I trail after Lachlan as we head toward the offices. He had me memorize the layout so I know exactly where to go. Lachlan slides his phone from his pocket, unaware that the crowd parts for him like a school of fish around a shark that swims through night waters. He texts someone, likely Conor. His eyes stay locked to the screen until it lights up with a reply. When it does, he pockets the phone, then reaches his hand back for mine. I take it and follow in his wake, and a moment later we pass through the staff door, music and voices dampening when it shuts behind us.
“Conor’s got the cameras under control,” he whispers as we stride down the hall. “Hopefully this will only take a few minutes.”
My heart thunders with excitement and fear. When we reach the office door, Lachlan keeps his hand poised over the gun hidden at his back. He grips the curved door handle with his other hand and presses his ear to the wood. A moment later he pushes it open, and when he seems satisfied, he motions for me to follow.
We don’t turn on the lights, using the flashlights on our phones instead. Lachlan goes for the laptop on the desk and plugs in a flash drive, while I look through papers for anything that might be useful. Notes, open mail, anything with a dollar amount—I take photos of everything I can, barely digesting the information I flip through. My hands shake as I turn the pages and try to hold my phone steady. The moments that pass feel stretched too long.
And then I land on an invoice.
“Lachlan,” I hiss, holding up the piece of paper. He looks up from the laptop just as he pulls the flash drive free. “Fifty thousand, paid in cash. A contracting company.”
Lachlan’s eyes flash as a smirk claims his lips. Maybe I’m imagining it, but I think he looks a little bit proud, and my cheeks heat at the thought. “Get a photo and let’s get out of here. Conor can follow up on it.”
I snap the picture. I’m just stepping around the desk to Lachlan’s side when a voice closes in on us from the corridor. There’s someone talking on a phone. My body stiffens with panic but Lachlan is already in motion, his arm wrapped around my waist as he drags me with him to a storage closet.
He shuts the door, closing us in cramped darkness.
“Lachlan—”
His hand slides across my mouth and I try not to whimper as blood rushes in my head. “Shh,” he whispers, his lips grazing my ear, his voice so quiet that even I can barely hear him. “I’ve got you, duchess.”
And he does.
Lachlan holds me to his chest. His grip tightens when the office door opens and someone enters the room. He holds me tighter still as my body shakes with shocks of adrenaline. The man in the office talks about liquor orders and a drawer slides open in the desk. He can’t hear Lachlan whisper to me, a steady current of solace, a pillar in the dark. We’re okay. Just close your eyes, if you want to. I won’t let go, I promise.
My panic surges when the man walks around the desk and heads to a filing cabinet.
“You’re doing good. So fucking brave.” Lachlan’s voice deepens with a deadly vow when he says, “I’ll kill him before he lays a finger on you, I promise you that. Understand?”
I nod, Lachlan’s hand still clamped across my mouth.
“That’s my girl.”
My blood turns volcanic when his lips press to my temple and linger there.
Fear and desire. They war in my veins.
I wrap my trembling fingers around Lachlan’s wrist and pull his hand down just enough that my lips are free. He leans back, his eyes following the contours of my face behind his glasses. Maybe he expects I’ll put distance between us, that I’ll let his hand go, but I don’t. I drag his fingers to my neck where my pulse hammers a pounding rhythm, down to my collarbones, and finally to the sliver of exposed skin on my chest. I press his palm there. I want you to stay, that simple touch says.
A moment later, we hear the man’s heavy footsteps cross the room. The office door closes, leaving us in silence.
Lachlan cracks the closet door open enough to let me see out. But it’s him I’m watching. His hand still lies on my chest. My fingers are curled around the edge of his palm as I press it to my skin. My heart sings beneath my bones. I know he can feel it. He watches that point of contact as though he can see the secrets those beats write into his skin.
An ache coils low in my belly. A need that stalks me. More and more, it lingers, ready to consume. It’s there when Lachlan stumbles out of his room in the morning in a T-shirt and low-slung sweats as he heads to the coffee machine to make us Americanos. It haunts me when his gaze lingers on my lips as I smile. It possesses me when I’m alone in my room at night, staring into the dark as my hand slips beneath my sleep shorts. It’s Lachlan’s touch I imagine when I circle my clit, when I plunge my fingers into my pussy. I want his touch everywhere. I want it for longer than just a moment that feels stolen in the dark.
My breath comes faster as these images play in my mind. My pulse stutters. My eyes solder to his lips.
Just one kiss.I want more than a phantom. More than my imagination. I want him.
I lean closer. But Lachlan uses the pressure on my chest to keep us apart.
The rejection must be written in every detail of my face. There’s no way I can hide it, not even in shadows. Lips parted. Skin crimson. I take a step back, expecting Lachlan will lift his hand away when I let mine fall to my side. But he doesn’t.
“No, duchess,” Lachlan whispers, his expression resolute.
I swallow. Shake my head. I want to say so many things, but only one word comes out. “Lachlan …”
He pulls his hand from my chest and leaves a cold ache behind, but when I think he’ll back away completely he grazes my cheek with his knuckles as he holds my eyes. “Not until I know you forgive me. Otherwise, this won’t work, and I want it to work.”
Before I can say anything, Lachlan gives me a faint, apologetic smile, then opens the closet door and steps out.
I feel like my mind is disconnected from my body as I follow Lachlan out of the room and down the corridor.
Though Lachlan checks on me over his shoulder, we don’t speak. We slip back into the bar unnoticed, and he pulls his phone from his pocket to text Conor. A moment later, I feel the buzz of a text on my watch and wonder if he included me on a chat, but it’s Sloane’s name that flashes on the screen. I pull out my mobile and open the message.
Thought you should know …
My steps lurch to a halt as I read the headline of the news article she sent.
MURDER INVESTIGATION INTO DISAPPEARANCE OF ASHBORNE COLLEGIATE INSTITUTE HEADMASTER
With an unsteady breath, I click on the link. Dr. Louis Campbell’s face stares back at me. Maybe I should feel remorse. A normal person would. Wouldn’t they …? I don’t. All I feel is a sense of accomplishment, of justice.
I’m about to read the article when another text comes in from Sloane.
You know, if he happened to have exploded in a freak fireworks accident, I’d be proud of you.
A chill races through my veins as I raise my eyes to watch Lachlan slice his way through the crowd, weaving a path toward the bar. I take a step back then veer to the left, headed for the doors to the empty rooftop patio.
What do you mean? Did Lachlan say something to you?
No. Not at all.
An icy wind cools the heat that floods my skin as I try to work out what to say. It feels like standing on the edge of a cliff, of being afraid of falling but still wanting to jump. Before I can work out a reply, my phone buzzes in my hand with another message.
I just figured, maybe you needed to hear it. Maybe I’m wrong. But if you’re like me, I don’t love you any less. Not one bit. And maybe you can tell me about it sometime.
Tears flood my vision. I try to blink them away. Relief and regret twine in my chest. The only regret I’ve ever felt about the things I’ve done is that I haven’t shared them sooner with the one person who has never hidden her darkness from me.
I swipe a tear from my cheek and tap out my reply.
I love you too, Sloaney. And I’d like that.
I pocket my phone and stare at the horizon, trying to force the storm of emotions away. The lingering desire for the kiss that never came. The sting of rejection. The shame and relief of secrets forced to the surface. But there’s not much hope of finding any relief as I stare across the city. It’s barely been five minutes before I hear the door open behind me. I don’t need to turn around to know it’s Lachlan.
“Hey,” he says simply as he slows to a stop next to me. “Thought I might find you here. Mind if I share your perch?”
My smile is weak, ready to shatter. I train my attention on the city lights. “Go ahead.”
Lachlan leans his forearms on the railing, his elbow a gentle pressure against mine. The wind gusts as though rising from the channels and tributaries of streets below us, lifting my hair from my shoulders. It’s a welcome chill to the heat that lingers just beneath my skin.
Lachlan gestures toward the view and I catch the glimmer of his wedding band. “We had a very similar view when we first moved to America,” he says. “Leander put us up in a condo just a few buildings west of here.”
“On your own?” I ask, and Lachlan nods. “How old were you?”
“Seventeen.” He gives me a bittersweet smile before looking back at the skyline. “I enrolled the boys in school, started working. Leander got me a job at a leather manufacturing factory. For the daytime, anyway.”
“And for the night?”
Lachlan shrugs. “I owe him a lot. Covering up what Rowan and I did back in Sligo. Bringing us here. Setting us up.”
“Sloane might have mentioned a thing or two about that,” I say, giving him a sheepish smile when he rolls his eyes. I nudge his elbow and add, “But you don’t need to owe him forever. At least, not if I have anything to say about it.”
“If anyone could convince Leander to do something, I think it’s you,” Lachlan says as he chuckles and shakes his head. “He still hasn’t gotten over being bested in his own home by a muffin. He loved it.”
I meet Lachlan’s eyes and he seems closer than I thought he’d be, somehow. There’s warmth in his eyes as he gives me a lopsided grin, but the remnants of sadness remain.
Our smiles fade as we stand side by side in the biting cold. I’m the first to break our connection and look out across the city, though it takes effort to look away. I can feel him still watching in the periphery.
“I like the view here. I like to see for a distance. It feels like you can see the whole city from this high,” I say. My heart pounds, every thump driving me closer to a memory that I normally try so hard to avoid. It’s so heavy and loud in my chest that I’m sure Lachlan can see it thrum in my neck, but if he can, he doesn’t let on. “It was a home invasion. That’s how I lost my dad. That’s why my mom walks with a limp. Why I don’t like small spaces. Why sometimes I can’t sleep.”
Lachlan could say something snarky, something teasing. But he stays quiet, a steady presence next to me. He watches as I sweep wayward strands of hair from my eyes and focus on the farthest points I can see along the horizon, pinpricks of light in the black distance.
“My mom woke us in the middle of the night. She hid us in the linen cupboard. Told us that no matter what we heard, no matter what happened, if she or Dad didn’t come for us, we weren’t to leave that closet until seven in the morning unless we heard the police. I guess she thought they’d be gone by dawn. Stay still, stay silent. ‘God save my girls.’ That was the last thing she said before she went downstairs. The last time I ever heard her ask God for anything, actually.”
And I prayed too that night. I asked Him to save my family. I prayed and prayed and prayed to a God who never answered. Three shots, two screams, and only a few minutes of commotion as thieves stole money and jewelry and car keys and ran. But not a word from God.