Chapter 43
LUCY
Ishiver at the command, and open, this time actually letting myself enjoy the bite. It’s just as “scrumdiddlyumptious” as Hatton promised—the syrup and butter making the soft cakes butterscotch-and-vanilla sweet. His face brightens just before my eyes practically roll back in my head, and I moan.
“Now I know you’re doing that shit again.”
“What shit?” I ask innocently. Then take a sip of the tea.
He opens his mouth, but snaps it shut when something like pain flashes over his expression. His jaw tightens.
“Sorry,” he mutters. “I forgot you, uh, don’t remember the night on the dock.”
I was going to hold out a little longer, but the sadness in his features has me wanting to reassure him.
“Oh, I remember important stuff. Like… how fun it was to torture you when I moaned.”
His eyes narrow. “You were messing with me?”
“Absolutely.”
“You.” He points a piece of bacon at me. “Are a tease.”
“And you are a jerk,” I say pleasantly, and take another bite.
He grins. “I thought you preferred the term, antihero.”
“Fictional antiheroes.” I sigh. “Then again, I also prefer my arranged marriages to be fictional too. But,” I shrug, “here we are.”
That makes him flinch for some reason, and I don’t like it. I wait for him to explain, but he doesn’t, so when he gives me another bite of bacon, I moan obscenely.
“Goddamn,” he mutters. “Tease or not, I will never get over hearing that.”
And that pleases me to no end.
This time when he loads up another bite, I eagerly open for him, determined to both enjoy the delicious torture that’s veiled in apology and deliver some punishment back by taunting him with dramatic, orgasmic moans.
While he feeds me, Dinah materializes from the porthole in the bedroom, apparently having followed Harry out and looped back around.
She winds around Hatch’s ankles and he sets the plate aside.
Still holding out a fork for me, he reaches down without looking and finds her favorite scratching spot behind her ear, erupting the cabin in thunderous purrs.
“Traitor,” I grumble and take a reluctant, delicious bite.
Hatton glances down at Dinah, who has planted herself on his foot and gazes up at us like we both belong to her. He chuckles, but his face scrunches up and his entire body tenses, readying for a sneeze… but then he sighs.
“Okay I think I’m good now. One false alarm usually means I’m good to go for the rest of the day.” Then through watering eyes, he grins. “Your scowl is cute. Now I know how Harry feels, getting fawned over by the picky cat while the other human in the room gets jealous.”
“I am not jealous!”
He scratches behind Dinah’s ear again. “Could’ve fooled me.”
Then he gathers more pancake, raises the fork again, and waits.
I take the bite, eyeing him.
“How do you know Harry?” I ask around the pancake. “He rented me this boat for almost nothing, no questions. I just thought he saw me down on my luck before, but now…”
“I know what you’re thinking.” He feeds me a bacon-whisker from the pancake cat, and I resolve to hold back my moans the rest of the time so we can actually talk. “He didn’t know you were Lucy McKennon. That part really was coincidence.” He pauses. “The part that isn’t is that I know him.”
He takes a bite of bacon himself, that I almost, irrationally, get possessive over. I sip my tea instead and focus on hearing the rest of his answer.
“He used to date my Grandma Fancy.”
I stare at him until it clicks. “Fancy’s Haven? That’s your grandma? Wow. I didn’t think someone named a boat after a person if they weren’t love-of-their-life status.”
“Yeah, about that…” We settle into an even cadence of he feeds me, I hold back a moan, he feeds himself until he continues, “She, uh, kind of was the love of his life.”
“What?”
He winces. “Furys have an unfortunately long-standing tradition with arranged marriages.” He scrapes more bites together, feeding us.
“Grandma Fancy was betrothed to Papa Fury when they were kids. She and Harry found each other in between, but in the end—” He lifts one shoulder. “She had to go with the Furys.”
Sorrow tugs at my chest and I look around at the houseboat that’s been my safe haven for the past month, named after a woman he loved and lost to an obligation neither one of them chose.
“Why did Harry agree to help you at all, if he hates the Furys for taking away the woman he loves?”
“I suspect because he still loves her.” Hatch almost smiles and scrapes the last bit of pancake from the plate.
“And Grandma Fancy loves me. Maybe he thinks I’m his in.
” He chuckles. “Funny enough, if he’d just gather to courage to call her, they’d probably be back together in a heartbeat.
She never did like Papa Fury. Pretty sure she tap danced on his grave. ”
He takes a sip of my tea, I scowl, but then he gives me the last and I finish it, then he sets it on the counter.
“But what happened to that Fury peace you talked about? Wasn’t she his?”
“Well.” He tips his head, conceding. “Believe it or not, she was still peaceful to that bastard. He loved her the way he knew how.” He lifts the last bite on the fork and holds it between us, his dark blue eyes steady on mine as I take the bite. “It just… went the one direction.”
He’s sets the empty plate aside and refills my teacup. He gives it to me, and his thumb brushes my knuckles. The contact is quick and accidental, but it shoots straight up my arm and leaves my skin tingling.
Then he braces both hands on the table on either side of me. Not crowding, just there, warm and close, and smelling deliciously like smores, the sugary syrup combining with his natural bonfire scent.
“Now… how are you, bunny?” he asks, gaze roaming over my face. “Really doing?”
I suddenly feel shy under his perusal, the intensity behind it. I blow across the surface of the tea to bide time, focusing on the chipped rim of my cup. He’d know I was lying before I even thought to try it.
But what can I say? One of my best friends is—
No, I can’t even think about that without breaking down yet. Especially not when I haven’t talked to the other in months, and I have no idea how she is. I also miss my parents so terribly I can’t breathe sometimes.
I know I should be asking about all of it, but my heart is already in so much pain just thinking about these things. I can’t bear to talk about them after this morning. Not yet.
I guess I’m a runaway in more ways than one.
“My throat hurts,” I finally answer. The truth, even if it is still cowardice. “And my chest. And my nose and my eyes.” I shift slightly and set my tea on the counter. “But life or death-wise, I’d say I came out on top.”
He huffs a sound that isn’t quite a laugh, but there’s relief threaded through the exhale. “Good. You gotta remember your promise, though. Or I’ll come up to Heaven and drag you back myself.”
“Hm… Bold of you to assume I’d go up instead of down after I tried to kill someone.”
He does laugh then and tucks a hair behind my ear. “Oh, bunny. That’s cute.”
He steps back and leans against the counter across from me, giving me room to finally breathe that I immediately resent every inch of.
“If murder kept you out of the pearly gates, God Himself would be in trouble.” He shakes his head. “But I’m really fucking glad you didn’t test that theory.”
I match his smile, but neither reaches our eyes, and I sigh.
“How did you know I was there? At the beach?”
He eyes me carefully before answering, laying the words down gently like each might explode. “Satellites. Dock cameras. Possibly one on a vacation rental—”
“Ugh. Hatton Fury, you are such a stalker,” I groan.
He holds both hands up, the picture of preemptive surrender. “Every syndicate man you’ve ever known has had eyes on you. You should be used to it by now.”
I scoff and cross my arms. “That is genuinely the worst apology ever.”
“No, the pancats were the apology. That was just a fact. Besides, I told you I had a backup apology locked and loaded.” He licks his lips slowly, and my breathing stops. “If I’m not mistaken, you Troisgarde women have a type. What do you like in dark romance again?”
“Don’t,” I warn.
“Obsessive, protective guys? Willing to do whatever it takes to keep you safe and make you come—”
“Hatton Fury!” I lean forward and cover his mouth.
He takes my wrist and kisses my palm, making butterflies go absolutely mad in my chest. Then he peels my hand away, revealing a smile that has my inner muscles clenching.
“I’mma tell you right now, hearing my real name from that mouth ain’t the threat you think it is. All I can think about is using it for something else entirely.”
My eyes bulge, and he chuckles. “Kissing, McKennon, Jesus. Get your head outta the gutter.”
“You know what? I really can’t stand you,” I growl, but it comes out all wrong, soft at the edges, entirely unconvincing.
“Sure, baby.” He winks and gathers the plate, turning to the sink. “Face it, Lucy McKennon. I’m your type on paper. Literally.”
While I watch him tidy up, a strange easiness settles over my chest. I’d call it peace if the whole “Fury peace” soulmate-thing didn’t freak me out.
Maybe it’s because everything’s out in the open now.
He knows exactly who I am. I know exactly who he is.
No Alice, no Hatter, no carefully maintained gap between truth and performance.
Just laughing, teasing, and flirting over breakfast—or supper, apparently—with the man who was supposed to be my enemy.
When I picked the Hatter to perform my first private dance on, I did not see this coming. Not even slightly. Then again, I’d meant to secretly interrogate him from the start, so maybe I should’ve.
After all the dishes are in the sink, he begins to wash, humming something under his breath, a deep rich tone that makes me mad all over again. If he can sing too, I’ll have to kill him before my libido and lack of common sense and self-restraint kill me first.