena and back again. Had he thought her alone and unguarded? Or perhaps only with Jamie to help her still.
Had Leon been right all along?
Lamberti had been nothing but callous and cold at her one and only meeting with him. He’d offered no recourse for her dilemmas and shrugged away all her problems. Now that she was to be mated to Leon Marchetti, it seemed his tune had changed, but she didn’t understand why. He should be more afraid of Leon than he’d ever been of Valente Costanzo.
“Car’s downstairs, ma’am,” the leader murmured to her as he held his arm out for her to precede him out of the office doors.
“Day or night, Miss Costanzo,” Lamberti called after them.
The guards said nothing, keeping close to Elena even after they’d entered the elevator. Their presence had everyone giving her a wide berth, not a soul daring to impede their exit as she hurried towards the waiting SUV.
Clambering up into the seat, Elena latched her belt with a shuddering exhale. Her nerves still wouldn’t stop, fingers trembling as she shoved the lock down on her door.
“I still have to get clothes,” she whispered into the tense stillness of the car as the one driving pulled away from the curb.
“One stop,” the leader grumbled.
Elena agreed with a slow nod, huddling around her middle as her mind replayed this visit with Lamberti. He’d acted like a man obsessed, and with no reason she could discern. She’d made no comment or move to attract his attentions. He’d been the aggressor from the moment she’d walked into the office.
Dragging in a long breath, Elena startled. Bringing her arm up to her nose, she took another sniff.
“No,” she said, so loud it scared her even though it was her own voice. “Home. Take me home.”
“Finally,” the one driving muttered, tires squealing as he veered into the next lane and executed a tight turn.
Gods, but she had been so stupid! She’d forgotten that she’d had to use Leon’s soap the night before when he’d bathed her, the flat herbal scent she was so used to nowhere to be found on her skin. Elena walked blocks, exerting herself so that a layer of fine perspiration decorated her skin. Amplifying her scent and broadcasting it to anyone who had a nose to smell it.
More important, she hadn’t taken a suppressant in days.
She’d been so eager to enact her plan and get her money from Lamberti, she’d forgotten them in her haste.
No wonder she’d felt as if she’d come alive under Leon’s touch. Why he’d even kissed her in the first place.
Panic settled deep into her bones as she wished the car to go faster. To get her to their destination so she could rectify the situation at once.
As soon as the vehicle slowed at the top of the drive, Elena sprung out. Dashing inside of the house, she rushed up the stairs and into the bedroom. Falling to her knees in the closet, she dug through her bags for the small yellow bottles holding her prescription.
She couldn’t find them.
Dumping out the meager belongings, Elena riffled through the few contents. Turning pockets inside out, ripping open zippers, they were nowhere to be found. She left everything on the ground as she ran to the bathroom, dumping the contents of the drawers she’d hidden her things away in. No innocuous amber plastic came under her searching fingers.
Without them she’d go into heat. He’d be able to claim her in every meaning of the word. She would be helpless against him. A pawn in his game.
Elena sobbed as she crumpled to the floor, clutching the empty toiletries bag to her chest as she realized he must have taken them just for that reason. He wouldn’t have to go through the time and expense of supplying her with hormones as was normally done. Her body would lapse into instinct in a matter of days, maybe a week at most. Elena would beg him to sate her body’s hunger by the end of it.
Bowing over her legs, she muffled her tears.
FOURTEEN
ELENA
That night, Elena sat stiff backed and morose at dinner. She poked at her food, her hunger vanishing at the faint hint of evergreens that reached her from the other side of the table.
“You didn’t put your pin in,” Leon said, stabbing his steak with far more force than was necessary.
