“The room across the hall from the master suite in her apartment.”
Understanding dawned. “Oh, the locked door.”
Liam frowned. “Locked? That’s odd.”
Odd, indeed. It would seem Lucy was keeping more secrets than the ones I’d already uncovered. When we returned home, my objective would be to discover exactly what she was hiding, and if somehow that led to the destruction of our courtship, then that would just be a happy accident.
Chapter 15
Preston
We were home atlast, but the damage caused by a month away was already done. Most of my projects were handed off to other attorneys in my department, and I was left with fluff projects that required very little oversight.
The writing was on the wall—they were preparing for my inevitable departure. It was no secret that I was involved with Lucy, and as much as I hated it, I couldn’t blame them for setting up a contingency plan.
I wasn’t ready to wave the white flag just yet.
Lucy was back to ignoring me, which was fine by me. I was busy observing the pattern of her routine, trying to find a way to catch her going into that locked room, and dealing with another one of her antics trying to drive me away would have only stolen my focus. Time was running out; I couldn’t afford unnecessary distractions.
We’d been home for a few days, and each night, I sat beside my bedroom door, listening to her movements. After dinner, shewould watch TV for an hour or so, then go into her bedroom, where she’d stay for an additional hour before venturing back out. Each night, I watched the shadow her body created beneath the crack in my bedroom door—she was checking to see if I was still awake.
Once satisfied that she was the only one awake, I heard her pad almost silently to the door of the suite before latching it behind her. If Liam’s intel was correct, she was venturing across the hall into her locked workspace.
A flicker of doubt crossed my mind. What if she was sneaking out to Desire every night? The thought made my blood boil. Talking myself off the ledge, I clung to the fact that we had only crossed paths once in all the years I’d been a member. If she were a nightly visitor, I would have noticed her long before now.
After four days of observing Lucy’s unchanging nightly routine, I decided to make my move. Listening intently by my door once again, I waited just long enough to hear her unlatching the entrance to the suite before I snuck out. Moving swiftly through the sitting room, I caught up to her just as she was about to shut the door across the hallway.
Reaching out, I gripped the edge of the door, halting its progress, startling Lucy enough that she screamed. Forcing the door open, unsure what I was about to uncover, I braced myself for Lucy’s wrath at the intrusion on her privacy.
What I didn’t expect to find was four mannequins in the middle of the room, each showcasing dresses in various stages of completion. Three of them were the same color blue as Lucy’s eyes, but one stood out from the rest. Stark white, still in the process of being pieced together, there was no denying what I was looking at—a wedding dress.
Dumbfounded, I asked quietly, “What’s going on here?”
With fire in her eyes, Lucy seethed, “What does it look like?”
My chest tightened as panic set in, but I managed to force out, “Who—whose wedding dress is that?”
Crossing her arms over her chest, Lucy looked at me like I was stupid. “Amy’s.”
Relief washed over me like a tidal wave. If she had said it was her dress, that would mean she was resigned to our mutual fate, rendering any last-minute Hail Mary attempt to stop this madness futile. Lucy giving up hope with weeks to spare would be catastrophic; her acceptance of our union would be impossible to overcome.
Walking further into the room, I recognized many of the same items she kept in her main studio in Milan. There was a large table with cut pieces of fabric, a raised circular podium—this one on wheels as opposed to affixed permanently to the floor—and a sketch desk cluttered with dozens of papers featuring dresses obviously of Lucy’s creation.
Liam wasn’t kidding when he said Lucy was a workaholic. I knew for a fact that she spent most of today at the capital city’s largest library, and I could only imagine how exhausted she was from pretending to be the gracious princess she portrayed to the public. Now, here she was, past midnight, working on Amy’s wedding dress. It didn’t take much to figure out the blue dresses were for the bridesmaids.
“You’re working on this all by yourself?” I questioned.
Lucy was instantly defensive. “Why? Don’t think I’m good enough?”
That took me aback. Given our history, it made sense she would think I didn’t value her work, but she couldn’t be more wrong. Spending those weeks in Milan, I’d be a fool not to admit she was talented. I could see why she was willing to fight for her career—her company—to the death.
That should have been my first warning sign that I was fighting a losing battle, but I was too stubborn to accept defeat. Just like her.
Reminding myself that we were at war, I quipped, “Don’t you have people you can hire to do this?”
Mouth dropping open in shock, Lucy stared at me. Finally, she found her voice, stating angrily, “No.”
I mocked her. “What? Run out of money?” I knew that was the furthest from the truth, but my goal was to push her over the edge, and I could sense I was close.
