Coming Home

Evelyn Rose Sterling, daughter of the founder of Sterling Bio-Nutrition; Arthur Sterling, was quite jittery.

The flight she had intended to board back home had been delayed and she was a woman on a tight schedule. Her fingers drum lazily on the arm rest, her mind drifting back to the conversation she had with her mother the previous night.

‘It’s bad, Evie,’ her mother sighed dejectedly on the phone. ‘Your father might have to visit the Thorne’s again.’ Hearing that, her blood had run cold.

The Thorne’s were her in-laws, not by choice.

Her father’s company had run into a serious financial crisis in the past which had led him to seek them out for help. That help came with a condition that she was to be wed to one of their sons.

Her father had agreed and had signed the contract.

Evelyn who had just wanted to further her studies had immediately left the country for Norwich, England for her master’s degree.

She never met her husband and she didn’t wish to, which made her stay away from her home and family.

Knowing that her father had gotten into trouble with the company again, and that he might go to them again put undeniable fear in her. Elias Thorne, the head of the Thorne’s family was extremely crafty and she loathed the idea of her own father making another deal with him.

Her goal was to meet her husband and make a deal with him before her father’s meeting. With only two months left for their initial contract to end, she needed no more silly jokes to be made at her expense.

Her thirteen hour flight had been carefully plannd, with the time difference between Norwich and LA, she would likely get to her destination by  noon. The delayed connecting flight was what she did not account for.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, from the flight deck, this is your Captain speaking. We’ve begun our initial descent into the Los Angeles area. Weather is currently clear with a ground temperature of seventy two degrees Fahrenheit. We should be on the ground by five-fifteen, and at the gate shortly after. I’d like to thank you for flying with us today.’

The Captain’s announcement caused her anxiety to return. Her father’s meeting with Elias is by five o’ clock. She had no time to spare.

‘Welcome to Los Angeles International airport, where the local time is five-fifteen in the evening. Please remain seated with your seatbelt fastened until the air craft hs come to a complete stop and the ‘Fasten Seatbelt’ sign has been turned off. Please use caution when opening the overhead bins, as items may have shifted during flight.’

The Captain’s voice crackled over the intercom, sounding far too cheerful for a man delivering a gut wracking announcement like that to Evelyn.

Five-fifteen. She closed her eyes, head thumping against the cool window. The mwwting with Elias Thorne had started fifteen minutes ago. By the time she cleared customs and fought LAX traffic, things might have taken a turn no one expects.

The chime of the seatbelt sign being turned off felt like the floor was dropping out from beneath her. For thirteen hours, she had been safe in the clouds; now, she was being pulled back into a life she had tried so hard to outrun.

As she stepped off the aircraft, the bridge’s air-conditioned chill was quickly replaced by the aggressive, dry heat of Los Angeles evening. The terminal at LAX was a sea of moving bodies, a blur of neon signs and hurried footsteps that made her head swim. The jet lag hit her hard, but she was a woman on a mission.

She found a quiet corner near a massive floor to ceiling window. Outside, the sun was a bruised orange, hanging low over the tramac, casting long shadows across the parked jets. It was five-forty-five in the evening. In Norwich, her friends would be deep in sleep, blisfully unaware of the silent war she was about to walk into. With trembling fingers, Evelyn pulled her phone from her bag. The screen felt blindly bright in her tired eyes. She slid her thumb across the control center and tapped the small airplane icon.

Flight mode: off.

For a heartbeat, the phone was silent. Then it erupted.

A barrage of notifications flooded the screen. Her email inbox climbed from zero to forty, fifty, sixty. Her eyes fixed heavily on the flood of messages, searching for one specific message.

From: Margaret Sterling.

Her hand tapped the notification in speed.

Evie, darling, please tell me you’ve landed. Your father is already at the Thorne headquaters, but the atmposphers is… difficult. Elias is being firm.we need you there, not just as our daughter but as the woman who holds the Thorne name. I’ve sent the address for Lucien’s private estate below. Your father thinks it’s best if you go there first to drop off your bags and prepare. Lucien is expected back by eight.

Please, Evie. Everything depends on you tonight.

Evelyn stared at the address at the bottom of the text. It wasn’t a home, it was a fortress in the hills, a place she had never seen despite being legally bound to it’s owner for over a thousand days.

2400 Obsidian Ridge Road.

The name itself sounded cold. Hard. Just like the man who lived there. She had never met Lucien but she’s read enough of him from the tabloids. She leaned her head against the cool glass of the terminal window, the vibration of a departing jet rattling through her skull. She hadn’t packed much, opting for her luggages to be sent at a future date.

‘Obsidian Ridge,’ she whispered, the words tasting like ash. She looked at her reflection in the glass. Pale skin, dark circles under her eyes, and her hair, once neatly pinned, now escaping in frizzy strands from the journey. Perhaps that was fitting. Lucien Thorne had treated her like a phantom for three years; why should tonight be any different?

She shoulder strapped her bag, the weight of it a reminder of the research work she had recently completed.

As she walked towards the exit, the five o’clock deadline she had missed sat in her stomach like lead. The meeting was probably over. She had to find Lucien to see what she could salvage from the wreckage of a two year old silence.