Chapter 15 - The Cold Pavement
We didn't take the elevators to the lobby.
Nicholas led us down through the kitchen service ramps, slipping past stacks of silver warming trays and mountains of used linen. Outside the service bay, the bitter Chicago night hit us like a slap. A black, nondescript sedan idle at the curb flashed its amber fog lights twice.
The driver’s window rolled down. Evelyn’s pale, aristocratic face appeared in the gap. Despite her age and the decades she had lost, her posture was regal, her eyes as sharp as flint.
"Get in," Evelyn commanded without preamble. "Eleanor has already frozen the foundation accounts. The state police received an anonymous tip that Nicholas kidnapped his bride at gunpoint. They’re closing off the expressway bridges."
We scrambled into the back leather seat. As Nicholas shut the door, the sedan surged forward, tires screeching against the frozen asphalt as we slipped into the midnight traffic of Michigan Avenue.
Nicholas pulled me into his side, wrapping his wool coat around my bare, trembling shoulders. My shorn hair felt exposed, alien and ugly, but his fingers tangled gently into the short strands, cradling the back of my head against his chest.
"I’m sorry," he whispered into my temple. "I thought bringing Evelyn would break Eleanor's nerve publicly. I thought the scandal would force her to retreat into arbitration. I didn't think she would try to erase you tonight."
"She didn't just try tonight," Evelyn said from the front passenger seat, her voice dripping with ice. She turned to look at me, her eyes lingering on the silver locket clutched in my fist. "Eleanor has been hunting you since the day your mother died, Clara. She tolerated your existence only as long as you were poor, distant, and controllable. But Nicholas broke the rules by falling in love with you."
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"Did you know?" I asked Nicholas, pulling back to look into his dark eyes. "When you met me in that small architectural firm three years ago... did you know who I was?"
The car fell dead silent. Even the hum of the engine seemed to fade.
