“TV,” she whined.
“I’ll turn it down. Needs to be turned down anyway — we got to talk.”
Hellen reached out and snatched the Oreo out of his hand. “My cookies,” she snapped, shoving the whole thing in hermouth and munching away as she turned her back to him, preparing to go back to sleep.
“No, no, no. I need you to wakeup and talk to me.”
“Go away.”
“I’m serious, Hellen. We need to talk.”
With her back to him, her eyes popped open, and she stared straight ahead, realizing he’d used her full name, and all sense of teasing had left his tone of voice. He was leaving — that’s all there was to it. He was trying to give her whatever excuse he’d come up with to justify his leaving her. She just barely shook her head, while at the same time refraining from calling him everything but a child of God for promising her just yesterday that he wasn’t going anywhere. “You know what, Lucien? It’s fine. Just go.”
“What’s fine?”
“You’re trying to tell me you’re leaving, and you’re making the effort to justify it. You don’t need to. I don’t want anybody that doesn't want me at least equally. I don’t need excuses. Just go.” She heard the sound of a crinkling package as he wrapped up the cookies in their torn cellophane wrapper and set them aside.
“First, don’t go assuming you know what I’m doing or thinking. Second, I made you a promise — have you forgotten that?”
“No, I have not. And it’s the main reason I don’t want to hear any of your bullshit. Just find your way out the same way you arrived.”
“Hellen, I’m not going anywhere. At least not willingly. I’m trying to tell you a few things about me that you really need to know. An excuse for leaving you isn’t one of them.”
Hellen’s brow wrinkled as she processed his words, and she finally turned over and propped herself up against the headboard again as she looked begrudgingly at him.
“Ready to talk now?” he asked, his expression just this side of breaking into a grin.
“If we must. It’s too early, though.”
“It’s seven thirty in the morning!”
“Yeah, it is. Why?”
“Because the sun came up. Because it’s worth getting up in the morning and having a great day after spending the early morning watching the sun come up.”
Hellen growled. She literally growled.
Lucien laughed, that full bodied, rich, sensual laughter that made every female within earshot turn to look at him as their pheromones zeroed in on him.
“I thought I told you not to laugh like that anymore.”
“I’m just laughing, cher. There’s nothing else to it.” He leaned over and pecked a quick kiss to her brow, then laughed even harder when she raised her hand and wiped off his kiss with the back of her wrist.
“What do you want to talk about?” she grumbled.
“I just want you to listen. If you want to talk, too, that’s fine. If not, just listen to me.”
“Fine. Talk.”
“First, I just want to drive home a point I made yesterday. I’m not going anywhere. I had planned to. I had hoped to. But it’s not working out like I expected.” He waited until she turned her head just slightly to meet his gaze, and his tone softened. “I need to be near you. I don’t want to be anywhere you’re not. I wasn’t just talking for the sake of talking; I’m not leaving you. I’m not leaving here. It would help my confidence a lot if you’d stop questioning me and believe that.”
“Don’t think you have any issues with your confidence. You’re quite arrogant, actually.”
Lucien grinned at her. “Want to know why you found me the way you did?”
Hellen pushed herself up a little straighter. “If you’re ready to tell me.”
“I really don’t want to tell you. But your dad already knows, and I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before everybody else does, too, and I think you should know before they do.”
