Page 112 of Knot So Fast
"Thrilled? Demanding grandchildren? Threatening to come to Monaco and embarrass me with childhood stories?" I grin. "All of the above."
She laughs, the sound bright and genuine, and I think about what my mother said. About not letting her go this time. About fighting for this second chance we've been given.
Looking at her now, relaxed and happy despite the chaos swirling around us, I know I'll do whatever it takes. Deal with the media, manage the pack dynamics, handle my brother's complicated feelings—all of it.
Because this? Sitting across from her with the Mediterranean sun warming our skin and the future spread out before us like an open road?
This is worth fighting for.
This is worth everything.
I reach across the table and take her hand, threading our fingers together. She squeezes back, and her smile turns softer, more intimate. We have contracts to sign this evening, races to win, a complicated situation with my twin to navigate. But right now, in this moment, it's just us.
And I'm going to make damn sure that this time, I don't let go.
The grin on my face must be ridiculous because Auren laughs again, shaking her head.
"What are you so happy about?"
"Just thinking about the future," I tell her, and it's the complete truth.
She raises her cocktail in a mock toast. "To the future then. May it be slightly less chaotic than the past forty-eight hours."
I clink my whiskey against her glass, but I'm thinking about what my father said. About lessons that break you or change you. About watching worlds crumble and choosing to rebuild anyway.
"I'll drink to that," I say, but I'm already preparing for the chaos I know is coming.
Because with Auren Vale, with my twin's complicated feelings, with the eyes of the racing world on us?
Chaos is guaranteed.
But looking at her now, that competitive fire in her eyes mixing with something softer when she looks at me?
I head back to the table with a big grin on my face.
NEGOTIATIONS OF THE HEART
~AUREN~
The remnants of our lunch sit between us—empty plates that once held perfectly seared fish and vegetables arranged like art, glasses with the last drops of expensive wine clinging to their curves.
We're waiting for dessert, some elaborate creation the waiter described with the kind of reverence usually reserved for religious experiences, but my attention is entirely on the man across from me.
"So," I say, swirling the remaining wine in my glass, "what did you want to talk about?"
Lachlan is more relaxed now than he was during the press conference, the tension that had been riding his shoulders finally easing. He's nursing his whiskey—his third, not that I'm counting—and there's something contemplative in the way he watches the amber liquid move in the glass.
I'm on my second glass of wine, maybe third if you count the one I had during the appetizers, and it's making me pleasantly tipsy.
Not drunk, just... soft around the edges.
Calm in a way I haven't felt in months.
The anxiety that usually sits like a weight on my chest has loosened its grip, replaced by something warm and languid.
He doesn't answer immediately.
Instead, he rises from his seat with that fluid grace that makes everything he does look choreographed. Before I can ask what he's doing, he's sliding into the booth beside me, close enough that I can feel the heat radiating from his body.
