Landon postponed the monthly dinner until the following night, considering Elise’s late return to the island. For the past few hours since Liam left, restless energy plagues me. I can’t sit still, can’t eat, and I can’t stop running through various scenarios, each one worse than the last.
Faye said Elise was ill.
The type of sickness that requires treatment off the island? If that’s the case, then her return should be a good sign, right?
But what if it’s not a good sign? What if she’s coming back to say goodbye? What if she’s going home afterward because of some horrific life-threatening illness?
I move back to the window seat and tuck my legs under me, determined to settle in for the duration of this nail-biting wait. The last of the sun’s rays cast an amber glow over the water, causing the shadows in the room to deepen. I don’t bother turning on a lamp.
When Landon enters sometime later, Elise in tow, he finds me fretting in the dark. Switching on a light, he lets the door shut with an anticlimactic click.
As if this moment isn’t one I’ve been waiting for all day.
I stand, opening my arms to Elise, and she rushes into them. “Are you okay?” I squeeze her for several long moments before pulling back to inspect her. “Faye said you’ve been ill, but she wouldn’t tell me anything else. I’ve been going crazy with worry.”
Elise leads me to the group of couches in the middle of the room. The French doors still stand open, and a chilly breeze drops the temperature inside by several degrees. Landon shuts out the cold before settling onto the couch across from us, Elise taking the cushion by my side.
“I’m sorry for the secrecy,” she says, playing with the ends of her short blond hair. “I wanted you to hear it from me.” Tears collect in her big blue eyes, and I take her hand in mine, panic building in my chest.
“I’m here,” I choke. “Whatever it is, I’m here.”
“While you were with Mr. Bordeaux—” Her voice breaks, emotion clogging her throat. “Remember how I was seeing Jerome?”
“I remember.” Between my two ladies, Elise was the most excited to come to Zodiac Island. A romantic to the core, she’d had hope in her eyes and innocent dreams in her heart. I used to be that innocent.
Before Liam and his tantalizing touch.
Before Mr. Bordeaux and his cruel conditioning.
Before Sebastian introduced me to the kind of soul-consuming lust I thought only existed in fiction.
“What happened, Elise?”
“Jerome, he…he…” Tears spill over her cheeks, and the rest of her words come out garbled, strangled by pain.
A cold fist of horror grips my heart. “Elise, he what?” Though I utter the question, deep down I know the answer. Her face is awash with trauma, her eyes void of the innocence that once lived there.
“He raped me.” She exhales a breath, and I wonder if that’s the first time she’s had the courage to use that word.
I gather her into my arms, and her shoulders shake from the force of her despair. As my lady falls apart, hot drops of distress soaking my sleeve, I turn my attention to the man watching us with grief in his eyes. The rigid set of his jaw spells rage.
“I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for you,” I say, rubbing her back.
“I said no,” she sobs. “It wasn’t my fault.”
“Of course it wasn’t your fault.” I veer back and meet her eyes. “Do you hear me? It wasn’t your fault.”
Wiping her cheeks, she nods.
“Has he been punished?” I direct the question at Landon.
A tick goes off in his jaw. “He will be.”
“Why hasn’t he been arrested yet?”
“Elise didn’t tell anyone at first.” He hesitates. “Now there’s more to consider.”
“What is there to consider?” I try to temper my harsh tone but fail. “He sexually assaulted her and needs to be punished.”
“There’s no question of that.” He exchanges a glance with my lady, and she gives a resigned dip of her chin. “Elise has something else to tell you.” Landon leans forward, hands clasped between his knees, and I feel like we’re back in the library earlier today, in the moments before he dropped the truth bomb on me.
“There’s more?” I ask, looking to Elise for answers.
Another dip of her chin, then the whispered confession that changes everything. “I’m pregnant.”
In the quiet seconds that follow, the weight of her words settle over the three of us with stifling reality.
“Is that why Faye said you were ill?”
Elise nods. “Morning sickness.”
“Why did you leave the island?”
“I was going to abort, but…” She looks away in shame. “I couldn’t go through with it.”
I squeeze her hand. “You decided to keep it?”
“Yes.”
“You have my full support.”
“Thank you.”
“I still don’t understand why Jerome isn’t in jail.”
“No one can know about the assault,” Landon speaks up.
I gape at him. “Why not? He can’t get away with this!”
“Trust me, my queen. By the time I’m through with him, he’ll wish he were in jail.”
“So why the secrecy?”
“If Jerome learns of the pregnancy, he could demand to marry her.”
“So she’ll say no, and this time he’ll have no choice but to listen.”
“You know better than most how the men on this island honor the word no.” Frustration hardens his tone. “Jerome is a powerful man with strong ties to our government. Now that she’s carrying his child, he has a legal right to claim her as his wife.”
“Then do something about it! Elise can’t marry that monster.”
A lengthy beat passes as we stare each other down. “I am doing something, Novalee. That’s why I’m going to marry her myself.”
His announcement renders me speechless as I glance between the two of them.
“It’s the best way to protect her,” he says. “As a member of the Brotherhood, no one will dare contest me when I say the child is mine.”
I turn to my lady. “This is what you want?”
Cheeks flushing, she sends Landon a furtive look. “Yes.”
“I don’t know what to say.” I’m grateful to him for looking after Elise, especially since Mr. Bordeaux forbade me from being there for her myself, but my experiences so far have taught me to use extreme caution when trusting the men in this tower.
“We’d like your blessing.” The tender look he gives Elise says more than words alone.
“Then you have it.”
Landon nods. “Good. We’ll also need your support when we announce our engagement to the Brotherhood.”
“Of course. Whatever you need.”
“Then it’s set. Tomorrow night, I’ll announce during dinner.” Landon rises, his attention on my lady. “But first, the queen and I need to talk to someone.”