**Start of Book 3: Eleanor's Demise**
~🕊~
The moment Eleanor realized that her plan had worked, she felt liberated.
It has been almost a full year since she had faked her death, ran away from civilization, and forever since she'd last touched the handsome face of Adam Carnegie- more like slapped.
He was on the news every so often, she was sure he had been spotted outside a café with a different girl a while ago. And possibly other girls since then, Eleanor never took him for ever becoming a player, but people change when something traumatic happens- something like losing the love of their life to a truck. It hurt her to know that Adam had moved on, after a whole year of her death, he had finally gotten over her and no longer seemed to mourn the wretched day she'd taken her life. It had crushed Eleanor's poor heart to know how much her demise affected him.
But then again, nobody could imagine the unbelievable pain he felt at the moment he had found out she was dead. He was robotic for weeks on end, unable to get over the fact that the woman he loved so dearly was no longer in his life.
It was a tragic death, the death of the billionaire's wife who was oh-so-very depressed that she threw herself in the middle of a busy street a while past midnight and was killed by a semi-truck. It had all been perfectly timed, and Eleanor appreciated that God went along with her sick plan and let it work out. They never found her body, obviously, just blood and fresh on the floor crushed and splayed all over and assumed it was her.
She was that wife, but the reasons behind her death go far deeper than a dissatisfied relationship with her husband. Because she was most definitely not at all dissatisfied. She loved- loves- Adam Carnegie, yet it was his father that she'd had a problem with. In Eleanor's mind, her disappearance was totally worth it.
She had killed Mr. Carnegie, Adam's horrid father, the devilish man who arranged her marriage then forced her husband to annul it a year later. A cryptic way of showing how much he hated seeing other people happy together.
His entire motive was a stupid high school heartbreak. Eleanor's mother had left him and he wanted payback. Those were some of the things inscribed inside a journal that he had carefully hidden under one of the his indoor plants which rested beside the chlorine filled pool.
Which is why Eleanor felt so relieved watching him rot away the night she'd poisoned him. He was smiling over an article about her death and two weeks later there was one written about his.
Karma's a bitch.
She had decided to hide out ever since. Nobody would suspect that a dead woman could commit such a heinous crime. In Eleanor's devious and manipulative heart was a small patch that had been sewed up. A patch that felt guilt toward deciding someone's fate because that someone was trying to decide hers.
But he had done so much evil to her, so damn much that she couldn't take it anymore. By attempting to destroy the fragile marriage between his son and Eleanor Carnegie, he had created a burning hatred toward himself- one that could have only ended as it did.
Eleanor tried to push those thoughts as far away from her mind as possible. It hurt her way too much to think about Adam, especially now.
She couldn't recall the insane amount of nights that she had wished Adam's brown eyes and sturdy arms would engulf her and his soft lips could kiss her until she slept.
That was until she had been spotted, but not by Adam- or anyone that could remotely distinguish her with the prestigious Eleanor Carnegie. That girl was dead.
She could never live with herself if he found out she was alive, the look of betrayal he would have would destroy her then and there. She had forgiven Adam, indeed, she knew he was just a pawn in the Carnegie schematic.
But no, this isn't a story about a lost girl getting found, it goes far deeper than that because found is one thing, and discovered is another.
Eleanor had made a friend here, more than a friend perhaps.
"Good morning Bree." Josiah's voice spoke beside her. They had lived in this house for four months now. He had no idea who she was and Eleanor planned on keeping it that way.
She wasn't planning on a relationship with him, her heart still clung to Adam back in New Jersey. She didn't think it could ever leave Adam. But what human can avoid the pull of Eleanor Carnegie.
She believed Josiah was also a pawn, just used him for protection among other things. If she was never to see or touch Adam again, she certainly wasn't about to deny herself the pleasure in general.
Every time they'd done it, she felt like she was betraying Adam in some way, but he thought she was dead. He had moved on. And although she was still hung up on him- she had moved on too.
Josiah was innocent. He didn't know she'd changed her name to Bree Walker and moved to another state. A state in the midwest where nobody would ever find her. Eleanor Carnegie didn't do western, until now.
It might sound crazy, but clearly, she was way past the point of being crazy- and to no avail would there be a return. Eleanor hadn't only been crazy enough to kill Adam's father, hence putting more pressure on the man, but she had trekked the path to wherever the hell she was at. All the way to smack dab the middle of nowhere. It took a few months, but living on the salary of a hobo had actually made her pretty wealthy; it gave her enough money to spend the nights in luxurious hotels. She had accumulated a couple thousand dollars on her way to Oklahoma through ways she felt disgusted to think of.
A place where the majority of people didn't keep up with the drama of the outside world. The drama that came with being a Carnegie.
She had cut her hair and dyed it brown the moment she'd found a house. And, boy, was rent cheap here. And weeks later, she'd found a job at-- get this-- a bakery.
Eleanor had worked her ass off for four years to get her hard-earned business degree only to work at a bakery. But she wasn't complaining. She was free from the stress of the paparazzi recording her every move, free from the stress that Hank Carnegie, Adam's father, kept placing on us to destroy her happiness; just free from all the stress that being famous brought with it.
She had gotten away with murder and completely erased herself from the planet. She went by Bree Walker now and everyone in this little town knew who she was. A twenty-two-year-old girl from Texas was what Eleanor had told them, nobody knew the truth about Eleanor. The Eleanor that had been on the cover of magazines, the Eleanor who was the new cover of Carnegie Hall was officially gone.
That girl was dead.
"Hey," she smiled at Josiah as he walked out of the room they rented together and headed toward the tiny kitchen. In retrospect, the house was a pretty good size, but it wasn't homey whatsoever. The walls were white with no pictures anywhere and no decoration.
She got out of bed as well, it was Sunday. And in this tiny town, Sunday meant you better bring your ass down to the church or be shunned until the next week. It was weird but interesting as the fifty or so people would all gather to pray then go home and start up their business'. The town was absolutely silent during that time- an onlooker might even think it were abandoned.
In all honesty, Eleanor was happy here, it was calm and serene and the crime rates were very low. Not to mention the blessing of non-existent paparazzi.
But every morning for the last year, she would wake up with these awful nightmares of old Mr. Carnegie's death. Murdering someone takes a toll on you. She couldn't get away from the past no matter how hard she tried, and small parts of her wanted to go back in time.
It hit her especially hard this morning as she passed through the small hallway and into the kitchen behind Josiah and took a sip of her coffee. Déjà vu. Time stood still for a second, Adam's gentle face appeared and flickered away. Memories of her old home appeared and went away almost instantly. She tightened her hold on the coffee.
It was nearing Adam's birthday and her brain had began nagging her, she'd attached herself to the prospect of Adam Carnegie. He was all she could think about now as the days grew sooner.
Eleanor wanted to see him, to visit Adam and just watch him for a while, to catch a glimpse of his perfectly chiseled features and brooding brown eyes, to know how much his life had changed. She could do that if she wanted, but that would test the limits of this plan. This plan that was supposed to last a lifetime.
She could easily get caught if anyone recognized her. Sure, it would make them question if she was Eleanor, but as soon as the question would leave their lips, they would realize she was dead and that the brown- haired girl in front of them couldn't possibly be Eleanor.
But it was worth the risk, Adam didn't deserve to spend his birthday alone. Eleanor stupidly argued with her inner monologue before coming to a conclusion.
She changed quickly, packing what little clothes she had into a bag and sat in Josiah's car. He joined her moments later, smelling as fresh as dew.
"Are we going to church today Bree?" He had the cutest country accent, an irresistibly contagious smile that would have made any girl melt. But Eleanor was a liar, a girl so full of secrets that she could no longer tell the difference between the truth.
"Actually, I was thinking we could go on a road trip." She smiled back, her stomach hurling with butterflies as she imagined scenarios of seeing Adam again.
"Bree," he gave her a stern look, "rent is due next week darlin', I have to go work at the clinic." Josiah was a doctor, he had just received his MD when she had first arrived and had been taking care of her ever since. He was still in loads of debt.
"But I have enough saved to pay off this whole month, and hotel rooms." She crossed her arms, a smirk playing at the corners of her lips as Josiah looked at her with gentle eyes.
"Okay baby, but I'm paying for all of next month's rent." He glanced away, knowing he had easily lost the argument. Just a glance into her ocean blue eyes made him weary and incapable of forming coherent thoughts, "Well, I have to call in sick all week I suppose," He spoke, "my patients are going to be so upset." He looked at the windshield thoughtfully.
"Me too." Eleanor mumbled, looking at the rearview mirror, brown eyes popped in and out of her peripheral vision.
Her hallucinations hadn't gone away like she had hoped, Adam still showed up every so often.
And now she would get to go see him. She smiled at Josiah as the engine revved to life. She leaned over and pecked his lips as a warm smile filled his face and a shade of red peaked on his cheeks.
"So where we goin'?"
"New Jersey."
~🏵~
Adam's hard eyes seemed to stray as he stood in front of Carnegie Hall, trying to linger in the streets.
He wanted the place to burn as memories of the horrible, unthinkable things that had happened in the ground below zero replayed in his mind.
It infuriated him that Eleanor was on his mind again.
Even now as he stood waiting for Maggie to walk with him to breakfast. He had avoided entering the giant building whenever he could.
Paparazzi no longer flashed around him. Perhaps he had grown boring without Eleanor, or perhaps he had signed a restraining order on a lot of his favorite places.
He hated every aspect of what was happening to him at this very moment when a year ago he had been with Eleanor- and happy. He'd become bitter and angry at the world and himself, and those feelings wouldn't go away.
His birthday threatened to come soon and he avoided the thought of it like the plague. There was no way to celebrate when all he could feel was lonely consolidation.
His warm brown eyes leaked a single tear that he wiped quickly, looking around to make sure nobody had seen him.
He stuffed his hands into his pockets as bright green eyes smiled at him.
"Maggie." He grinned, kissing her cheek as she blushed sweetly. The giant, endlessly gaping hole that Eleanor had left seemed to be temporarily patched up when Maggie was around. He smiled at her before she leaned forward and kissed his lips.
In a strange way, he felt guilty. It made him feel like rubbish, having a wife back home and kissing another woman.
But the second he thought it, the gloom was back. Eleanor had died. There was nobody to go home to. He had to move on.
~🍂~
The paper flew around her, swishing in a small tornado of air as she attempted to catch it. She stood in the middle of the street frantically trying to find her precious, yet confusing map.
Found it.
Her eyes trained on the map just as it was folded on the ground before her, then her eyes landed on the black shoes and tan khakis on the ground beside it as her heart suddenly sank. A man, maybe in his twenties, bent down, he picked it up and handed it to her. She felt nervous until her heart swelled with joy at how this must have looked. How this simple act could make her entire painful year just come into perspective.
She felt dumb-founded, staring into his golden, barely hazel eyes, wondering how anyone could have such yellow eyes.
She heard herself saying thank you repeatedly. He grinned warmly, saying 'you're welcome' and handing her the map.
"You from here?" He asked, a cute southern accent protruding through his soft lips.
"Kind of," She smiled, her too-long blond hair flying all over the place as the wind picked up its pace. She moved it out of her face.
"Are you new in town? I'd love to introduce you. We'd be thrilled to have a new member."
"Where... where am I?" Eleanor looked at him confused as she turned her map in a million different directions and crumpled it immediately.
"Darlin' you're in Clearwater, Oklahoma." He smiled at her, "Welcome, need help gettin' around?" Eleanor nodded, a sense of accomplishment showing its nasty face; she was proud of how far she had come. If for a second he had suspected that she was Eleanor Carnegie, his suspicion would fade. Nobody in these parts knew an Eleanor Carnegie, and if they did, they couldn't possibly put two and two together.
Eleanor's hair was disheveled and dirty. She looked like a wild woman with dried dirt on parts of her skin. She had wandered around America in her blue silk pajamas and flip-flops for what felt like forever.
She shuddered at the thought. She used to get a pedicure every week, and now her feet look like they belonged in a damn zoo.
"I'm Josiah, by the way," he held his hand out for her to shake as he grinned warmly. Eleanor couldn't think of a name on the spot and he had been expecting one.
"I'm... El-I'm Bree, Bree Walker." She lied through gritted teeth as he smiled gently.
"Welcome to Oklahoma Bree." He seemed nice enough. "You look really tired darlin', would you want to stay with me for a while, I mean, while you figure things out?" He asked. He seemed like a genuinely nice guy, but how often did people offer their homes unless they were some sort of serial killer.
"If that would be okay with you..." she whispered cautiously. Eleanor had met her share of crazy men out there in the wild world, but Josiah didn't seem like one. "You don't plan on raping me do you?" She asked, running a hand through her dirty hair.
He began laughing, "I don't know what you're used to Bree, but here, we don't do that sort of thing." He grinned, a smile that sorely reminded her of Adam. He had the same nose as Adam, and she couldn't take her eyes off him.
"Come on, we're almost there." They walked to a quaint little house in a quiet little neighborhood. "Welcome to my humble home." He was too trusting. Eleanor momentarily wondered how many people in this world would actually be willing to let a girl that looked like she'd just climbed up from hell into their homes.
She walked inside the small place, the walls were blank and the only furniture consisted of two couches in the living room, a television placed beside the wall, and from what she could see, one small bathroom and a bedroom. It was bright with windows everywhere and a golden shimmer to the room made it feel less dull.
The first request she had made was to ask him for a pair of scissors, which he kindly obliged to and watched her, mesmerized as she chopped off my thick blond locks. Her hair wasn't short now, it just reached her shoulders. She had asked for hair dye, but being a doctor in fear of her scalp-health, he bought a temporary one that would work for a while.
She had spent a few months exploring to find out that this town had one supermarket, one school, one church. They had no fast food places, but everyone seemed so content living like that.
And four months later, here they were, still living together. Eleanor was grateful for him, and apparently, he was loved by the whole town, the only doctor in town was a pretty big honor.
However, her secrets ocassionaly dug into her sides and brought fear along with them. Her paranoid fear of being found continued to grow as it neared Adam's birthday.
And now Eleanor and Josiah had driven his run-down old car toward her old home, New Jersey.
Eleanor's name was no longer spoken of on the streets because everyone on Earth knew that Eleanor had been buried with a closed empty casket because her body was too disheveled to be put in there.
It was an unspoken rule in Jersey because apparently, Adam had made her out to be a damn saint, which she was far from.
"Well, that was fun." Josiah smiled as they parked in front of a coffee shop. A coffee shop she used to go to, even when her opinion of coffee was lower than low, and went inside. They had missed mass this Sunday to drive around all day, but they would be back in time next week.
"Well, I'd say we earned this vacation." Eleanor smiled at him as he reached for her hand. She had made sure to use the last of her temporary hair dye before they'd left. It's crazy how a simple change such as hair could make one look like a completely different person.
"Hi welcome to Stella Luna, may I take your order?" She smiled at the waiter.
"I'll have the regular coffee." Eleanor looked at Josiah as he glanced right back at her.
"I'll have what Bree's having." They sat patiently in the booth, speaking about all of the adventures of a day long road trip. The ladies at the bakery had probably been wondering where she was, so she had given them a call this morning and let them know she wouldn't be back until Wednesday.
The world froze as Eleanor glued her eyes to the screen. Adam's perfect face appeared on the television screen and she felt her heart being ripped out. The calmness inside her had been replaced with nervous butterflies and a churning spirit.
She recognized the sadness in his eyes. He had lost his wife and his father all within the span of a month, the guy must've felt horrible. It hurt her even more to know she had caused this pain and even told him she wanted to cause him pain.
By his side stood his younger brother Elijah who was just about his six' two" height now and his older sister was waving at the camera. She had only encountered the other half of his family twice- the half that didn't involve Hank Carnegie. Once prior to her wedding and once after Adam rescued her from said Hank Carnegie, and both times had been memorable.
The camera zoomed in on Adam's face and Eleanor felt her heart flutter. She missed him so damn much, so much so that she was willing to be caught just to catch a glimpse of him in real life.
On this end, he seemed like a celebrity.
"Bree?" Josiah's voice snapped Eleanor from her thoughts as he took looked at the screen. "Seems like a nice guy," he commented as their coffee arrived.
"I'll bet." Eleanor blushed as she looked down at her coffee, she had squeezed the cup to the point where hot coffee was covering her hand and she hadn't even felt it.
"Are you okay?" Josiah asked, wiping her hand with napkins as she nodded, "so. . .why New Jersey?" It was winter and Christmas had been two days ago. In private, Eleanor wanted to be able to be in town on Adam's twenty-sixth birthday, which was in two days.
December 28.
"I wanted to see the ball drop."
"That's in New York." He laughed as Eleanor watched his dark stubble move along with his handsome jaw. Josiah's features were a bit on the soft side, making him appear younger than he actually was.
"Okay fine, I wanted to see what Adam Carnegie would do this year for his birthday. I mean his wife died about a year ago, a few months after his birthday so... " Eleanor said honestly. "They usually had a Christmas party and usually eveyone is welcome to come..." She hadn't realized that she wasn't part of the everyone anymore. She was a nobody now.
"But why?" Joshua chuckled, finishing his last sip of coffee.
"Wouldn't you like to know." Eleanor laughed, wiping away the whipped cream off of Josiah's bottom lip. This tactic seemed to easily distract him as she stared at him.
"Well, what else is the rich boy supposed to do with all that money?" Josiah suddenly said, his eyes staring at the screen as an image of Adam signing a check for three million dollars to the children's hospital appeared.
"He's amazing." Eleanor said as Josiah glanced at me, "Relax Joe, it's not like I want to marry the guy, he's dating some girl. He's just a celebrity crush, we all have them," she shrugged. She couldn't help but cringe at her own words.
It was hard pretending that the man she loved was nothing more than a stranger.
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