Chương 434: Chapter 434
"May I come in?" Christian asked the next morning as Pearl was gathering her things.
"Yes. Of course my love. Everything alright?"
"Yes. I wanted to say goodbye." Christian picked up her luggage for her and walked with her down to where the car was waiting.
"Thank you. Goodbye. I'll be back in a few days." Pearl said.
"I hope you are able to find good things there. To find maybe things that are lost." Christian said, placing the luggage in the trunk.
"I'm not sure what you mean." Pearl looked at him curiously.
He said nothing else and hugged her.
"See you in a few days, mum." He said. She got into the car and headed to the airport. She looked back at Christian, waving. She knew exactly what he meant.
*****************
"Wow. It has been a long, long time since I've been on this jet." Erik said, looking around.
"Yes. It has." Pearl said, opening her laptop. She wanted to be distracted. He sat down and nervously fumbled his seat belt, knocking over his drink.
"I'm sorry." He said to the flight crew member helping him. After it was a bit settled, Pearl looked over at him. He was a wreck. She wasn't sure exactly what was triggering him but it wasn't good.
"Are you alright?"'she asked.
"Yes, fine. Thank you." He said. He looked back and saw Pearl's security detail siting behind them.
"That's Javier and and Jakob." She said.
"The J twins, eh? I miss Jim. How is the old oak anyway?"
"He is old and bitter and being crotchety keeps him healthy and strong." She said, laughing. "I told him you were working at the palace." She raised her eyebrow looked back at her laptop.
"Ah, I bet that went wonderfully." Erik laid on the sarcasm.
"He said he wished he'd killed you when he had the chance." She said, straight faced.
Erik gulped his drink.
A moment of silence fell between them.
"So, the car will take us to Birkhall after we land." She said.
"Oh no. No. And I advise you change your clothes." He said, eyeing her suit.
"Why is that?" She asked.
"You'll see." He said with a smile.
"Lovely. Surprises. My favorite." She said dryly, taking off her seatbelt and walking back to change.
The jet landed and just as Pearl thought, instead of a car waiting, there were two motorbikes.
"Erik, I don't even have a license for that thing." She said.
"You're the queen consort. You'll be fine." He said, handing her a helmet.
"I can't believe you're asking me to do this. I haven't rode a motorcycle for years." She said, swinging her legs over it.
"You know what they say, it's like riding a bike." Erik said, laughing and putting on his helmet. The house was 20 miles away and the drive was pure countryside. She knew why he insisted they take the motor bikes. It was beautiful scenery. The smell, the feel. She followed him as he turned off down a long back winding road that looked navigable at first but began to turn into a dirt and mud pothole disaster. Mud splashed up on them and just ahead, Erik lost control of his bike and laid it down.
"Erik!" Pearl shouted, stopping and propping her bike up. She ran to him and found him on the ground, covered in mud, laughing.
"This used to be a road a decade ago." He said with a mud covered smile after removing his helmet. She looked around at the absolute nothing around them.
"Well, it isn't anymore." She said, offering him her hand to help him stand. He reached for it and when he tried to stand, he slid in the mud and took them both down to the ground.
"Oh my god!" Pearl said, flinging mud at him angrily. "We are a mess!" He laughed.
"Where are the security guys, weren't they behind us?" He asked.
"They probably got lost and think we are bonkers." Pearl said.
"Well, we are a little." He said, standing up and looking at them both.
They waited a full thirty minutes and no one showed. Pearl looked at her phone. No service. She laughed. "Of course!"
Erik looked around and noticed a small creek several yards behind them.
"Let's go and clean up and head back to the main road." He said. She nodded and followed him to the water.
They began to remove their soiled layers of clothes. She watched Erik as he took off his shirt, his physique very much still as muscular as it was years ago, as a man in his early thirties, now fifties. She was trying to look away until she saw the beautifully detailed grey and black tattoo across his entire left shoulder.
"A nightingale." She said.
He looked over at her. "Yes." He said.
"When did you get that?" She asked.
"After I came home from Utah. From Dylan's camp. I spent the next year in intense therapy and decided after I began feeling better, healthier, to get this ode to the woman that loved me enough to call me on my shit and break me down so that I could heal. I needed a reminder, every day, of what I lost and to never be that man again." He said, looking off across the vast field in front of them.
She felt her heart hurt at his words.
"But are you? Are you still that man?" She asked.
"I thought I wasn't. I thought I had completely reformed." He began. He kept his eyes on her as she stood up and moved her jeans down and off, squatting down and rinsing what mud she could off of them.
"But there are parts of me that are still that man." He said, honestly.
"What parts are those?" She asked, making sure he heard the apprehension in them.
"The parts that should have enough respect for you and for Dylan and the rest of your family to not have the thoughts about you that I do." He said, looking down.
Pearl felt her heart begin to race and her face flush with heat. She didn't say anything, only nodded.
He looked over at her and smiled.
"But the reformed part of me isn't going to allow myself to act on them. The healed man understands what is right and wrong." He said, standing up and putting his damp shirt back on. She put her jeans back on and looked over at him.
"A little bit less mud, right?" She said, holding her shirt and looking down at it then up at him.
She was absolutely adorable, he thought.
"Yes. The wind from riding should dry us. Let's head back if we can." He said. She nodded and followed him back to the bikes.
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