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He noticed her the second after she noticed him They stared at each other in silence Søren held so more than a silk handkerchief And yet so so much more than that

Fro but a pair of jeans, only halfway buttoned

"Bite-size?" Lachlan asked

Lachlan looked at Søren Søren glanced at Lachlan before looking at her

"Eleanor?" Søren asked

"Fuck you …" she breathed And before Søren or Lachlan could say another word, she ran from them She flen the stairs and stopped abruptly when a man appeared in front of her He blocked her path and for a moment she could only stare at hith black hair with a roguish wave In another time and place she would have stared at hiave her a serous ser and shook it in a classic tsk-tsk motion

"No children allowed" He practically purred the words, but she heard the underlying threat For one briefhis beautiful face off Instead she pushed past hi to ashes behind her She ith grief and sha fury She’d never felt like a bigger idiot in her life All this tiround Søren walked on She’d offered him her body and he’d turned her down because of that collar around his neck And it was all a lie He wasn’t some sort of saint He was another sinner like everybody else And he’d fked that beautiful woman because why not? Who wouldn’t? Eleanor felt so stupid she could alh she didn’t knohat to do or where to go, Eleanor kept walking She ht freeze to death between here and Wakefield but what did it matter? She almost didn’t care if she froze Her father had hit her, slapped her right in the face And then she’d seen the one man on earth she trusted with her life in a bedrooy

She wanted to cry, needed to cry, but she was too cold Her body shook so hard she thought she’d chip a tooth from how brutally hard her teeth chattered Maybe she could find a police station and soet hoo she hated the very sight of cops Now she’d hug one if he so much as stopped and asked her if she was okay The te everyone fleeing indoors She had the street to herself

"Eleanor?" She heard her naain and didn’t She stopped and turned around A silver Rolls-Royce had pulled to the curb, and next to it stood Søren

"What do you want?" she demanded from fifteen feet away She refused to take a step toward him, was too cold and too scared to take a step back

"Get in the car We’ll talk about this"

"Go away"

"I’ll take you horees out"