Chapter Thirty-Three
K ingston’s phone beeped while we were on the lawn. We got to our feet, and when he opened the lock screen, his face creased with worry.
“We should get inside. I need to sort out some things with the staff. Take some time to think about everything, and you can let me know what you want to do once everyone is settled…Would that be alright?”
Squeezing his hand, I leaned up on my toes and pulled his head down. “I’m not going anywhere.”
He searched my gaze, his eyes jumping between mine for any sign of doubt, but when he found none, he breathed a sigh of relief. “I promise we’ll figure everything out.”
“Don’t make a promise you’re not sure you can keep.” I pressed my forehead to his. “We’ll do our best to find our way through this. To get all of us to the end. I can live with that. If you can.”
“Yes,” he rushed out, a weight lifting off his shoulders. “To get all of us to the end.”
He glanced toward the house before turning back to me and weaving his fingers through my hair. Tipping my head back, he stared at my lips with a question in his eyes.
My mouth parted to answer it, and the slight nod of my head granted the permission he needed.
He leaned down and pressed his lips to mine.
The first kiss was soft and slow, tentative in his approach. It made my body ache for more.
Closing the gap between us, Kingston wrapped his arm around my lower back. He held me there, hips meeting mine, as he deepened our kiss with a groan.
My hands fisted in his sweater, clutching him tightly.
His tongue danced with mine, as if he’d perfected the art of quietly showing me how much he wanted me. Needed me. And I followed his lead like I’d always known the steps. Like the rhythm had been set long before we ever met.
He didn’t stop until I panted for breath, his lips seeking an encore and bowing to capture my mouth in one sweet, final kiss. Resting his forehead on mine, we breathed in the energy between us, the lingering connection that always drew me back for more.
“You should get inside.”
“I know.” He slowly loosened his grip, smiling when I didn’t do the same. “You have to let me go to do that.”
“I know.”
He kissed me one more time, soft and quick, like he couldn’t help it. “One day…when all this is over, I don’t think I’ll be able to do that, you know?”
“Let me go?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” I pushed up on my tiptoes to kiss him. “Because I’m starting to think I don’t want you to, either.”
He smiled again, and my heart felt impossibly light.
Back inside the house, I tried to slow my racing heartbeat. Amazed that while it tried to beat out of my chest, none of it was from fear.
Okay. Maybe like one percent. Five percent tops.
But it could’ve been more.
And maybe I should’ve been concerned about that, but I wasn’t. Because for the first time since this started, I let him leave rather than being left. I was making my own choices, deciding to stay and figure out a way through this, even with a way out offered to me.
Compared to signing up because I had run out of options, it felt like I had come a long way.
When I wandered into the kitchen, the woman I’d met the first day I came to Pendragon stood with her back to me, stirring something on the stove.
“Hi,” I said cautiously, not wanting to alarm her.
She spun around to face me, her eyes widening before she quickly wiped at her cheeks.
“Are you alright?”
“Oh, yes!” she said quickly, her voice overly bright. “I, uh, I was cutting onions for dinner tonight. They always get me.”
Waving the towel in her hand in my direction, she clucked over me finding her like that for a good two minutes before finally settling down. She force-fed me a sandwich and made me put some snacks in my pocket for later.
“We won’t eat dinner for a while tonight.”
“This is plenty!” I laughed, waving off the bag of chips and packet of butter cookies she tried to hand me.
“Oh! Well, it’s good you feel that way, since these are Kingston’s favorite.”
As she took the packet of cookies back, I filed that detail away. I said goodbye and wandered out into the hall. Across it, glass doors led to a terrace. I tried my luck, pleasantly surprised when the door was unlocked.
The terrace was empty.
Large terracotta stones paved the outdoor space, extending out in a symmetrical pattern like one of those mandala coloring books my therapist suggested to help with stress.
The center of the circular pattern held a large stone fountain. Illuminated by multicolored lights inside the basin, the glow around the terrace changed from blue to red to a gray-green before shifting to purple and yellow and starting over again.
Behind the fountain, an archway led to a private alcove with a large tree inside.
A familiar scent filled my nose.
Drawn toward it, I ran my hand through the water as I made my way around, my eyes closing as the scent of freesia and lemons enveloped me.
As soon as I reached the archway, I understood why.
A lemon tree, similar in size to the one I’d climbed when I first came to Camelot Court, filled the secluded space. I skimmed my hand down the trunk, and my palm tingled against the rough bark.
My thoughts turned to Landon and our conversation about the trees.
Longevity and prosperity. That’s what we were supposed to take away from death. We continued to live and needed to thrive after losing someone we loved.
I spent a year after my dad died doing neither. Existing. Avoiding hard truths if the opposite might lead to more loss and pain.
I didn’t know if that would ever fully leave me.
But I meant what I said at the Maiden Appeal. I trusted myself to get to the end. To get through whatever life brought me. And to survive, no matter what I lost.
Nothing about the last thirty days had gone the way I’d expected. The last thing I imagined doing at the end was choosing to stay, even with the chance to leave with the money laid out in front of me, especially given everything I’d learned.
But I wanted to live a long, happy life filled with things I loved. A life that did more than honor my parents’ memory.
One that honored me .
What I truly wanted, what made me happy, and who I was now. The person I’d become after everything that had happened—all the things that shaped me. Changed me.
For better or worse.
Nothing could change where I started from, who I’d become, or what something meant to me at the time that I got to have it in my life. And anything that required me to stifle my truth wasn’t meant for me.
I saw that, now.
And I wanted to see what came next.
But I couldn’t do that if I wasn’t being honest.
Refusing to own my truth to avoid loss? In the end, I’d lose anyway. Because the only way to get what I wanted or needed was to voice it.
Give it a name.
Demand it, if the need arose.
I couldn’t expect anyone to honor my truth if I didn’t share it, and I also didn’t need the truth from anyone else to share mine, first.
I wanted to win The Quest to prove to myself I could do it. I wanted to uncover the secrets of Camelot Court because that was who I was, who my dad raised me to be, and who I wanted to be, now.
And, most of all, I wanted to move forward with the three broody assholes who’d found their way under my skin and into my heart.
That was the truth.
I hoped it ended up being theirs, too.
But first, hoping to move forward with all three of them, there was one thing I needed to share. One memory I’d been repressing out of fear of what I’d lose if I voiced it. I was finally ready to let it back in…
Are you sure?
I’m ready. I’m yours. I ? —