Beautiful Revenge (A Good Wife #1) - Sienna Blake Page 0,71

enough, Javier. I know what I did.”

“If she only just knew—”

“She won’t know. You’ve promised me on your life you wouldn’t tell her.”

I press my lips together. An idea flickers in my head.

Yes, I promised I wouldn’t tell Alena, but…

“Emily Worthington.” I give the girl behind the desk at the Fifty-Four Boutique Hotel my most disarming smile. Dimitri hadn’t mentioned that Alena was staying here. I put in a call to her publisher, who I happen to know. It didn’t take much for him to give me the name of her hotel. Thankfully she is still in London. “She should be staying here with Alena Worthington. Or perhaps she goes by Alena Ivanova again.”

The girl shakes her head. “I’m sorry, sir. We can’t give out details of our customers.”

“I don’t need details, I just need you to call her room and let her know that someone is here to see her.”

The girl holds up a hold one minute finger as she answers a ringing phone. I let out a huff and look around the reception area as I lean against the marble counter. The hotel is in a converted Edwardian townhouse. Reception is in the old foyer, slim wood floors and white walls. The stairs behind me creak as footsteps pad down them.

“Javier?”

I spin around.

And grin. I did always say I am the luckiest man alive. Emily Worthington, the very woman I am after, is standing on the bottom step staring back at me.

“What are you doing here?” she says, her youthful face all smiles and rosy cheeks. She looks absolutely stunning in a knee-length royal blue dress, black leather jacket and black ankle boots. She’s become a real woman in the last few months.

“Emily Worthington,” I say. “I am here to ask for your help. Can we talk?”

68

____________

Alena

It’s wrong. It’s wrong and I don’t know how to fix it.

I scrunch up yet another piece of paper and throw it towards the hotel room bin. I let out a huff as it bounces off the rim and lands along with the other half a dozen signs of my failure.

My editor told me that my novel was perfect. Except for the ending. “It’s just…unbelievable,” she had said.

I told her I would submit a new draft ending by the time I leave London, which is…in two days and four hours. Shit. I stare down at the empty lined page. Come on, inspiration…

Nothing.

I hear the door to the room open and then footsteps. I felt bad that Emily was just sitting around this hotel room waiting on me, so I sent her out with my new credit card, telling her to buy something lovely for herself. She must have forgotten something.

“Alena.” Her voice nears.

Can’t talk. Trying not to die a failure.

“Alena,” she says, more insistently.

“What is it, Em, I have to—”

Emily swings my swivel chair around to face her. Her cheeks are flushed, her eyes are sparkling with light. “Alena, you have to listen to me.”

I’m so curious at what could inspire such awe in her, I just nod.

She begins to talk. She spins a tale, a wondrous tale about how Dimitri donated enough money to the school so they could hire me, about how he secretly financed Edgar’s latest venture which is promising to catapult him into greater riches than before, about how he bankrolled the nursing scholarship that Emily had recently gotten, and finally, about how Dimitri instructed Javier to shop my manuscript around, swearing him to secrecy over his involvement.

She finishes talking. I can do nothing but blink at her.

I hadn’t even told her that I ran into Dimitri.

Why is she saying all these things?

“How do you…?”

“Javier told me. He came here and caught me downstairs as I was on my way out.” A small blush played at her cheeks. “Alena, do you know what this means?”

I shake my head, my brain still trying to catch up.

“He still loves you. Desperately. He did all of that for you.”

I blanch. “But you…”

“I never loved Dimitri,” she says, quickly. “Not really. I just wanted to have someone who would love me and never leave me.”

I clasp her hand. “Emily, I love you and will never leave you.”

“I know that, now. You also love him.”

“No, I—”

“Don’t lie to me, Leni. You suck at it.”

All this time I thought he was moving on. All this time I thought he wasn’t thinking of me. Dimitri did all that for me, even though he thought I would never know. I feel like laughing. I feel like