Twelve Days The Beginning - By Jade Reyner Page 0,162

always polite and friendly and she felt completely safe in his company.

The rest of Sunday passed relatively uneventfully and now that Elise was on the mend, Vaughn had decided that she should move in with him until she was fully recovered. Elise had argued the point with him but she had little or no ground to stand on as she was technically homeless and she didn’t want to trespass on Celeste’s good nature any longer than necessary.

Whilst she had been watching the TV in the afternoon and drifting in and out of sleep, she had heard Celeste and Vaughn arguing about her living arrangements in the kitchen. It seemed that Celeste felt she would be much better off staying with her but Vaughn wasn’t to be moved. He had pointed out that he was virtually living with Celeste as well at the moment, which made no sense when he had a perfectly good flat of his own. He assured her that he would be taking both Sean and Stan with him so essentially her life could get back to normal again. Celeste really didn’t seem happy about the arrangement and Elise couldn’t help wondering how much of it had to do with the loss of her beefy twenty-four hour sex boosters.

Celeste had also gone shopping on Sunday afternoon and had taken Cole with her. They were going to get some clothes for Elise as she had obviously left everything behind as well as the other essentials that she would need until things could be sorted out more permanently. With Cole and Celeste organising her wardrobe, Elise was slightly concerned as to what they would come back with but was relieved to find it was mainly jeans and casual wear. She wasn’t due to return to work for at least another week so didn’t need any formal wear for now.

Unwrapping the packets of underwear in front of Vaughn and Cole was hilarious as they both struggled with their testosterone levels and, at one point, she was convinced that they were going to go head to head. Cole was finding it hard to cope with the visual - similar to his reaction in the meeting room to her stockings - and Vaughn was seriously wound up about the fact that Cole had bought Elise underwear. Vaughn had earlier given strict instructions that only Celeste was to purchase those items but Cole had added a few of his own choices, most likely out of devilment, and the atmosphere in the room was tense as the men argued about the rights and wrongs of the underwear choice. Celeste and Elise found the whole thing highly entertaining and were in stitches by the time all of the packets had been opened and crammed into a duffel bag, ready to take to Vaughn’s flat.

The only cloud on the horizon for Elise was the fact that Cole, Vaughn and Celeste were regularly receiving text messages throughout the day, which they all read and then studiously ignored. By the end of the afternoon Elise had counted nearly twenty between them which they had all laughed off with various lame excuses. Elise knew that she was being lied to and she knew that they were also all on edge - Vaughn’s regular glances across to Sean for reassurance gave testament to that – and she had no idea what was going on. No one was talking and she found her emotions ranging from fear to hurt as she considered every possibility. She hated the fact that the three people she was closest to in the world were very obviously keeping secrets from her and it also scared the hell out of her as to why they felt that they needed to.

Despite Celeste and Cole’s shopping expedition, Elise still had very little and so it took her no time at all to unpack and settle into Vaughn’s flat. It was as beautiful as she remembered and despite the circumstances, she was really grateful for the opportunity to spend some more time enjoying the peace and tranquillity of the countryside. Although it was still winter, some of the trees in the woods beyond were evergreen and they provided a colourful contrast to the otherwise stark vista of the season. As dusk fell over the fields beyond the flat, Elise revelled in watching some rabbits running around, hopping and prancing as they went about their daily business, dipping in and out of holes and bushes and she began to envy them their