“How can I be sure Damian has authorized you to sign the contract on his behalf?” Leander asks as he watches Lark read through the paperwork laid out on the coffee table of the basement pub of his home.
Lark shrugs, not looking up as she flips to the last page and picks up the waiting pen. “I guess you’ll just have to trust me. Have I ever given you a reason not to?”
Leander laughs but still shifts his attention to me as though I might give him a hint of reassurance. When I don’t, he looks even more delighted. Blimmin’ nutjob. He loves chaos almost as much as he loves money, two concepts that don’t seem compatible, and yet he makes it work.
Lark signs the final page of the Covaci contract and slides it across the coffee table. Leander leans back in his chair and feckin’ beams at the both of us. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he’s actually happy for me. I’m not sure he has that capacity to feel genuinely happy for anyone but himself, but he at least looks the part. Or maybe it’s not so much the end of my tenure with Leviathan that has him looking so pleased. It could just be Lark, who has been the source of his admiration ever since the muffin incident.
Plus she’s also just given him a six-pack of beer.
“It’s from my brother-in-law’s craft brewery. Buckeye Brewery pale ale,” she says as she passes him one of the glass bottles. “An apology for drugging you with muffins.”
Leander smiles as he motions to the other bottles in a bid for us to take one. “Don’t apologize. I like to be surprised.” He reads the label with an appreciative nod and pops the cap. “Speaking of surprises, I never thought I’d see the day, but Lachlan Kane is officially retired. That deserves a toast.”
Lark passes me a beer and grabs one for herself. When they’re open, we raise our bottles in the air.
“To you, Lark, for sorting out this asshole.”
“Asshat,” she says.
“Yeah, somehow that works better. Asshat,” Leander says with a sage nod. “To me, for finding these Kane boys and taking them home. Best decision I ever made was not killing them.”
I roll my eyes and Leander laughs before he gives me a slap to the shoulder. But the teasing light in his grin fades to something that seems real, at least as much as a man like Leander Mayes can manage. “And to you, Lachlan. You raised those boys and started your business and managed to somehow find the perfect wife despite being an asshat. You’ve done good. I’m going to miss you around here, kid.”
I nod, an unexpected pang of gratitude and nostalgia hitting my chest as I raise my bottle. “Sláinte.”
We clink the necks of our bottles and take a long sip of the honey-brown liquid.
“So,” Leander says after downing a third of his beer. “What’s your first plan for retirement, Lachlan? Gonna take up gardening, maybe? Throw pickles at neighborhood children and yell at them to get off your lawn?”
I grin and drape an arm across the couch behind Lark as I settle into my seat. “We’re going away for the weekend.”
“Whereabouts?”
“Cape Cod,” Lark says at the same time as I tell him it’s none of his business.
“Don’t even think about showing up there asking me to do some batshit-crazy job.” I shake my head as Leander gives me a devious grin before he takes another long pull from his bottle. “I am retired.”
Leander waves me off and sways a little on his seat as he turns his attention to Lark. “Speaking of jobs, got anything new lined up for me yet?”
A smile sneaks across Lark’s lips as Leander sets his beer down on the coffee table and gives the bottle a long, befuddled look. “Maybe let’s talk about it after you have a little nap.”
“Ahh shhhhit.”
Leander’s body swings in an unsteady circle before he passes out in a heap on the floor. We stare down at him where he lies crumpled between the sofa and the coffee table, a gentle snore already rumbling from his throat.
“Lark …”
“Hmm?”
“Didn’t we have a talk about this …?”
“I don’t think so, no,” she says. She rises from the couch and dusts off her jeans before flashing me a brilliant smile. “Not that I recall.”
“That’s funny. Because I remember saying something about letting me know before you drugged my feckin’ psycho boss next time,” I say as I stand and fold my arms across my chest. “He looks pretty drugged to me, duchess.”
“You told me to let you know if I gave him drugged muffins. I gave him drugged beer.”
I shake my head. But any attempt I have at stoicism falters as Lark approaches.
She folds her hands around my wrists. I drop my arms at her command and let her close in on me, her eyes fused to my lips. “Take me home,” Lark says as she rises on her tiptoes. One of her hands wraps around the back of my neck to draw my lips close to hers. “Since you’re officially retired, I think we should celebrate.”
My hand threads into Lark’s hair. I breathe in her scent of sweet citrus and let my lips graze hers when I whisper, “What exactly do you have in mind?”
“I can’t tell you that. It would ruin the surprise.”
Lark presses her lips to mine. My tongue sweeps across hers and I pull her closer, deepening the kiss. I’m carried away by my insatiable need for her that only grows more intense with each day that passes. I forget where I am and the world that spins around us as I lift her in my arms.
At least until Leander snorts a rumbling snore on the floor.
I set Lark on her feet with a disappointed sigh. “Christ Jesus. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“Deal,” she says. She presses a kiss to my cheek before she steps away. With a devious little grin, Lark shrugs on her jacket and grabs my hand.
We leave Leander untouched as we head upstairs and out the door. A message dings on my phone as we slide into the Charger, a text from Rowan. I start up the car and let it warm up as I tap out a reply. I feel Lark’s eyes on me as I pocket my phone and shift the car into drive.
“Everything okay?” she asks.
“Yeah, just Rowan asking about Christmas morning, if we want to do their place or ours.”
“Maybe ours for Bentley, since he’s still feeling sorry for himself. He’s really milking this ‘injured savior’ bit.” Lark fiddles with the hem of her jacket, unspoken words hanging in the air. “Do you think Fionn will come?”
Even though I knew that was what she was going to ask, it still feels as though she’s reached around my heart and squeezed. “I don’t know,” I reply as I keep my focus on the winding driveway. When I don’t glance her way, Lark lays her hand over mine where it rests on the gear shift. “I hope so.”
“Me too.”
We don’t talk much for the rest of the drive home. Though it would normally be a comforting quiet with Lark, my heart beats too quickly for me to feel relaxed. It only gets worse when we park. I try to take a deep breath as I walk over to the passenger side to open her door. With every step we take, I think she’s going to notice the way I hold her hand just a little too tightly, or the way I can’t seem to stop biting my bottom lip. But if she does catch on to those details, she never says so. She’s seemingly content to walk up the stairs side by side in silence. By the time we get to the landing, I’m nearly vibrating with nerves and anticipation.
“I got you something,” I say. I barely give us time to greet Bentley and take off our jackets before I tug Lark along to the living room. She looks at me with scrutiny and I shrug. “Early birthday present.”
“My birthday is in February. We haven’t even made it to Christmas yet.”
“Extra early.”
Lark’s gaze pans across the room before it lands on me. “Where?”
“Gotta figure that out for yourself, duchess.”
“Do I get a clue?”
I tap my finger against my lips to draw out her suffering before I finally say, “What kind of conduit is universal?”
A crease appears between Lark’s brows. She pivots on her heel, her focus roaming toward the kitchen until her expression suddenly clears. With the most feckin’ adorable grin, she grasps my arms and bounces on her toes. “Water. Constantine.”
And then she’s gone.
I trail in her wake as Lark heads to the Constantine poster and lifts it from the wall to reveal a safe. The smile she beams my way lights up every dark crevice in my heart.
“I don’t need to pry out an eyeball to open it?” she says as she spins the dial.
“Appears not.”
“What’s the code?”
“Go with the theme.”
I watch as Lark thinks on this for a minute then tries a few options. Her frustration mounts when nothing seems to work. It’s a valiant effort, and she seems determined to keep going until she finally lets out a dejected sigh and looks to where I stand with my hands shoved deep in my pockets. “Give up yet?”
“No,” she says with a scoff. She tries three more combinations before her shoulders fall. “Yes.”
I saunter up behind her, only stopping when my body is flush with her back. With a lingering kiss to Lark’s neck, I reach over her shoulder to spin the lock. “Well, well. Look who’s more up on their Constantine trivia now. Three, three, nine, three. The number on the back of Chas Kramer’s taxi.”
With the final number in place, I unlock the safe and stand back.
“Don’t gloat yet, Batman. I …”
Lark trails off as she opens the door, revealing her trophies. The snow globe. The coaster. The maracas were trickier to salvage, so I made her a new pouch from cowhide for the teeth of the broken one. There are a few other things I found hidden in the apartment, like a bookmark made of charred fabric and a beaded bracelet made of bone. And behind all those trophies, there’s something she’s never seen before.
“What’s this?” she asks as she pulls a cube of clear resin from the safe. She twists it side to side, examining the heart suspended in gold wire, frozen in time.
“That’s maybe the wrong question.”
“Who is this?”
“Dr. Louis Campbell.”
Lark stiffens. She stares at that heart. She doesn’t take her eyes from it, not even when they well with tears that she struggles to blink into submission. Her pain stokes the rage that lingers like venom in my veins. But there’s satisfaction too, in the hope that this trophy will give her some measure of closure to questions that have haunted her sleepless nights.
“Are you serious …?”
I nod.
Lark’s lip wobbles, and for a moment I wonder if this was the wrong thing to do. But when she looks at me, a smile breaks through the pain that creases her brow and floods her eyes with tears.
“This is the best present I’ve ever gotten,” she squeaks out. She feckin’ sobs as she wraps her arms around the cube and hugs it to her chest. Relief washes over me as I pull her into my embrace. Her body trembles as she lets go of at least some of this pain that’s haunted her for so many years. And I know this isn’t just something she wanted. It was something she needed.
When we finally separate, I pull the box from her arms and set it on the coffee table so I can take her shoulders and turn her away. “There’s one more thing,” I whisper as I nudge her toward the safe.
“More …?”
“You heard me.”
With a wary glance over her shoulder, Lark focuses on the items left inside, where I know there’s a manila envelope with her name on it. She keeps her back to me as she opens it. There’s a gasp as she withdraws the documents and reads the itinerary for a prebooked honeymoon trip to Indonesia I printed earlier today.
And then she flips to the divorce papers.
“What the fuck is this …?”
When I say nothing, she turns to face me, and finds me down on one knee.
A fresh wave of tears cascades down Lark’s cheeks in shining rivulets. She can’t seem to land on furious, or elated, or purely overwhelmed, but they all seem to combine when she says, “What the hell are you doing?”
“Proposing, by the looks of things,” I say with a glance at the diamond band I hold between us.
Lark looks around us as though the explanation can be found on the sofa, or out the window, or on the floor. Her gaze lingers on Bentley, who looks as confounded as she does. Then her eyes land on the papers that waver in her unsteady hands. I’m pretty sure a feckin’ eternity passes before her attention returns to me. “Why?”
“Because you never really had a choice in this marriage.”
Lark shakes her head. Her lips press into a tight line and her brow furrows. And I’m feckin’ terrified. I’m terrified to let her go. But I made a promise to protect her. From anyone, even herself. Even me. And the only way I can do that is to be sure she can live the life she wants. Otherwise, I’m not a protector. I’m a cage.
Lark’s expression is so hard and so pained that I can’t tell what she’s really feeling, but I know I need to keep going.
“You made this vow to save me. My brother. Your best friend. But I want you to choose the future you want, Lark. You can dissolve this marriage. Or we can do things another way. Maybe we start over and pretend we’d first met at Rowan’s place. Or we can stay married, have the honeymoon we talked about. You said it would be Indonesia, if this were real.” I take a steadying breath, but my throat burns when I swallow. It’s so hard to keep my eyes on her as I break open my heart to let her look inside. “This is real to me, Lark. I know I promised I wouldn’t let you go, but I was wrong. Because this decision is more important than me keeping my word. And for what it’s worth, I hope you choose me, in whatever way that needs to be. I’m asking you to stay with me. But I want you to choose what’s right for you.”
Lark holds my eyes.
And she doesn’t look away. Not as she tosses the itinerary over her shoulder, a move that incinerates my heart in a beat of panic. Not as she holds the divorce papers up and rips them apart, one after the next until each one is torn. Then she points at me with a trembling hand.
“I am madly in love with you, Lachlan Kane,” she says, jabbing her finger in my direction as though punctuating each word. “And I am also just madly mad. Don’t you ever give me divorce papers again.”
“I promise, duchess.” A burst of hope and relief and joy floods my chest. They are feelings I thought I’d never have, a life I never thought I’d live. Not until I made the choice to let Lark in. “I love you, Lark Kane.”
Lark’s anger dissolves. Her smile ignites. It’s the most beautiful she’s ever been, her happiness an unstoppable dawn.
“Good, you ‘feckin’ catastrophe,’” she says, and then she crashes into my arms. “Because I choose you.”
I slip the ring above the set on her finger.
And I choose her, like I have every day since I found the bottom of the chasm between us and decided to do whatever it took to claw my way into her light. I choose her like I will every day to come.
I kiss my wife. And I choose love.
