Page 60 of Isabelle’s Forbidden Love

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“You sure Lydia won’t tell anybody that you have her car?” Orlando asked when he got into the BMW in the safety of Grayson’s garage.

“She can keep a secret.”

Isabelle backed out of the garage, and headed for the closest freeway on-ramp.

“Did you tell Lydia about us?”

“I had to. She’s my best friend, and now that she knows that we love each other, she’s rooting for us.”

Orlando put his hand on Isabelle’s thigh. “I wasn’t gonna tell you that I love you, but when Scanguards searched Grayson’s flat, I was worried that they’d find us and I wouldn’t get another chance.”

She put her hand on his, and squeezed it. For a moment, she took her eyes off the road and looked at him. Her eyes were shimmering golden, and in them, he saw her love for him. How had he been so blind not to see it earlier?

“I wish we’d been alone that night in your parents’ house when you licked my wounds,” he murmured. “I would have taken you right then and there.”

Isabelle chuckled unexpectedly. “And I would have stopped you, because you were too badly injured to even think of sex, let alone have sex that night.”

Orlando grunted. “You think I couldn’t have done it? I was getting hard. I could have—”

“Baby, nobody is doubting your sexual prowess, least of all I.” She cast him a seductive smile. “But I’m in for the long haul. I would have waited until you healed.”

“You’re more than I deserve.” He took her hand and led it to his lips to press a kiss onto her knuckles.

“How are we going to explain to Ines that you haven’t aged since she last saw you?”

“We won’t have to. She knows what I am.”

Isabelle cast him a sideways glance. “You told her?”

“Margarite said Ines stumbled over the truth, though I have a feeling that Margarite confided in her. Ines was her nanny before she replaced the Arnaud family’s housekeeper. Margarite trusted her.”

“You and Margarite,” Isabelle started, but hesitated.

He caught her glancing at him as if to check whether she could say what she wanted to say.

“How long were you together?”

Orlando looked out the side window. “Three years.” Three turbulent, chaotic, and difficult years. But he didn’t say it. There was no need to tell Isabelle that his blood-bonded mate had had many character flaws, and that he’d been blind to them. He’d been too infatuated with her when he’d met her that he hadn’t truly seen her.

Isabelle didn’t say anything else, and the only thing that could be heard inside the car was the navigation system as it directed them to the home of Ines Taylor. When they stopped in the driveway of the two-story house, Isabelle looked at him.

“I’ll ring the doorbell and tell her you want to speak to her. You’ll have to stay in the car until then.”

He nodded. “Just tell her it’s Orlando. I didn’t use the name Carlisle back then.” And maybe he shouldn’t even have kept his first name, because it wasn’t common. Perhaps his adversary had found him like that.

Isabelle left the car and closed the door quickly. He watched her as she walked up to the front door and rang the doorbell. It took a few moments, before the door was opened. Orlando glanced past Isabelle, but could only make out the top of somebody’s head. Less than thirty seconds passed, when Isabelle turned on her heel and the person whom she’d spoken to went back inside.

Isabelle got back in the car.

“And?”

She winked and pointed to the garage. The garage door started to rise at that moment.

“We’ll park inside so you can get out without the sun touching you.”

Orlando was relieved that Ines had agreed to talk to him, but he couldn’t fully relax yet. Ines had seen him in the house that night, clothes bloodied, but he’d never had the chance to explain to her what had really happened back then. He’d fled that same night.