She Lost Her Name, She Took Back Her Place novel · Chapter 17 of 24
Chapter 17: Clause Four
The Visconti house at Chantilly smelled of woodsmoke and cold stone, and I hated every room of it that night.
I had come to draw up the plan with him.
We had spread the Rochefort accounts across the library table, and the debt sat in the middle of them.
Bastien had gone over to Bianca. Henri had set a clock. The old banker held the only key.
Adrien read the last page and set it down.
"There is a path," he said. "A narrow one. We need Henri to accept a partner instead of a rescuer, and for that I need you to be the one who asks him."
"Of course you do."
He looked up.
"Meaning?"
"Meaning I am the useful daughter," I said. "The blood daughter. The girl who saved your grandfather. Whatever else, I am the answer to clause four."
"Élise."
"It's rule three, Adrien. On paper, that is the only reason I am here." I smiled, and it was my mother's smile, the public one, and I watched it land. "So let's not pretend there is anything in this house I am for but the contract."
His face went dark.
He came around the table in three steps and stopped an arm's length from me, and I saw his hands open and close.
"Say that again."
"I'm a clause."
"You are not a clause."
"Then what am I?"
"The only woman I have ever," he said, and stopped, and his jaw locked. "Come with me."
"Where?"
"The kitchen. Because if I stay in this library I will do something that breaks every rule I wrote."
"Break them."
"Not on a desk of papers, Élise."
He took my wrist and walked me down the long stone passage, and I let him.
The kitchen was dark. A single lamp burned over the stove, and the big marble island stood in the middle of the floor with copper pans hanging above it.
Keep reading free with an account. Start She Lost Her Name, She Took Back Her Place from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.
← Chapter 16 · All chapters · Chapter 18 →
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend