Page 114 of Leather & Lark
“That’s maybe the wrong question.”
“Whois this?”
“Dr. Louis Campbell.”
Lark stiffens. She stares at that heart. She doesn’t take her eyes from it, not even when they well with tears that she struggles toblink into submission. Her pain stokes the rage that lingers like venom in my veins. But there’s satisfaction too, in the hope that this trophy will give her some measure of closure to questions that have haunted her sleepless nights.
“Are you serious …?”
I nod.
Lark’s lip wobbles, and for a moment I wonder if this was the wrong thing to do. But when she looks at me, a smile breaks through the pain that creases her brow and floods her eyes with tears.
“This is the best present I’ve ever gotten,” she squeaks out. She feckin’sobsas she wraps her arms around the cube and hugs it to her chest. Relief washes over me as I pull her into my embrace. Her body trembles as she lets go of at least some of this pain that’s haunted her for so many years. And I know this isn’t just something she wanted. It was something sheneeded.
When we finally separate, I pull the box from her arms and set it on the coffee table so I can take her shoulders and turn her away. “There’s one more thing,” I whisper as I nudge her toward the safe.
“More …?”
“You heard me.”
With a wary glance over her shoulder, Lark focuses on the items left inside, where I know there’s a manila envelope with her name on it. She keeps her back to me as she opens it. There’s a gasp as she withdraws the documents and reads the itinerary for a prebooked honeymoon trip to Indonesia I printed earlier today.
And then she flips to the divorce papers.
“What the fuck is this …?”
When I say nothing, she turns to face me, and finds me down on one knee.
A fresh wave of tears cascades down Lark’s cheeks in shining rivulets. She can’t seem to land on furious, or elated, or purely overwhelmed, but they all seem to combine when she says, “What the hell are you doing?”
“Proposing, by the looks of things,” I say with a glance at the diamond band I hold between us.
Lark looks around us as though the explanation can be found on the sofa, or out the window, or on the floor. Her gaze lingers on Bentley, who looks as confounded as she does. Then her eyes land on the papers that waver in her unsteady hands. I’m pretty sure a feckin’ eternity passes before her attention returns to me. “Why?”
“Because you never really had a choice in this marriage.”
Lark shakes her head. Her lips press into a tight line and her brow furrows. And I’m feckin’ terrified. I’mterrifiedto let her go. But I made a promise to protect her. From anyone, even herself. Evenme. And the only way I can do that is to be sure she can live the life she wants. Otherwise, I’m not a protector. I’m a cage.
Lark’s expression is so hard and so pained that I can’t tell what she’s really feeling, but I know I need to keep going.
“You made this vow to save me. My brother. Your best friend. But I want you tochoosethe future you want, Lark. You can dissolve this marriage. Or we can do things another way. Maybe we start over and pretend we’d first met at Rowan’s place. Or we can stay married, have the honeymoon we talked about. You said it would be Indonesia, if this were real.” I take a steadying breath, but my throat burns when I swallow. It’s so hard to keep my eyeson her as I break open my heart to let her look inside. “This is real to me, Lark. I know I promised I wouldn’t let you go, but I was wrong. Because this decision is more important than me keeping my word. And for what it’s worth, I hope you choose me, in whatever way that needs to be. I’m asking you to stay with me. But I want you to choose what’s right for you.”
Lark holds my eyes.
And she doesn’t look away. Not as she tosses the itinerary over her shoulder, a move that incinerates my heart in a beat of panic. Not as she holds the divorce papers up and rips them apart, one after the next until each one is torn. Then she points at me with a trembling hand.
“I am madly in love with you, Lachlan Kane,” she says, jabbing her finger in my direction as though punctuating each word. “And I am also just madlymad. Don’t youevergive me divorce papers again.”
“I promise, duchess.” A burst of hope and relief and joy floods my chest. They are feelings I thought I’d never have, a life I never thought I’d live. Not until I made the choice to let Lark in. “I love you, Lark Kane.”
Lark’s anger dissolves. Her smile ignites. It’s the most beautiful she’s ever been, her happiness an unstoppable dawn.
“Good, you ‘feckin’ catastrophe,’” she says, and then she crashes into my arms. “Because I choose you.”
I slip the ring above the set on her finger.
And I choose her, like I have every day since I found the bottom of the chasm between us and decided to do whatever it took to claw my way into her light. I choose her like I will every day to come.
