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CHAPTER 24

LIZZIE

M y eyes opened with a start. There was a figure standing over our bed… with a gun.

It was her.

The blonde.

Looking down at me with disgust, she slowly shook her head. “I warned you. He was mine.” Her voice had a strange, detached singsong quality.

My body trembled. “Please, don’t kill us,” I begged.

“Us?” she screeched. “There is no us!” Gesturing to Richard’s sleeping form with the gun, she said, “There is him and me . There was never a him and you. You’re an imposter. A poser. You don’t belong in his world. It was always supposed to be just him and me.” Pulling back the slide on the automatic handgun, she sneered, “And soon there will only be me.”

Throwing myself in front of Richard’s body, I cried, “You can’t kill him. I love him!”

She pushed out her lower lip in an exaggerated frown as she pretended to cry. “Isn’t that sweet? The little birdie thinks she’s in love.” She wiped imaginary tears off her cheek with the muzzle of the gun.

It was strange; I still couldn’t see her face clearly.

Just that icy blonde hair with long bangs that covered her eyes. I was certain she was the woman who had attacked me on the street that day and at that dressmaker’s shop. She must have been the maid who had handed me my purse with the bloody feather. I couldn’t be certain but the day I had found the dead bird in the car, when I thought I had seen Richard walking away, I had a vague memory of a tall blonde bumping into me and forcing me to drop my portfolio. Perhaps it was her even then?

Had she been stalking me this entire time?

She was obviously completely unhinged. I still didn’t know what she meant to Richard. Why was he refusing to mention her to the police? Was he trying to protect her? Or perhaps he didn’t want the police to know about her because he wanted to handle the situation in his own way, without the authorities interfering? That certainly sounded more like Richard.

There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that while I might not know why he was protecting her, I knew he didn’t love her. He loved me… and only me.

There was something else I knew with a certainty… she would kill us both.

Why wasn’t Richard waking up? Where was our security? How could she have possibly snuck into the house again? Someone must be helping her get close to us. Harris? I remembered he was nowhere to be found in the crucial moments after Richard got shot. Had Harris been helping her this whole time?

“I saw you at the wedding. You know, kinky whores who play sex games and like to take it up the ass really shouldn’t wear white,” she taunted in an odd conspiratorial whisper.

I could feel Richard stir behind me.

Her face was blurry and contorted as she cocked her head at an odd angle and looked past me to Richard’s shifting form.

“Elizabeth?” His voice was gravelly with sleep as he rolled over to face me.

Raising my arms, I held my hands out, palms up, in a placating gesture. “Please! Please don’t do this!”

“Elizabeth?” Richard’s voice became more insistent.

“You’ve left me no choice,” she said as she leveled the gun straight at me.

“Elizabeth! Elizabeth!”

“No! No! No!” I screamed.

“I think you’ll look much better in red,” she cackled.

“Elizabeth!”

I began to shake violently as I rocked back and forth.

“Elizabeth!”

In the unlit room, you could see the bright flash from the muzzle as the loud report from the gunshot reverberated around the room.

“No!” My shrill scream drowning out the echo of the gunshot in my head.

“Elizabeth! Wake up!”

Looking down, a sickening crimson stain spread across the center of my chest, soaking my white silk nightgown.

“Elizabeth! Baby, wake up!”

Suddenly, I was standing at the altar in Westminster, staring at Richard. His face contorted with pain and shock. The same crimson stain was blossoming across his chest.

“No! No! No!”

“Elizabeth!”

I couldn’t stop screaming even after I realized it was a dream.

After shaking me awake, Richard snatched me to his chest, holding me tight with one arm wrapped around my back and the other pressing my head next to his beating heart. He was rocking me as he just kept saying over and over again, “Don’t cry, baby. I’m here. I’m here.”

“It felt so real,” came my muffled reply as I buried my face in the crook of his neck, inhaling the warm familiar sandalwood scent of his cologne.

Rubbing my back in soothing circles, he stroked my hair as he kissed my forehead. “I know, my love, but I’m here and you’re safe. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

It had been a week since our wedding. The night terrors had started a few days later. It was always the same indistinct face with blonde hair preying on my insecurities about Richard before she fired the gun. I felt terrible waking Richard up with my screams each night, but he never complained. Each time he held me close and soothed me till I fell back to sleep.

As he continued to hold me, he leaned back into the pillows. I snuggled into his side with my leg over his and my arm wrapped around his lean waist. Richard played with a lock of my hair as we both just stared at the dying embers of the fire.

“Do you think we could get away somewhere?” I asked in a hushed whisper as the tips of my fingers caressed the hairs on his chest, careful to avoid his bullet wound.

I needed to get away from here… away from the nightmares. I wanted to go someplace where it was truly just Richard and me and no one else. Someplace she couldn’t find us.

“We haven’t discussed a honeymoon yet. Where would you like to go?” he offered.

I thought about it a minute. The thought of that woman still out there, stalking us, chilled me to the bone. The only thing that seemed to comfort me was the warmth of Richard’s arms. “How about someplace warm?”

Richard was quiet for a minute, then he said, “I own a private island in Fiji. Would you like to go there?”

An island sounded perfect; leave it to Richard to suggest just what I wanted and needed.

Leaning up on my elbow, I pushed my hair out of my face and looked at him. “I don’t think I will ever get used to you casually saying things like ‘I own a private island,’ as if you were mentioning some timeshare condo in Florida.”

Richard chuckled. “You do realize I’m very rich, right?”

Pushing my nose in the air, I flipped my hair and rolled my r’s as I teased him with a fake high-society voice. “Darling, but of course! Don’t you know I only married you for the money?”

Richard flipped me onto my back. Pushing his knee between my legs, I opened for him as he settled his hips against my own. I could already feel the hard press of his cock. “Is that the only reason why you married me?” he asked, his voice a seductive low growl as he ran his lips up my neck to my earlobe.

My back arched as I dug my nails into the hard muscles of his upper arms. Breathlessly, I conceded, “Well… it’s not the only reason.”

Richard then chased away the evil dreams.

Richard

It was a game well played, in my not-so-humble opinion.

Of course, I could have just taken her to the island, willing or not, but where was the fun or challenge in that? It was so much more satisfying, knowing she had asked to be taken there. I would remind her of that fact when she begged and pleaded to be returned to civilization.

The island was her idea.

Her choice.

I had accomplished the impossible, with only a minor sacrifice on my part. I touched the healing star-shaped scar in the middle of my chest.

The risk was worth it.

I had realized marriage, a piece of paper, would not be enough for me… she needed to be bonded to me in blood. Especially since Elizabeth had a troubling way of doubting my love for her and overthinking my motives. I couldn’t risk that she would eventually start remembering the truth. Nothing intensified a person’s feelings… or clouded their thinking and judgement… more than the threat of the death of someone they loved.

By her steady breathing, I could tell my little bird had fallen back to sleep in my arms. Tilting my head to the side, I watched her face, soft in sleep. Careful not to wake her, I stroked her cheek with the backs of my knuckles.

Mine.

This precious creature was all mine.

Yes, it was a game well played.

Once the villain, I had become the hero of her story.

La plus belle des ruses du diable est de vous persuader qu’il n’existe pas.