Chapter 44
LUCY
Hatch goes still. A full breath passes between us before he sighs.
“Well that took a fucking turn.”
When I look up, Hatton’s already nodding, like he’s resigned himself to his fate.
“Alright, Baby McKennon. Let’s go.”
I blink. “Let’s go?”
“You’re a shark, Lucy. I know by now the way you circle around something before striking for the truth. So whatever it is that’s on your mind.” He meets my eyes. “Ask it.”
I try to figure out the best way to go about this and start with the question I’ve had since Hatton showed me the Joker card.
“The deal,” I say. “You had with my father.”
He sighs, long and tired, like he’s been waiting for this question all morning. He drags his hand through his hair, leaving it sticking up in damp waves before placing his hat back on his head.
“Yeah.”
“You won the right to protect me, but is that all it was? Because McKennon deals are never that one-sided.” I keep my voice steady. “So. What was the second part?”
He helps Dinah down from the counter slowly, taking his time about answering.
“There were two parts,” he says finally. “First, whoever found you got to keep you safe their way. No interference.” He leans back against the counter and crosses his thick arms. “Second part was Kian’s part of the deal.”
A muscle works in his jaw. “I agreed that if I found you, I wouldn’t hold you to the marriage pact.”
The cabin goes quiet enough that I can hear the oyster chimes outside, the low hum of the heater, and the lap of the tide against the hull.
I sit with the words, turning them over.
“But you’re my fiancé,” I say slowly.
His jaw tics. “Not anymore.”
A pang knifes through my chest so violently, I almost tip over.
He bargained away the right to marry me.
Hatton walked into a card game with my father. Won. And then gave back the one thing the pact between our families had ever promised him—voluntarily.
“You—” I stop. Swallow. Then try again. “You looked for me, knowing if you found me that you couldn’t have me?”
He sighs.
“Yes.” The word cracks, but when he clears his throat, his voice is strong again. “Protecting you was more important.”
“More important than…” I stop. Try to find the shape of the question. “More important than marrying me?”
The look on his face softens, but it’s direct, honest, unwavering. “Your life is more important than everything, Lucy.”
My chest tightens from an emotion I’m going to need to examine later, alone, when no one can witness the way it makes me feel like I’m going to fracture.
“So this whole time.” I gesture vaguely at the space between us, at the houseboat, at Wander Isle. “The searching. All of it. You did it knowing you’d never get to—” My mind circles back to the beach, to the pier, to the Sugar Room.
“Once I’m inside you, there’s no going back.”
“I need you to know that you’ll be mine.”
“If the way I feel with you isn’t peace, I don’t fucking want it.”
“I want you.”
“You said things,” I manage. “On the beach. About me being yours. That I’m your… I’m your peace. Was that just—” I hate how this sounds even as I say it. “Was that just to get what you wanted?”
“Don’t.” He pushes off the counter. “Lucy. Don’t do that. You know that’s not what that was.”
“Then tell me—”
“Everything I said from the moment we met was true.” His voice drops. “For better or worse. Every word.”
“So you think I’m your peace?”
He grumbles, “Well not right now.”
“I’m serious, Hatton. This is serious.”
“Fuck. Believe me. I know it’s serious, okay?”
He drags a hand through his hair, backward cap tilting. Then he blows out a breath.
“You are my peace, Lucy.” His expression stays careful and hard. “I believe that now more than ever after this morning.”
“So you think I’m your version of a Fury soulmate.”
My heart races.
“But you don’t want to marry me.”
His eyes close slowly, and when they open again he looks exhausted. “I can’t marry you, Lucy.”
Something in me tightens, but I refuse to examine it too closely, because it feels embarrassingly close to disappointment.
“What was it you said under the pier, Hatton? About not taking myself out of the equation?”
His jaw tics. “That’s different.”
“Is it? Because this is how I see it.” I hop off the table so I can be at least a little bit taller as I stand up to this man. “You think you’ll get me hurt. You think if you take yourself out of the picture, I can’t be used against you. You think you’re protecting me by not—”
“It’s done, Lucy,” he says, quieter. “The Troisgarde might have a hard time honoring pacts, but Furys don’t. I made a deal.” A specter of pain moves across his face. “I’m going to honor it.”
“So you decided—again, without asking me—that I’m better off without you in my life, and because it was a freaking bet, that’s it? Done deal?”
“I think,” he says carefully, “that knowing I can keep you safe for the rest of my life makes up for not being in it.”
“That’s insane, Hatton. What if you fall in love with someone else and want to get married—”
“That won’t happen,” he insists. “That’s not the way the Fury peace works.”
I huff. “Well, fine then. You said it can be one-sided, correct? So what if I fall in love with someone else, hm? What if I get married and have kids with someone else? Just because I’m your peace doesn’t mean I’m not gonna go try to find mine.”
His tanned skin pales and he actually looks sick to his stomach. I almost feel bad, but I’m so angry, I can’t stop.
“And what will that mean for you, huh? You’re just going to—” I throw my hand out. “Lurk? Stalk me from a distance for the rest of your natural life?”
He looks away.
“Hatton.” I grab his face and force him to look at me, and the pain there makes me suck in a sharp breath. He swallows.
“You have every right to do all those things without me Lucy,” he says quietly, the resolve in his voice feeling like a death knell hammering against my chest. “If that’s what happens, then so be it. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you safe. I honor my word.”
I stare at him for a long, exasperated moment.
“That’s fucking bullshit. People keep making decisions about my life,” I say finally, and I hear the razor edge come into my voice now—my frustration and exhaustion sharpened by hurt and betrayal.
“Decisions made without me. Without asking for so much as my opinion. My father bet me in a card game before I was born. You bargained away my choices in another one. Nobody ever thinks to just—” I stop. Exhale. “Ask.”
“You’re right.” He doesn’t argue. “You’re completely right.”
The simple agreement takes the wind out of my anger, which is more annoying than validating.
We’re both quiet for a moment, before I relent.
“Why? From the sounds of it, you gave up your claim to me so easily. What’s the real reason that you don’t want to marry me?”
The little muscle in his jaw jumps, as if he wants to argue with my wording, but that is the truth, and I refuse to sugar coat it.
I almost think he’s not going to answer, but then he sighs heavily and leans back against the counter. He presses the heels of his palms against his eyes before meeting my gaze, his voice flat as still water.
“I killed my mother,” he says.