Chapter 6: Escaping Hargrove

Clara’s POV

The air between us was thick enough to choke on.

Lucien Hargrove stood framed in the archway, his silhouette cutting a sharp line against the morning light. His dark eyes held mine, and I saw it — the flicker, brief but unmistakable, the same shock that had slammed into me the moment I looked up at that portrait.

He knows.

Heat rushed to my cheeks. My fingers curled into my palms as the memory of that night flashed through my mind — the face I’d seen the next morning, the question I couldn’t stop asking myself. What if he thinks he knows what kind of girl I am?

I couldn’t stand there under that gaze one more second.

I turned and ran.

My bare feet slapped against polished hardwood as I bolted past a blur of stern-faced ancestors in gold frames, through a grand foyer, out a set of heavy double doors into air thick with pine and damp earth. Manicured hedges. A gravel driveway. The glint of wrought iron in the distance.

Freedom.

I flew across the gravel, stones biting into my feet, and didn’t slow until I hit the gate, both hands wrapping around cold iron, shaking it with everything I had.

“Let me out!” My voice cracked. “Someone let me out of here!”

A guard appeared on the other side, impassive, unmoving. “I’ve been instructed not to open the gate, miss. No one leaves without Mr. Hargrove’s authorization.”

“This is kidnapping. Do you understand that?”

He said nothing. Just stood there, a trained sentinel carrying out orders without question. I shook the gate until my hands ached and it didn’t give an inch, and something in me finally broke. My knees buckled. I slid down the iron and crumpled onto the gravel, sobbing, the adrenaline draining out of me and leaving something heavier behind.

I was trapped. No phone. No purse. No way to reach anyone who knew my name.

Behind me, voices rose. I looked back to see Gloria waving urgently toward the house, two more guards moving into position at the edge of the property. There was nowhere left to run to. Only somewhere left to be dragged back to.

I pushed myself up and started walking back, each step heavier than the last, my eyes too blurry with tears to really see the gardens I passed through — which was why I almost missed the car.

A black Mercedes came gliding up the driveway, engine low and unhurried. Through the windshield, a dark-haired silhouette. Someone coming from outside.

Hope hit me so hard it hurt. I ran straight at it, waving both arms. “Please! Please help me! I’m being held here against my will!”

The car stopped. A man stepped out — tall, charcoal suit, silver at his temples, a smile that didn’t quite reach the coldness underneath it.

“Excuse me?” he said, pleasant, unruffled. “Did you say something?”

“I was kidnapped. I need to leave — I need the police—”

“Goodness. That sounds serious.” His smile widened. “Get in. I’ll help you.”

I nearly collapsed with relief climbing into that seat. “Thank you — I don’t know how to thank you—”

“Think nothing of it,” he said, sliding in beside me, and the car began to move.

I closed my eyes. It’s over. I’m free.

Then the car stopped.

I opened my eyes to the mansion’s front doors, massive and unmistakable, directly ahead of us. Exactly where I’d started.

“No,” I breathed. “No — what are you doing? I said they’re holding me here!”

He turned to me, still smiling, something darker glittering underneath it now. “I’m sorry. You must have misunderstood. I can’t leave the estate yet.”

My throat closed around a scream that never made it out. “You — you work for him?”

“Not exactly.” His smile sharpened. “Lucien is my friend. Dante Reeves. A pleasure.” He tilted his head. “And you are?”

“Clara,” I said, my voice trembling.

“Clara.” He said it slowly, like he was tasting it, and something about the way it left his mouth made every hair on my arms rise.

“Let me out of this car,” I said, fear curdling into fury.

Dante only laughed, soft and dismissive, and reached across me to push the door open himself. “Off you go, Clara. I’m late for my appointment with Lucien.”

I scrambled out onto the gravel, legs barely holding me. But instead of driving off, he got out too, his whole expression rearranging itself into something gentler, more concerned.

“Wait.” His voice had gone soft. “That was unkind of me. You’re terrified, and I made a joke of it. I’m sorry.”

I stared at him, thrown by how fast the cruelty had folded itself away. “What do you want from me?”

“Nothing. I came to see Lucien, not to find a woman in distress.” He studied me with what looked, impossibly, like real concern. “You were taken from your home, weren’t you? Brought here against your will?”

I nodded, and the tears came again.

“I’ll help you,” he said, offering his arm. “But first, tell me everything.”

Against every instinct still screaming at me from the gate, I took it, and we started walking back toward the house together — Dante’s voice low, warm, confiding, telling me about years of friendship with a man he swore would never do something like this.

I didn’t know when we entered the living room back then I realized what Dante had done.