Chapter 366

“Just five minutes, then you can talk to your dad!” Ella calls cheerfully to Ariel as she slips back into the bedroom, pulling the door carefully shut behind her. But the moment she turns back to Cora, all kindness slips away from her face.

“I’m going to murder that stupid boxer.”

“Oh no,” Cora sighs, her shoulders slumping.

“Ella, can you please come over here?” Dominic sighs. “It’s very hard to hear you –“

Ella sighs and storms over to the bed, sitting down hard next to her sister. “You were right, Roger.”

“Usually my four favorite words,” Roger sighs, shaking his head. “Though not today.”

“Tell me,” Dominic orders, stern.

“I looked,” Ella says. “Her bond with Jackson is quite strong – bright and shining. But next to it, the one with Luca – it’s still there. Not broken, not disappeared. Just ragged as all hell and stretching out towards him, wherever he is in the world.”

Dominic groans, devastated by the news, and ducks his face into his hands.

“Oh, Luca’s in the city,” Cora murmurs innocently.

Ella glances at her with a frown but turns back to the tablet when Roger speaks.

“Is it not better, in some ways?” Roger asks, hesitant. “She’s not broken by this – she’s not ill like Dominic was. I’m not trying to downplay what she’s been through, I’m just saying –“

“No, I’m glad she’s not going through what I want through,” Dominic says, raising his head. “I just…I hate that that smug little bastard still has a claim on her. He’s going to keep doing this to her – reeling her in, making his demands, and hurting her when he doesn’t get what he wants. It’s despicable for a man to tell the woman he loves that she’s rejected, to shred the bond almost to the snapping point, and then to leave it intact.”

“And Ariel’s so sweet,” Ella murmurs, worried. “That if she has a chance to try again, to renew the bond – she’ll probably take it. The boy means a lot to her. She loves him, I’m sure of it, and she’s generous of heart enough to see his good attributes when she should worry about the bad.”

“It would have been…hard on her,” Dominic sighs, softly shaking his head. “But in the long run, a clean break would have been better. It would have killed me to see her in that kind of pain, but I’d have taken that choice if it meant a clean break from him. I never regretted breaking from Lydia. But to use rejection as a punishment, and then to keep the bond…”

Dominic shakes his head, disgusted.

“We should have him arrested,” Roger murmurs, nodding.

“What?” Cora breathes. “Roger, it’s not illegal –“

“Well, it should be,” he growls, glaring hard at the screen, though his anger is, of course, all for one tall dimpled playboy and not his wife. “We could have him court marshalled for dropping out of school in a time of war. Desertion. Lock him up in a dungeon, let the rats gnaw at his toes –“

“We don’t have a dungeon, Rog,” Dominic sighs.

“Should have built one when I told you to twenty years ago,” Roger murmurs, looking rather superiorly down at the desk. “Would come in handy right now, wouldn’t it?”

“I’m not worried about Luca. Or his toes,” Dominic says, frowning and glancing to his brother like it’s weird that they got on that subject in the first place. “We need to think about what’s best for Ariel.”

“Well, Ariel thinks the bond is broken, right?” Cora says, glancing at Ella, who nods. “She’s not aware that it’s intact. She thinks that she’s been rejected, that it’s done.”

“Perhaps we should leave it that way,” Dominic says, his face grim. “Let her recover. Let it be a clean break, at least on her side.”

“Dominic, to just lie to the girl,” Roger murmurs, frowning at his brother, hesitating at the idea. “When she’s already been through so much…”

“No, I agree,” Ella sighs, crossing her arms and looking seriously at the screen. “Not for forever. But…just for now. Whether or not the boy broke the bond, he rejected her – broke up with her. I want her to have the space to mourn him and then start to move on. Plus, if Rafe and Jesse hear that the bond is intact they might react strongly. If everyone is simply under the impression, for the next few days, that it’s ended…perhaps that’s best. Ariel needs to start living a life without Luca Grant – adjusting to that reality. We’ll tell her – just…not today.”

“And she won’t figure it out on her own?” Cora asks.

“I don’t think so,” Ella says on a sigh. “The bond is so tenuous, so ragged…I think it will take a great deal of healing until she feels it again, if ever. Again, we’ll tell her. Soon. Just…not today. Are we agreed on this?” She looks around at her family, genuinely wanting their advice.

“For what it’s worth, I think she should know now,” Roger says with a steady nod. “But you have my support if you think delay is better.”

“Yes, delay is better,” Dominic says, steady. Cora nods too, murmuring about it making sense from a medical perspective. “Let her mourn her loss, heal from this grief. When she feels stronger, we’ll tell her and she can make whatever decision is right for her.”

“I’ll kick her ass too,” Cora murmurs, pissed off. “If she decides to take him back.”

“I’m telling you guys,” Roger murmurs, shaking his head. “A dungeon goes really far in a moment like this. Just lock him away – never see him again – no longer a problem.”

“You go build it, Rog,” Ella says with a sigh, standing up. “Fill it with all the toe-nibbling rats you want. Dom? She wants to talk to you. Be gentle with our girl.”

“You know I will be,” Dominic says, looking at his mate quite steadily. “Go and get her. We’ll have our chat.”

Early the next morning, Ella, Daphne, and Cora let Ariel sleep in.

“What’s taking Cora so long?” Daphne asks, frowning towards the door. “If she doesn’t get back soon I will not be blamed for the lack of coffee.”

“Oh, we’ll just make another pot,” Ella says with a sigh, splashing more coffee into Daphne’s mug and moving the cream and sugar close to the pretty seamstress. “With the Sinclairs, there’s always more coffee.”

Daphne smiles at the Queen and there’s a beat of silence while Ella turns towards Ari’s bedroom door. “I think her talk with her father did her good. He always knows what to say to her.”

“Yeah, he’s a good dad,” Daphne says, smiling softly down into her cup. “I’m glad she has him.”

Ella smiles too as she studies Daphne’s downturned face, knowing there’s more to that statement than on the surface. “How is my girl doing at school?” Ella asks quietly. “Girl to girl. When I ask that question to the boys they give all sorts of boring statistics about her ranking and her run times. As if any of that matters.”

Daphne grins and looks up. “Do you want to know the changing statistics regarding her uniform size? Her waist has gotten quite trim and –“

“Oh no,” Ella groans, faking misery with a dramatic hand over her forehead. “Not you too!”

Daphne laughs and shakes her head. “Nah, I kid. But really, all of this rejection drama aside, I think she’s okay. She works very hard – harder than everyone else, I think – but she really, really loves it. I think losing Tony…” she bites her lip. “Will be very hard on her.”

“They’ve really gotten that close?” Ella asks, looking curiously into Daphne’s eyes.

“She thought he was so funny,” Daphne whispers, giving a little shrug. “And he was very honest and helpful to her. Plus, he was the first to call Luca out for bad behavior. Tony – he’s a big loss to the little group of friends, even if he was rather a late addition.”

“I liked him too,” Ella sighs, sighing and sitting up. “It’s so hard to lose someone so bright so young. The funeral is tomorrow, you know.”

“Really?” Daphne says, sitting up and glancing towards Ariel’s door. “Does she know?”

“No, we’re not telling her,” Ella says, shaking her head. “She’ll want to attend and I think it will be too hard on her. I think she still needs to heal and we can have our own ceremony when she’s ready. Plus, I think that rat-boy is in the city,” Ella says with a frown. “And I’m not letting him anywhere near my girl again.”

“Ah, makes sense,” Daphne says.

But before Ella can say anymore, Cora comes flying through the door.

“Is she up?” Cora whispers, rather belying the need for stealth when she accidentally slams the door behind her, leaning back against it and panting with excitement, clutching something to her chest. “Is Ari awake?”

“No,” Ella says, looking at Cora with surprise. “What the hell happened –“

“You have got to see this,” Cora says, grinning like a cat and striding over to the table, slapping down a collection of tabloids. “I got these from the front desk. They’re a train wreck but…I cannot look away.”

“Oh my god,” Daphne whispers, awed, reaching for the tabloid on the top.

Which features a big and glossy photo of Luca Grant on the cover.