Chapter 43 #2
“You know,” I begin, “you should probably be grateful I haven’t done something drastic. Troisgarde women have a type, but we’re also pretty ruthless. My mom destroyed my dad’s penthouse after he tricked her into marrying him instead of killing her.”
He turns around slowly. “He was supposed to kill her?”
“It’s their love story, allegedly.”
“That’s one hell of a footnote.”
“Welcome to the Troisgarde.” I wave my hand. “Anyway. My point is, you’re getting off easy so far. The surveillance alone should’ve earned you a slashed pillow or two by now.”
“Noted,” he says, tapping a sudsy finger against his temple. “I’ll be sure to buy you one of those useless cylindrical ones rich old biddies put on guest beds.”
I smile, but even with the banter, my mind keeps going back to what I need to be brave about, so I finally ask.
“How’s my family?” I ask. “Luna, Nox? B—”
I stop. Swallow. “How is everyone?”
He drops his hand, then looks back at me.
His expression sobers. “Your parents are worried sick, but they know you’re good at disappearing, so they sent Troisgarde men quietly.
Just in case. At first Kian didn’t want to have me included at all.
But then I made that bet with him and forced him to let me look. ”
“My father and his godforsaken bets,” I mutter.
He lets out a soft laugh. “For a casino owner, he really does suck at the gambling that matters.”
I huff a laugh at that, then the silence stretches until he clears his throat.
“Nox is a mess after what happened in Lost Cove. I didn’t know him well, but according to Luna, he hasn’t been the same.”
My heart twists.
I didn’t see him after Luna was taken. He immediately went with his father, Benoit, and his Uncle Jaime to go search for her.
The last time I saw him, he was still “Carefree Nox,” whose worst concern in life was living it up until he had to take over his branch of the Troisgarde when Sol passed it down to him.
None of us are the same now.
“Luna stayed back at Dark Corner with Orion,” Hatch continues. “She agreed to stay after I realized you’d ran—”
My head snaps up. “After you realized I ran?”
He nods. “You hadn’t been gone an hour.”
I narrow my eyes, my chest flutters at that, but I narrow my eyes. “Okay. Stalker much.”
He shrugs. “Someone’s gotta keep an eye on you.”
I worry my lip. “Is Luna safe?”
“Yes,” he says firmly. “She loves it there, actually.” His voice dips. “And after what happened with Brylie…”
My chest tightens. “The story in the booth. That was about her? Why… why did you tell me? You could’ve told me so much then.”
He blows out a breath. “I never wanted to force you to be anywhere you didn’t want to be.
I thought you were happy here, but I wanted to see how much you knew about back home.
When I realized you had no clue, honestly, I wasn’t sure what to do.
But then X offered me the job, and I… figured I could watch you for as long as I could before shit hit the fan.
” He huffs. “Wasn’t very long, obviously. ”
My lips twitch, but I don’t smile. “What happened to her?”
“She was in a car accident on the way to the airport,” he explains, elaborating on the story I know.
“The Wildes ran her car off the road—we think, at least. There’s lots of questions there.
” He pauses, eyes searching my face. “What we do know is, the driver died and she fell into a coma. Dash did some crazy things to be close to her. Snuck into the hospital as often as he could, even pretended to be a doctor. It drove him fucking crazy that no one could explain why she wasn’t getting better.
He suspects some shady shit was going on, and I don’t blame him. Especially now.”
My hands tremble. “But she never woke up.”
Something inside me caves. My body folds in on itself, shoulders curling, breath shuddering out of me. Hatch is there instantly, setting his mug aside and reaching for me. “Baby,” he says softly. “I’m so sorry.”
I want to cry. I think I should cry. But nothing comes. The tears are gone, spent somewhere out in the ocean. I just sit there, hollow and aching, letting him hold me.
“I tried calling Dash when you were asleep, but he’s in the wind,” Hatch says quietly as he lets me go, combing my hair with his fingers.
“I don’t know how he’s going to cope. If it were me?
” His voice roughens. “I don’t know how I’d react if I lost someone else I was supposed to keep safe. If I lost you.”
I sniff, wiping my nose with the sleeve of my shirt. I look at him, really look at him, as he pulls away. His eyes are bloodshot, his shoulders slumped like the weight of the world is pressing down on him.
“Thanks,” I whisper.
He cups my cheek and brushes the apple with his thumb. “I’m here for you, Lucy.”
I smile a little at that, and just watch him as he lets go to go back to washing dishes, a break in the heaviness of the conversation.
Just then, Dinah hops up onto the narrow counter beside him.
I gasp. “Dinah!”
Hatton doesn’t even miss a beat, and just shifts sideways to make room for her like it’s the choreography to a dance they’ve mastered.
“Hatton!”
“What?” He frowns.
“She knows she’s not supposed to be on counters. You’ve taught her bad habits.”
“Oh, so Chessy can have bad habits, but Princess Dinah can’t?”
“Princess Dinah?”
“Yeah.” She stretches up his arm to headbutt him, and he leans over to kiss her forehead. “Like Princess Diana.”
I stare at him as he nonchalantly goes back to cleaning and Dinah circles around and lays next to him to watch him, an increasing pressure rising in my chest that feels an awful lot like tenderness.
Ugh. I’m trying to be mad at him. Why is this so hard?
I mean, I get it. There’s the whole, “born into this life thing.” Hatton was right. Overbearing men are an unfortunate prerequisite for being in the Troisgarde. And honestly, in dealing with us women too.
Plus, he is so unbearably, infuriatingly, disgustingly cute about my cat. It’s almost like they’ve been together months instead of him just bringing her to me now that he’s found me.
I watch him nuzzle her again, and my chest aches at the familiarity there. Then it hits me.
“She was with you the whole time I was gone. Wasn’t she?”
His movements slow, and he nods. “Yeah. From the day you left.”
That cracks something behind my ribs, and warmth fills me. “But… why? You had no obligation to her.”
He’s quiet for a moment as he dries his hands, looking down at Dinah. Then he begins to stroke her fur, almost like the behavior is as much a calming mechanism as it is for her.
“Because she’s yours,” he says simply. “I didn’t know why you left her behind, but I knew she needed you back.” There’s so much weight in those statements I feel it in my marrow.
“Well.” I clear my throat. “She obviously likes you.”
He scoffs then. “She more than likes me. She loves me. See! Look at that.”
I’m looking but all I see is Dinah giving him one long, slow blink.
“See?” He says proudly, then gives her a bite of a leftover bacon from the tin foiled pan.
“All I’m seeing is you feeding my cat human food. Which explains why she’s a little on the pudgy side, honestly.”
“She’s eating things cats eat!”
“No, bacon is absolutely not what cats eat.”
He shrugs then eyes Dinah. “I mean, tell her that.”
“You’re impossible.”
“I am who I am. But that’s not the point.” He scoffs. “You didn’t see it? She slow blinked at me.”
“She… slow blinked?”
“Yeah. That’s a cat’s way of saying they love you. Or trust you, at a minimum.”
I frown. “How do you know that? I thought you hated cats.”
“I don’t hate cats.” He sounds genuinely offended. “I’m allergic to cats.”
“Yeah, like deathly allergic, right?”
He shrugs. “So? I mean. Look at her, who could hate Dinah?” He bends and gets eye level with her. “You love Daddy, don’t you princess?”
My jaw drops, but he doesn’t notice as she slow blinks at him, too busy slow blinking right back at her, completely serious.
Then he picks her up, holding her in front of his face like Simba, and adopts a falsetto voice that has no business coming out of a six-foot-five tattooed murderer.
“See, Mommy? I love Daddy. He’s the best.”
“Um, excuse me. Daddy?”
He raises a pierced brow at me.
“Lucy, baby, please.” He puts Dinah down and makes a show of covering her ears. “No kinks in front of the children.”
My face goes scarlet. The heat of it travels down my neck and I’m acutely aware that I’m sitting on a table in a long sleep shirt with nothing but panties underneath, and this man hasn’t stopped looking like he’s wanted to eat me since I climbed up.
A deeply sinful flash of arrogance flickers over his face, and he winks.
“Oh yeah, I definitely can’t stand you,” I grumble.
“Mmhm. I hear ya, and trust me. It gets more and more convincing every time you say it.” He hums, unfazed.
“Now that one.” Then he nods toward Chessy, who has reappeared through the cracked porthole and now glares at us all like we’re intruding on his home.
“That one I genuinely don’t like. He’s more curmudgeonly than Harry, and that’s saying something.
The guy’s been ornery the entire time I’ve known him. ”
A laugh escapes me before I can stop it, and Hatton catches the sound with an eager look and smiles back.
It strikes me then, how easy this is. How easy I could let this be, if I just…
went along with everything. Went home, got married to this man I’ve already been promised to.
Maybe there’s something to this whole “Fury peace” thing.
But then the reality of why Harry might’ve been unhappy all his life filters in. His future fell victim to the Furys’ traditions. I’m a pawn just like he was, just like Hatton’s grandmother, and I promised myself I would never be helpless again.
My laughter fades, and I look down at my hands.
“Maybe Harry would’ve been able to be at peace if he’d been able to marry the woman he loved.”