Once back at the Palace, Eleanor was sat in her room, still holding the box. She hadn't opened it yet, but she had sniffed at it in the car and realised that Elizabeth had made her something to take home.
She placed it on the table and sat looking at it, her thoughts clouded by her brief, but informative conversation with Elizabeth. She was about to go looking for Jasper when her door opened. She looked up and saw her body guard, James Hill, standing there, holding a fork out to her.
"I thought your highness may have a use for this."
Eleanor was suddenly famished, so she took the fork from James, and carefully opened the box in front of her. She groaned as she saw Elizabeth's most renowned and signature dish. Chicken and Chorizo Paella. With the unlady like grace a person of her station, Eleanor dug the fork into the dish and rammed it in her mouth, savouring the taste of it before chewing. She was taking a second mouthful when her door opened again. She was disappointed to see that it was Liam.
"Someone got their appetite back" he quipped, leading to Eleanor lowering her fork back into the box and giving him the finger.
"Look, Len. I love you. You are part of who I am. I just want to see you happy."
"Where are you going with this Liam?"
"You are clearly so into Jasper it's getting kind of painful to watch. You aren't denying it, and you aren't telling me to keep my voice down either, so clearly Mr Hill knows everything."
"He doesn't love me Liam. I don't even know why he is still here."
"Because I've also seen the way he looks at you Len."
"But Mum."
"Fuck Mum! Be happy"
"He fucked Mum."
"I'll kill him."
"That's not the worst part."
"What is it Len?"
Eleanor pondered the thought, ate some more of her meal which was starting to go cold and didn't care. It still tasted good.
"Where do you want me to start?"
"How about the beginning?"
"Well, you know he came to me not long after Robbie died."
Liam nodded.
"Well that first day I got black out drunk and took so many drugs I couldn't spell my own name. When I woke up, he was naked in my bed."
"He still has a job?"
"He told me he filmed the whole thing and if I thought about firing him, then he would release it."
"Now I am definitely going to kill him."
"We continued to have dirty blackmail sex, but I don't know, somewhere along the way, it felt like things changed. By the night of the Masquerade, I was sleeping with him because I wanted to, not because I had to. He admitted to me that night there was no tape. By then I was gone, I told him it was so much more than blackmail sex, and he freaked. But I could not forgive him. I left a naked girl in my bed for him to find and I ran away to Monaco with you for the weekend.
When I got back, I had gogmagogg as a body guard and Jasper has been reassigned to Mum. I went looking for her and I found his cufflink in her bed. She told me she did me a favour as she could see there was something between the two of us."
"Len..."
"I later found out that she blackmailed the blackmailer."
"What did she find on him?"
"What I knew. He's not an Orphan from Shoreditch. He's the son of a conman from Nevada."
"And he is still here, watching my back?"
"Well, I then met Mandy. and she threw us that amazing party. Turns out she was Jaspers partner, both in Crime and Life. and she had come to steal the Koh-I-Nor, which was Jasper was after. She got bored of waiting for Jasper to take it so used me to do it herself."
"But we have the Koh-I-Nor?"
Eleanor ate some more of her food.
"Because Jasper took me down into the tunnels to confront her. He smashed the fake and took back the real diamond. He gave it to me. So I gave her my earrings and told her to leave. Told Jasper he had a choice to make."
"And he chose you?"
"No. He went after her."
"But he is here."
"And it scares me, because I do not know what he is planning next."
"MOTHER!" Liam shouted as he barged into her room.
"Son!" she replied in a cool voice.
"Why did you sleep with Jasper. You knew Len was into him"
"I did it to protect her feelings. It never works out with the help."
"You do realise that she is using again because of you? I don't know if you had noticed that she had slowed down the drinking and the drugs and the partying, and I suspect it's because she isn't chasing the high. She knew he was a con man the entire time mum and she still fell for him, and he for her, and I suspect that's the reason why the drugs damned near stopped."
"I hadn't noticed that."
"Well you need to do what you can to fix it."
Eleanor was laid on her bed, contemplating whether or not a line of coke would take her out of her depressive mood when her doors both opened and stood, with a hand on each handle, illuminated by the light of the hallway, was Jasper.
He was stood in his black suit, his black tie absent, allowing his white shirt to be open at the neck. She had to admit, he looked good, but, even though she could feel the effect he was having on her, she could not forgive him so quickly.
"What do you want? she snapped at him.
"I wanted to make sure you were ok, and if you needed anything."
"I'm fine, and no, I do not need anything."
Jasper nodded at her, stepped back and closed the door. As soon as he was gone, she felt something inside of her sink. She jumped off the bed and ran to her door. She flung it open and raced into the hallway, but Jasper was gone.
"GAH!" she screamed, before going back to her bedroom.
