His Absolute Assignment - Elise's Love Story: The Billionaire's Continuum (#1) (A Contemporary Romance Novel) (19 page)

Lucent hung up the phone and paced through the library.  I watched him out of the corner of my eye.  He glanced over, saw me awake, and smiled.  Not a happy smile, but a weary, tired one.

"Is everything alright?" I asked.

"Hopefully," he said.  "Miss Tanner, we might not have to worry about any of this.  It's possible everything that happened was by random coincidence.  I have my doubts, but the possibility exists."

"Does it have anything to do with what happened before?" I asked.  "With Jessika's office?"  Just a guess, some hunch created by instinct, but I thought I was right.

"It could," he said.  "It's impossible to tell.  Mr. and Mrs. Landseer are safe, though.  The Landseer estate  went through minimal damage, save for what we saw.  The firemen put out the fire in a timely manner, and everything should be fine there.  Most of the data storage equipment is replaceable, and there are backups of the information in other places.  Besides that one hard drive, everyone else was redundant information kept as a safety net.  There are multiple other data storage centers for Landseer Enterprises, so nothing was actually lost except money for replacement equipment and repairs.  Unfortunately that's the least of our worries, though."

"You don't know who is doing this," I said.  "They could do it again."

He nodded.  "Yes.  Or they could plan on doing worse."  He took a deep breath as if he had something more to say.  He breathed out and said nothing.

"Will you come lay next to me again?" I asked.

He walked towards me, stopping by my feet near the edge of the bean bag chair.  Slowly, he turned around and lowered himself into the seat with me.  A careful, measured descent, but the last few inches he bridged with a drop.  He rested next to me, breathing in and out deeply, the crunch of the bean bag making the only sound between us.

"Do you hate me?" he asked after awhile.

"No," I said.  I didn't think I could ever hate him.

"Maybe you should.  You make this so difficult for me."

I ignored him.  Or I tried to, but it didn't work.  Grunting, I shuffled closer to him and stared at him.

"I don't want you to hate me," he added.  "It might be safer, though."

"You think a whole lot," I said.

He laughed at that.  "Yes, perhaps."

"The thing is," I said, "I think sometimes there's a problem with how everyone sees things."

"Oh?" he asked, tilting his head towards me.

"Yes.  Because you hear about good things and bad things, you know?  But I don't know if everything that's good is actually good, or everything that's bad is actually bad.  What if there's more?"

"More what?"

"More everything," I said.  "I don't know what exactly, but just more.  More of all of it.  What if you think you love someone so much, but then you love them more the next day?  Can you love someone so much you hate them?  If you're jealous, I mean?  Maybe the first one is a good love and the second is a bad love, but I don't know if love is good or bad, it's just a thing."

"You have a way with words, Miss Tanner," Lucent said with a lopsided smirk.  "Love is just a thing."

"Whatever.  It is, you know?  It's a powerful emotion, but it doesn't have to be good or bad, it can just be itself.  Love is allowed to be love, because that's what it is.  You can't make love into something else.  It either exists or it doesn't.  And that's what you are, too.  And what I am.  What everyone is."

"I see," Lucent said.

"You know, I stole something once?" I said, biting my lip.  "So we're both the same, I bet.  When I went grocery shopping once, I was at one of those self-checkouts, and the woman before me forgot to get her change.  It was a dollar and thirty-eight cents.  I didn't realize it for a second, but then I saw it and I saw her walking away and I could have said something, but I didn't and then I used it for my own groceries instead.  I stole her money, just like that."

"That's horrible," Lucent said, hiding a smile.

"I felt really bad, though.  I went back to the store after I got home and I tried to give the customer service woman the money back.  I got change just to do it, but she said she couldn't take it.  They had a policy or something.  What kind of policy is that?  She just let me tell her that I stole someone's money and she didn't do anything about it.  I still feel a little bad.  Sometimes I leave money in the change slot when I get groceries, just in case, to try and make up for it."

Lucent opened his mouth to say something, but I stopped him.  I clapped my palm over his lips.

"I know that doesn't make sense, and I've thought about that, too, because what if the person behind me thinks they're stealing from me?  But I don't care.  I like to think maybe they really need the money and I'll be helping them out and it will be nice, so I don't want to hear your logic or any of that, alright?"

Lucent nodded beneath my hand.

"Alright," I said, moving my hand away.

"You have a very interesting perspective on life," Lucent said.

I nodded.  "I think everything is like that.  Maybe we do things we regret, but then maybe we do things to try and make up for it.  Maybe life doesn't work like that, but I think it could.  I don't know why it can't.  Not always, but just sometimes, you know?  It could work, if... if we wanted it to, maybe it could."

We lay there, cuddling.  I closed my eyes, thinking to myself.  The library was dark, all except the lights near the backdoor.  Maybe I should turn those off?  We should go get the box, too.  If it contained everything Lucent said, I didn't think we should just leave it right there on the floor.  That seemed reckless.  Maybe sometimes we were both a little reckless in our own ways.  Who knew?  I sure didn't.

"Is everything going to be fine?" I asked, barely more than a whisper.

"Yes," Lucent said.  "We'll learn more in the morning, but I believe everything should be fine."

"Good," I said, kissing him softly on the cheek.  "Let's go to sleep, then."

"Alright," Lucent said.  "Good night, Miss Tanner."

"Good night, Lucent."

Everything might not be fine.  Lucent could be lying to me.  I didn't know.  I found it difficult to care.  In his arms, soft and quiet, in the middle of the library, I felt like everything was perfect.  I thought this was exactly how everything should be all the time.

Maybe everything wouldn't work out, but it could.  It might.  That was the best I could do right now.  It was what I wanted to believe.

S
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~*~

T
his was a tough story to get through for a lot of reasons.  I struggled at times with what I thought was right and how I wanted it to progress, but I think I managed to do a good job of it.  Mainly, I didn't want to leave anyone out, you know?  If you're reading this as a continuation of The Billionaire's Paradigm, then I wanted to give you a glimpse of some of the in between time with Lucent and Elise.  If you're reading this as a fresh book, without having read The Billionaire's Paradigm, I didn't want you to feel altogether lost and confused.  It was kind of a balancing act, but I think I made it work.

If you haven't read The Billionaire's Paradigm, I'd really suggest it, too!  You can pick up the first part of the series for a small amount to see if you'll like it, or you can get the entire series/full-novel version for a good deal, too.  It's one of my favorite stories and I really enjoyed writing it, and also reading it.

Also!  Going along with that, I wanted to state my plans with this, since I know people like to know about all of that.  I do like to publish longer series (or some might call them serials, although I don't think that's entirely apt for what this is), and currently I'm planning between 5-7 parts for Elise's Love Story.  I don't know exactly how long it'll end up, because sometimes things change depending on what's going on with the characters.  I write about them, yes, but they might have minds of their own on occasion.  I know generally what's going to happen, but why not let them have a little fun once in awhile and move away from the accepted path into unknown territory?  I think it makes the story more fun that way.

Anyways!

Elise's Love Story is going to be a concurrent series, meaning it happens alongside Jessika's Love Story.  Both Elise's and Jessika's stories will happen at the same time, but you don't need to read them both to understand the story.  It's just a fun extra thing I thought I'd try out, you know?  So... when you were reading Elise's story, were you more curious about what happened with Jessika's office and all of that?  You should go check out the beginning of Jessika's Love Story (His Absolute Arrangement), then!  Want to know more about Asher, too?  That's also there.  There's a scene with one of the meetings of all of the Directors and Asher as the CEO, too, which includes Lucent, Alice Hamilton, and a few more characters that weren't introduced here.

Overall, I think it's an interesting concept.  I wanted each character to have their own stories without diluting from that and taking away from their feelings, thoughts, and romance, but I thought it'd be fun to offer a glimpse of both sides, too.  What happened with Jessika after the fire, when she was screaming for Elise and Lucent?  Hm... (Well, you can find all of that stuff out in His Absolute Arrangement: Jessika's Love Story, so I hope you'll check it out!)

If you'd rather just read about Elise, you can certainly do that, too.  There's no right or wrong way to read these.  You've just got a few more options.  I hope you'll love the story enough to want to read everything, though!  It'll be a fun romantic adventure, with some interesting conflict.

Speaking of conflict, for Elise's Love Story, there's going to be a lot more in the future.  What happened here is just the tip of what might have happened in Lucent's past.  Honestly, there's an entire hard drive full of what he's been up to, and the one thing he told Elise isn't really the worst of it.  I don't want to spoil things, but there'll be some really interesting revelations in the second part of Elise's Love Story that I think will intrigue a lot of people.  I'm intrigued by it, at least.

I will add that, personally, I don't think Lucent is a bad person, but I don't really know.  If someone has done bad things, but for good reasons, does that make them bad?  It might.  Illegal stuff is still illegal, right?  Maybe what was revealed here doesn't seem so bad, but then there's a bit more, too.  Lucent is secretive for a reason.  One of the parts I enjoyed most from the beginning of Jessika's Love Story was a scene with Asher and Lucent talking (before Elise goes to Asher's office, so you see a glimpse of the end of that here), and Lucent mentions that he doesn't want to be in a spotlight of his own, he'd rather be in someone else's (which he is, as the Direct of Public Relations for Landseer Enterprises, since he does press releases and is the corporate go-to person for business relations to public ones).

Here's a teaser of that:

"Sometimes it's easier to hide in plain sight.  If a person acts suspicious, they're more likely to be discovered compared to someone who goes about their daily routine, even if they both have something to hide."

That holds true for a lot of people, too.  I don't think it's specifically a Lucent thing, and some of the other characters might be hiding things of their own, too.  Lucent's just the first to articulate it.

One thing I want to share quickly, too, is one of the ideas I had which sort of pushed this entire story forward (the whole thing, Jessika, Asher, Lucent, and Elise, and everyone else in it).  The idea basically hinges on the mention of "calm" at the beginning.

There's a calm before a storm, right?  Except there's also a calm in the eye of the storm.  There's calm before the raging wind and rain, and calm in the middle of it, so...

How do you know which one applies to you?

It might seem obvious if you're in the middle of the storm, since you could see disaster all around you, but I don't know if it's that simple.  Has the storm always existed, surrounding you while you stayed safe in the center, or is this the beginning of it?

I just thought the idea was neat, how there's certain parallels there, but also differences, too.  It's something I wanted to kind of put out there, and while you certainly don't have to consider it and can just enjoy the story for what it is, I think it's an interesting idea and I wanted to share it in case it makes the story more enjoyable for you.

I hope you like the story either way!  There's no right or wrong way to read or interpret any story, so it's fun to see what different sorts of things we can all get out of the same reading, you know?  I think that kind of thing is really neat, at least.

If you liked this story, I'd love if you rated and reviewed it, too!  It helps me out a lot, and I like to read everyone's comments and ideas about the story and the characters.  There's going to be more coming soon, too, so I hope you'll keep an eye out for that, also!  You can email me any time at
[email protected]
if you have questions, too.  I check reviews and read my emails at least once a day, so I'll try to respond to any questions, comments, or concerns as soon as possible.

Thanks for reading His Absolute Assignment!  I hope you loved it!

A
re you curious about the story Elise was writing about how she first met Lucent Storme?

Please enjoy this sample from The Billionaire's Paradigm: His Absolute Purpose, by Cerys du Lys

~*~

S
now fell in fluffy white flakes outside, covering the empty streets in a heavy winter frosting.  I stood inside behind the library's counter, warm, staring at it.  It was a Friday afternoon and the library was almost entirely empty.  No one wanted to go out during the storm, and honestly I couldn't blame them.  I didn't want to go out in the storm either, but this was my job and...