Lucien
At one point of time during the night, he became aware of the sound of a person retching. Still in the throes of his drunken stupor, he went back to his dreamless sleep and only awakened to find himself alone in the great bed when the sun was high in the sky and it was almost mid-morning.
Sitting up, he scowled as he ran his large hand over his face. He had not gone on a drinking binge like this in a long while and it had affected him. His head was pounding and he stood up swearing. He was not getting younger, he thought, scratching his hirsute chest. And noticed his shoes lined up neatly.
His Woman. She had done it; taking care of him when he had been too gone to even shed his shirt. He recalled her kneeling before him, smiling up at him softly as she took off his footwear. Damn, he did not deserve her, he thought, scratching his stubbled jaw, the familiar guilt flooding him.
A feeling of disgust thrummed in his head as he remembered how she had reacted to his confession. The knowledge that Cole was a living, breathing proof of his promiscuous lifestyle before she had made him a better man.
Followed by a faint recollection of her taking him in her arms, dimpling up at him in the soft light of the bedroom lamp, kissing him gently …
It had not been a dream, he thought wonderingly as he noticed the indentation on the pillow beside his; she had shared the bed with him, lain in his arms,.
He smiled, his spirit lightening as he padded naked to the bathroom, his hard wood stiff with desire for her.
As he lay in the tub, soaping himself, he thought of how she had come into the bathroom that fateful night, to find him washing off all traces of the man he had killed. Her expression had made him feel disgusted with himself, a feeling of self-loathing; and he had been cruel when he spoke to her.
Proserpina had not brought up the subject either but her eyes sometimes widened as she looked at him when she thought he was not watching; a kind of terror, a fear in her beautiful eyes that angered him.
An unnamed, unshared antipathy that had created a wall in their relationship. He had not taken her to bed after that night although he ached to be inside her. But he wanted her to accept him for what he was.
She had not asked him WHY he had killed the man; no, she had immediately labelled him a cruel killer in her mind. That had rankled and his anger had solidified.
And then, Cole had happened.
The tension between them had been building up for a long while; the final straw had been her discovering Britney and Cole in the Townhouse.
He sighed as he towelled himself and wrapped his robe about himself.
There was a lot to do today.
To begin with, he had to inform his children and that was not something he was looking forward to…
Sighing, he stood up from the now-cooling water in the tub and began to towel himself briskly. He had work to do.
It was not going to be pleasant, getting his illegitimate offspring to meet his strong-minded six children, seven, including Paddy. Lucien groaned inwardly.
***
Ria
Ria Delano glanced down at her phone as she hurried along the hall to her next class, aware that she was running late. There was a missed call from her father and a few from her mother. That was strange. Why could they have called?
Her mother spoke with her daily, but it was always at night. As for her father, Lucien Delano, he called when he wanted to but she adored him, the powerful Mafia Don.
Her long blonde hair swung in a ponytail as she hurried and she knew many heads turned to look at her. She had inherited her father’s colouring but her mother’s curvaceous body and with her mouth a soft pout, she walked forward, lost in thought. By now, she was used to the attention and her large grey-blue eyes, inherited from her father, were fixed anxiously on the door across the courtyard as she hurried to the lecture hall. She was already late for the lecture but getting from the library had been delayed because of that dreadful flirt, Dawson. Luke Dawson imagined that he was God’s gift to mankind and he must have slept with every girl on campus.
Ria was one of the few who had missed getting into his bed. She had dodged his attempts to seduce her; she was here for a purpose and she was going to be here for a year and a half for that, she thought determinedly, her small pointed chin jutting out as she shook her head in disgust, reliving the encounter she had just had with the creepy Dawson.
When he saw that his charm was not really getting him anywhere, he had tried to use muscle but in a crowded library with Ms Hansen watching him eagle-eyed, it had not been easy and Ria had slipped off.
She went under the name of Ria Winters on campus, having chosen to take her mother’s maiden name. The unpleasant fame that had followed her wherever she went using her father’s credentials had made Lucien Delano agree that the children were better off using his wife’s maiden name. Ria knew that a few of her father’s men were on campus, keeping a discreet eye on her. She slid her eyes to the right and felt slightly puzzled. Where was Eduardo? The grinning, freckled-faced youth who was her bodyguard, had turned out to be a sharpshooter like Uncle Schwartz. But strangely enough, he was nowhere to be seen. And that never happened!
He was taking the same course as she did and generally hung around with a cheeky grin, plainly in sight. She had seen him a the library when she was slipping out. but that was a short while ago.
Her father had pulled a few strings and had seen to it that Eduardo enrolled at the same University and was only a shout away from her all day.
Even as she took the corner at a jog, hurrying along, for she did not want to be publicly upbraided by Professor Archer, a particularly unpleasant woman with a particularly nasty tongue. She almost collided with a man. Stepping back as his hands reached out to steady her, she raised her eyes to murmur thanks, and her breathing came to a halt.
Philippe Diaz stood before her.
Philippe, the boy she had grown up with, the gardener’s son and the man she had fallen in love with. The man who had also broken her heart, she thought bitterly, her eyes automatically taking on the glacial expression so similar to her father’s.
She had loved him, had wanted him to be her first lover. Although, of course, she barely met him after her father, the formidable Lucien Delano, had officially inducted young Philippe into his business, his mob business that was. The young man was to be his future Enforcer, she had overheard her father telling her mother one evening.
But finding him in the arms of another woman, sated with sex; that had brought her dreams crumbling. She avoided him after that.