Read Online Freed by Tara Crescent - Free Book Online

humour and slight mockery was as close as it had gotten in many years.
    “Brat,” I chided. “Go get packed. There’s a train every hour, but it’s almost a five hour ride.”
    I hoisted the bag she’d packed, ignoring her protests about how she could carry it by herself. My bright star had an independent streak that I loved, but I still wanted to spoil her.
    At the Gare de Lyon, she giggled again and grabbed my forearm, resting her cheek against me. “Alexander,” she asked. “Is it true that you can drink on trains?”
    “Of course,” I replied.
    “I want to.” She winked at me. “I still cannot believe you can get wine at McDonalds here. It’s crazy.”
    I gestured to the backpack I was carrying. “I have a surprise,” I told her. “There’s a picnic in there. Elodie packed it for us. Wine, sandwiches, salad and fruit.”
    She made an impressed face. “On the one hand, I could make some fun about the billionaire waving his arm and getting a picnic arranged,” she started, “but…”
    “But?”
    “There’s wine, right?”
    “There’s always wine, Jenny.”
    We took our seats, facing each other and I unzipped the backpack, pulling out a wine bottle and two plastic cups. “Sorry about the makeshift glassware,” I said. “I was afraid that real wine glasses would break.”
    She took a sip. “Are you kidding me? This is the most human I’ve seen you.”
    I looked at her thoughtfully. “I haven’t always been rich, you know.”
    “You didn’t grow up rich?”
    I nodded. “I did, but any money I now have I made on my own. I had a falling out with my family when I was seventeen and I left home the next year, determined not to return until I could do so on my own terms.”
    “What happened?” Her voice was soft.
    ***
    My aunt drops the glass she carries and it shatters at her feet. Her wild gaze moves from Angela, tied up against the central wooden post to me. There’s judgement and condemnation in her eyes. “Monster,” she accuses me.
    “No, Madame, it is not the way it looks,” Angela stammers. “I asked Alexander…”
    The look that my aunt gives Angela silences the German girl. “Untie her,” my aunt orders. “Now.”
    I shrug. “I don’t see what the big deal is,” I tell her. “Fine.”
    I free Angela from her bindings and the blonde girl hastily snatches her dress and slides it over her head. Covered, she tries to reason with my aunt again. “Madame, please understand, Alex didn’t…”
    “This does not concern you.” My aunt’s voice is icy. “Leave us. I need to talk to Alexander.”
    I try to shoot Angela a reassuring look. “I’ll call you later, okay?” I lace my fingers in hers. “It’s fine.”
    When Angela is making her way home, I turn to my aunt with genuine anger in my eyes. “What right do you have to do that?”
    “You monster.” This time, her voice has no emotion. “The apple never falls too far from the tree, does it?”
    And then she tells me who my father is and what he has done, and who I really am.
    That night, I jump off a high bridge into the river, intending to kill myself. I don’t die. Instead, my head hits a rock and I spend the next three months in a hospital in a medically induced coma. When I am finally ready to return home, I don’t stay long. I have a new plan now.
    ***
    “Stuff,” I said vaguely. “Life. Drink your wine. Here’s some cheese.”
    I pulled out the neat packages of food and set it in front of her. “Alexander,” she protested. “I’m not that hungry.”
    She never ate enough. I remembered the open relish with which she’d eaten the pain au chocolat two years ago. This week, away from Paris, I was hoping to get that woman back, the one who had laughed and played a game of truth and dare with me. Already, I could feel her relax around me. The initial tension in Bangkok had faded and she looked more comfortable.
    Which was so good. Whatever her mission was, I hadn’t been lying to her. Consent was