CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Lachlan is surprised to learn how naturally averse he is about leaving the Estate and not only because of the dread he feels for the upcoming event. Just leaving. The Estate has become his world, his domain, his home. The thought of going elsewhere is making him feel almost pre-emptively homesick.
They’ll be flown to the island via helicopter.
Lachlan has been given access to a packet from the Alderwyck security team but finds it shockingly light. He assumes the island will have surrounding protection and that’s why it’s so minimal.
Telling Mimi is a wrench. He hates every moment of explaining to her that he’ll be gone for four days, hates to see her cry. She rarely cries these days, and it breaks his heart.
‘Daddy, you stay,’ she insists, wobbly and angry. ‘Have to stay here with me and Mari and Bee and Jewel and Silly, OK? We all keep you safe!’
He smiles and hugs her, swallowing down his own feelings. ‘But I need my little shadow sneak to keep everyone else here safe while I’m away.’
‘Like a mission?’
‘Yeah, princess. A mission. A really big one.’
It’s just the two of them.
The sun will set soon, break the heat.
‘But you might get hurt.’
‘Babygirl,’ he says softly, sitting cross-legged in the base of her grand tower. ‘Daddy is so tough.’
She rolls her eyes. ‘You’re not that tough.’
Lachlan snorts. ‘Please, Daddy Bang Bang is the toughest. And that’s why I need to go, to keep Jewel safe.’
‘I can keep him safe too.’
‘You can, but your father says you can’t come.’
‘He’s so annoying,’ she sighs, seems much older than her handful of years. ‘I hate him.’
‘So what do you think?’ He wipes her eyes. ‘Will you accept this mission?’
‘OK.’
‘The fate of the household rests in your capable hands, young Shadow Sneak Myna.’
‘Can we talk on the radio?’
‘I don’t think it’ll stretch that far, darling, but I’ll send messages once a day.’
‘Eight bells?’
‘Eight bells. You know Bee will take good care of you.’
‘And Danny,’ Mimi adds without prompt, busy making what looks like a nest out of twigs and mud, God she loves mud, this kid. ‘Danny’s nice.’
‘Yeah?’
‘He’s like Silly,’ she comments.
‘As in they’re both Russian?’
‘No, Daddy,’ she giggles. ‘Same eyes.’
Lachlan frowns slightly. ‘I never noticed.’
‘You don’t see things sometimes,’ she says, patting his shoulder. ‘It’s OK, though. Shadow Sneak sees everything.’ She tries to wink at him but can only manage a double blink.
He winks back. ‘Nothing gets past my babygirl.’
‘Nope, nothing.’
‘So you’ll protect the Estate while I’m away?’
‘Mission accepted.’
‘Phew,’ he sighs. ‘Thank God for that.’
‘Bee says there is no God,’ Mimi whispers, ‘only water. But don’t tell anyone. It’s a secret.’
‘OK, baby, I won’t tell anyone.’
‘Good. You read me a story tonight?’
‘I will.’
‘A long one?’
‘Medium.’
‘Long.’
‘OK, but just one because I need to tell Silly to make extra cookies for you while I’m away.’
She smiles despite the sadness they both feel and does an excellent Daddy impression when she says, ‘Heard.’
?
Lachlan would be panicking a lot if he didn’t have Danya to leave in charge. Carrigan isn’t invited, much to her poorly hidden disappointment. A year ago, it would have given him comfort to know she was staying behind.
That’s not the case now.
Lachlan runs through all scenarios with Danya, slipping occasionally into their coded language. It’s borderline catastrophising, but Lachlan needs to know that no matter what happens, his girls, Mimi and Blaire, will be safe.
‘I have it in hand,’ Danya assures him quietly after they run through hostage scenarios, always unpleasant but necessary. ‘The Estate is strong and I will expect the worst.’
‘Thank you.’
‘I worry more about you in that place,’ Danya says with a shrug. ‘The packet they sent was light. Not even a location.’
‘I’m assuming it’s no-fly and monitored.’
‘He’s letting you take weapons?’
‘Handheld only.’
Danya says, ‘That is why God gave men spacious assholes.’
Lachlan snorts. ‘Yeah, I’m sure I can fit an MP7 up there plus ammo.’
‘Lube up and off you go. You have your clever knife too.’
‘I do, yeah.’
‘Four days,’ Danya says, hand on his shoulder. ‘It will be fine.’
‘It will,’ he agrees, just doesn’t feel it.
?
Jules doesn’t pack.
Rich people don’t pack their own things.
They have new stuff brought in. Lachlan thinks it would be nice for him to experience the process, will never forget how it felt to stuff his clothes into a shitty backpack with one good strap and walk away forever.
A man at seventeen. A free man for all of half an hour before he signed himself away into service.
He didn’t care though.
He’d been ripe for it.
The perfect candidate.
Young. Stupid. Unloved. Hungry.
Lachlan knows there’ll come a day when Jules packs his things, but it’s far off yet, not on the horizon.
‘How are you doing?’ he asks in Jules’ room.
Mimi’s fast asleep next door.
It’s after midnight.
‘Fine,’ Jules answers, undressing with his back to Lachlan.
‘Shall we run through what I know about the party?’
‘You can brief me on the way, right?’ Jules glances over his shoulder and Lachlan nods. ‘Then I’d rather not think about it for a few more hours.’
Training is building muscle where it wasn’t before.
It’s carving and crafting and sculpting Jules into a man.
Slow progress but he’s not the skinny boy Lachlan knew two years ago.
He’s shot up, filled out, flourishing despite the circumstances.
He’s so fucking beautiful it stirs physical aches inside Lachlan.
‘No problem.’
Jules pulls on sweatpants and nothing else, bare chested when he turns to look at Lachlan. ‘He didn’t hurt you?’ Lachlan shakes his head, pushing off the doorjamb where he was leaning.
‘Jules. You know while we’re there, we can’t—’
‘Don’t.’
‘It’s probably a good thing.’
‘I said don’t.’
But Lachlan can’t stop.
‘This thing between us… it’s so wrong,’ he whispers, means it, knows it, no doubt inside him that it is so fucking wrong. ‘If we have a chance to properly stop it then we should.’
‘Break what?’
‘Us. This. You and me.’
‘There is no you and me,’ Jules says flatly. ‘There’s nothing to break so don’t talk like there is. I get it, all right? He told you to end it.’
Lachlan frowns. ‘He doesn’t know.’
‘Don’t lie to me.’
‘He doesn’t know or if he does, he didn’t say anything.’ Lachlan comes closer. ‘Did you think—?’
‘Go away now, Bodyguard.’ His voice is trembling. ‘Just go away.’
‘Jules,’ Lachlan says seriously, very much not going away. ‘Tell me what you think is happening.’
‘I know what’s happening, don’t treat me like a child.
I know you have permission to manage me the way Fenwick did,’ Jules says, cold and lifeless.
‘I know you were pretending and I appreciate it.’ His voice drops to a shaky whisper.
‘More than you’ll ever know, actually, but now that he’s told you to end it, I’d rather you didn’t—’
‘No, stop,’ Lachlan says quickly, hand on his face. ‘Look at me, sweetheart.’
‘Don’t you dare call me that, don’t—’
‘I’m not pretending,’ Lachlan says hotly, a little offended. ‘I wasn’t…’ he says, trailing off as it takes a moment to even arrange the words, ‘managing you for him. That’s not what this was.’
Jules won’t meet his eye, trying not to cry for the second time today and Lachlan should let him go, should back off and let the misunderstanding settle because he’s right, this is wrong.
But he can’t.
He can’t let go of him.
Cannot let Jules think this either.
‘Look at me.’
‘Don’t give me the pity routine.’
‘Jules, I wasn’t pretending.’
‘I asked you to pretend!’ he yells, voice unstable under the weight of so much, all of it in tail-spin distress. He tries to pull away but Lachlan won’t let him. ‘I fucking asked! And you did what I asked, and it means a lot that you did, but I can’t take you ending it like this, I just can’t.’
Rough hands gentled by restraint tip Jules’ chin upward, trying to make him look, trying to make him see, as though the sight of Lachlan himself could prove something he should, in all good conscience, deny forever.
‘I wasn’t pretending.’
‘Please stop. Just stop it. I don’t want this. I can’t handle this. Break my heart, but do it fast, Bodyguard. Don’t soften the blow. Don’t do that.’
‘I wouldn’t do that,’ Lachlan says, still holding his face, but those honey eyes won’t meet his own. ‘I’m not doing that. I wasn’t pretending.’
‘I asked you to.’
‘You thought I was making out with you on your orders? Just giving you what you wanted?’
‘I…’ Jules’ eyes close tight, tears falling. ‘I hoped it wasn’t.’
‘Do you really think so little of yourself?’
‘You never liked me.’
‘You’re a pain in my professional ass. That’s got nothing to do with—’
‘I thought I felt it,’ Jules whispers, eyes still closed.
Lachlan’s thumb swipes over his cheek, rubbing tears into skin to dry them but his face is wet no matter what he tries.
This sodden, sulky creature who feels so deeply.
‘When we kissed, I thought I felt something but… it’s not enough to trust.’
‘What is?’
‘Bodyguard, don’t do this, please.’
‘What is enough to trust? Huh? I love you.’
Lachlan shrugs off his jacket, opens his shirt.
‘What are you—?’ He claps Jules’ hand right over his heart, pressing.
‘Feel it,’ Lachlan tells seriously, ‘feel the rhythm. A lie makes a double beat.’
Big, wet eyes so full of things he shouldn’t have to feel open to latch onto Lachlan. Jules’ hand is warm and sweaty. Lachlan holds his gaze.
He lets what is professional in him die a little more.
It has to, so he can make space.
‘I love you.’
Jules’ fingers flex a little over his heart.
Lachlan takes a slow breath, caresses his face.
‘I fucking love you, and none of this was for him. None of it was pretend. None of it was your orders. I love you despite how wrong it is. That’s why I said we should stop.
It’s wrong and it’s dangerous and I…’ His voice gives out as a strange pressure gathers beneath his ribs.
‘I know we should stop but I don’t even think I can because I love you too much. Too fucking much.’