Page 22 of The Forsaken Heir

brIELLE

I was usually off on Mondays. I’d set up a schedule with Lorraine so I’d have a three-day weekend each week.

Usually, I liked this arrangement. I didn’t actually need any money, and the extra day off gave me time to run errands, read a book, see a movie, or do extra chores around the apartment.

That particular Monday morning, however, I did not want an extra day to stew in my thoughts.

I’d spent the rest of Sunday afternoon and evening thinking about him.

It had only been a few hours, but I missed him like crazy.

Not just him, but Vince and Rasp as well.

Delphine could tell something was up with me, but thankfully, she let me wallow in my misery.

Talking about it would only make things worse.

The first thing I did when I woke on Monday was call Lorraine.

“Good morning, this is Sew You Like It. How can I help you?”

“Good morning, Lorraine,” I said, keeping my voice low so Delphine wouldn’t hear me while she made breakfast.

“Elle? Well, good morning. How are you, hun?”

“Uhm, I’m all right. Do you think I could come in today? Pick up a few hours?”

There was a slight pause on the other end of the line, and when Lorraine spoke again, her voice was concerned.

“Sweetheart, are you having money issues?”

“No, no, no,” I said quickly. “It’s not that. I wanted to get out of the house for a bit.”

“Okay,” Lorraine said, but I could hear from the tone of her voice that she didn’t quite believe me.

“We actually could use your help. The new embroidery machines arrived. They got here almost a week early. They’re heavy as all hell.

We could use those muscles of yours. I’m sure the other girls would be happy for the assistance. ”

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” I said, blurting the words out in a rush. “Thanks, Lorraine.”

“All right. See you soon, dear.”

Hopping out of bed, I dressed as quickly as I could, and headed for the front door.

“Where are you going?” Delphine asked. “I made pancakes and bacon.”

Shit .

Pausing at the door, I turned to my old nanny. Strange. Even now that we were simply friends and roommates, I still thought of her as my nanny sometimes.

“Sorry,” I said. “Lorraine called me.” A white lie. “The embroidery machines she ordered came early. She asked if I could help move them into the shop and get the old ones out to the dumpsters. I said I would.”

“Oh,” Delphine said, her shoulders sagging. “I thought we’d have breakfast together.” She gave me that same piercing gaze she used to give me when I was younger and had done something I shouldn’t. “Maybe talk about this mysterious weekend away that you had?”

Striding over, I grabbed a single pancake, stuffed some bacon in the middle, and folded it over like a sandwich.

“Thanks for breakfast,” I said, taking a bite and heading for the door.

“Uh-huh,” Delphine said bitterly as I left the apartment.

When I arrived at the shop, I found it a hive of activity.

The delivery guys had left the huge crates containing the industrial embroidery machines out on the front curb.

A couple of the girls armed with hammers and screwdrivers were trying to pry the wooden sides of the crate open to get to the machines—all while customers were coming and going, and regular folks were trying to make their way down the sidewalk.

“Wow,” I said as I walked up. “These are big.”

Tabitha and Miranda both worked full-time for Lorraine and were usually sweet and jovial, but they were looking frazzled as they worked on the boxes.

Tabitha waved a hammer at the crate. “That jackass dumped them here. Didn’t even bother to offer to take them around back or anything. Ugh.”

“Here, let me help,” I said, taking the hammer from her.

I outweighed both women by at least thirty pounds and towered over them by four inches or more.

That, along with my enhanced strength, allowed me to make quick work of prying the nails from the crate.

Within ten minutes, I had both crates open and helped the women haul them to the back of the store.

“Elle,” Miranda said. “I wish my husband was as strong as you. He can barely get the lid off a pickle jar.”

“Yeah,” I muttered. “I’m a big girl.”

Miranda and Tabitha both looked at me in confusion.

“Are you all right?” Miranda asked.

“I’m fine,” I said, heaving a piece of wood from the crates into the dumpster.

“Okay, then,” she said.

As I helped reorganize the store and the back workroom with the new machines, the other members of the staff kept trying to banter with me.

It was something I typically thrived in.

I loved the funny back-and-forth, the dirty jokes, the sarcastic remarks, the silliness.

Today, I wasn’t in the mood. Every few seconds, an image of Aurelius’s face flashed across my mind and sent me back down the rabbit hole.

Mostly, I was angry at myself. I’d let my guard down for one whole day and fell for the guy.

What was I, some cliché out of a rom-com?

I’d known full well who he was, what he was, yet I still allowed it to happen.

There was no fucking chance that Prince Aurelius Decimus, heir to the dragon throne, would ever want to date a broken wolf shifter.

Regardless of their individual views on me not being able to shift, I was still a wolf.

My family and theirs were, and always had been, at each other’s throats.

It was silly and stupid of me to think anything different might have happened.

Hell, he hadn’t even given me a real kiss when he left.

Maybe I’d imagined all of it. He was probably only nice to me because his friends had snatched me up.

There’d been no connection there, just a prince who felt bad for me. A prince who’d pitied me.

Great.

“Elle, dear?”

Flinching, I turned and looked at Lorraine, gripping the broom tightly. I’d come here to sweep up after bringing the new machines in, but I hadn’t gotten much of anything done.

“Yeah?” I said, hurrying to do a semblance of sweeping.

“Come talk to me,” she said, waving for me to join her in her office.

After closing the door to give us some privacy, Lorraine sat on the edge of her desk.

“What’s the matter, sweetheart? You don’t seem to be your usual self. First you ask to come in on your day off, then you sort of move around here like a robot. The others have noticed how off you seem too.”

I looked down at my feet, toes scraping at the carpet. “I’m a little down. That’s all.”

Lorraine put a hand on my arm, her thin fingers cool on my skin.

“I get it. It’s hard sometimes. The world can be a heavy place.” She nudged my hand. “Why don’t you come have dinner with me tonight? Get your mind off things?”

Having dinner with a friend sounded nice.

I was always so isolated, which made it easier to keep my secrets and prevent the heartache I’d felt upon being exiled.

The same heartache I was feeling now that Aurelius was no longer around.

Sometimes it was easier to be lonely than to put yourself out there and experience the pain that could come.

“I’ve got a lot to do,” I lied. “So much on my plate right now. I’d love to, if I wasn’t busy.”

Lorraine didn’t look offended or put out by me declining her invitation. Instead, she winked at me knowingly. “That’s fine. One of these days I’ll pry you out of that shell of yours.’

“What shell?”

“You know what I mean,” she said with a chuckle. “You use your humor and sarcasm as a crutch. You hide behind it. I could see it the first week you worked here. I’m patient. One day.”

Her directness did break through a bit, and I chuckled.

“You got me,” I said, pointing at her. “You’ve cracked through and seen the truth. I don’t know why I tried to hide it from the great Lorraine McCormick. I should have known. She’s a psychic, and a powerful one, at that.”

Laughing, she made a shooing motion with her hands. “Get out of here. Go do some work and leave an old woman alone, you little smart-ass.”

“Lorraine,” I said, crossing my arms. “I’m not little, and neither is my ass.”

“You know what I mean,” she said and made like she was going to slap my arm as I left.

Our talk improved my mood a bit, and I did a better job of keeping my sadness hidden.

By the time I returned home late that afternoon, though, the heaviness of the day had come crashing back down.

By any estimation, it had been a good day, but as I stepped into the elevator to go up to our floor, my loneliness nearly swallowed me whole.

Delphine noticed it as soon as I walked in. She was pouring a pot of steaming pasta into a colander in the sink to drain when I stepped in. Her eyes narrowed a bit at whatever expression was on my face.

“Rough day?” she asked.

“Sort of,” I muttered as I slumped into a chair at the table. “Thanks for making dinner.”

Delphine placed a plate of spaghetti with meatballs and red sauce before me, along with a basket of rolls and a bowl of salad.

She always made the meals. I could cook, but she almost always took charge and handled it.

I rarely even noticed it anymore. It was just something that happened.

But at that moment, I felt more like a burden to her than a friend.

It was as though I was still a young kid she had to take care of, and that thought filled me with overwhelming guilt.

The only person I could truly be honest and open with, the closest thing I’d had to a mother since being turned away from my own family, and I treated her like a slave.

“Here, let me do that.” I stood quickly and took the block of parmesan cheese and grater from her.

“It’s fine,” she said, nudging me aside.

Flopping back down, I allowed her to do the cheese. When she sat opposite me and began to eat her salad, I poked at the food with my fork. My mind spiraled down deeper with every second.