CHAPTER FIVE : FLORAL PERFUME
636 Words
Lucien got home at midnight.
He loosened his tie in the elevator and stared at his reflection. The day had been brutal. His grandfather had called him in. Daniel Vale was seventy-two years old and still the most intimidating man Lucien had ever faced. He sat behind his desk with his hands folded and his voice low.
“Your brother would have had this company locked down by now,” Daniel had said. “Your father built something that deserves better than what you are giving it.”
Lucien had taken every word without argument. Because Daniel wasn’t wrong. One son was dead, and the other had spent the last year being photographed at parties and chasing a woman who had now walked out on him.
He had said “Yes, sir” and carried the weight out of the room the way he carried everything—quietly.
The elevator opened.
He dropped his keys on the table by the door and went straight to the kitchen. Poured a glass of water and drank it standing at the counter, letting his mind go blank for thirty seconds.
Then his thumb moved.
The camera roll opened.
Adrian.
Three years since the accident, and Lucien still hadn’t deleted a single photo. Adrian laughing. Adrian texting him under the table at Christmas dinner. The two of them on the boat the summer before everything changed.
He paused on the last photo he had taken of his brother.
Adrian at his desk late at night, papers everywhere, reading glasses on, cold coffee beside him. He was looking at the camera with an expression Lucien had never been able to figure out.
Not tired. Not worried.
Something darker.
Lucien had taken that picture two weeks before Adrian died.
The official story was a car accident. Grief made it easier to accept. But recently, the doubts had gotten harder to ignore.
Adrian had called him the night before, sounding distracted. “There’s something I need to show you.” Then the call cut off. Lucien had told himself he would call back tomorrow.
There had been no tomorrow.
He stared at his brother’s face.
Adrian had found something he wasn’t supposed to find.
Lucien was sure of it now.
He needed those papers. Whatever Adrian had been working on that night was still somewhere. Adrian never threw anything away. He was careful, meticulous, the kind of man who kept everything organized and backed up.
Lucien pushed off the counter and walked toward the bedroom.
He was already planning where to start searching—Adrian’s old office, the Brooklyn storage unit, the lawyers’ trust files.
He pushed open the bedroom door.
And stopped.
The smell hit him first.
Heavy. Sweet. Floral.
He knew that perfume.
He recognized it instantly.
It filled the room, thick and unmistakable.
Lucien stood motionless in the dark doorway, heart slamming against his ribs.
Someone was in his bed.
A woman lay under the sheets, dark hair spread across his pillow, one bare shoulder glowing in the weak city light. She breathed slow and steady, like she belonged there.
He didn’t turn on the light.
He didn’t need to.
That floral perfume told him everything.
He knew exactly whose scent it was.
And she was in his bed.
Lucien’s blood went cold.
She had gotten past his security, past the private elevator, past every lock. And he definitely cannot deal with this. Not tonight, not with everything going on.
He cannot be distracted..
Lucien’s hands curled into fists. The sweet smell now felt nauseous in the air.
He took one slow step into the room.
The woman in his bed shifted under the sheets. A soft, satisfied sound slipped out in the dark.
Lucien’s voice came out low, steady, and dangerous.
“I know it’s you. Get out.”
- Writer
