Page 76 of The Final Contract
He nods, trying to play it cool, but I can tell he’s nervous—and God, I like it.
It doesn’t take long. When he flips the switch, I gasp.
Rose and yellow reflections scatter across every surface, my entire room bathed in shifting color. Like living inside one of my sun-catchers.
“It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” I say, spinning toward him, heart swelling.
He watches me, and the softness in his eyes nearly unravels me. I hug his neck, kiss him hard. “Thank you. It’s the most thoughtful gift anyone’s ever given me.”
“You made it yourself, didn’t you?”
He shrugs, murmuring, “Been working on it here and there. It’s okay if you don’t want it up.”
Before he can finish, I jump into his arms, wrapping my legs around his waist.
“I love it,” I whisper fiercely. “I want to keep it here forever.”
My heart lurches as the words slip free, because what I really want…is to keep him here forever, too.
Dinner arrives, and with music soft in the background, we eat and talk like any normal couple. Except we’re not. At least we’re saying we’re not.
He asks about my family, and I’m honest. I’m not ashamed of what I chose for my life. But I know they are, and it makes me sad. They mostly tell people I’m still a nurse, working shifts alongside my sister. The lie is easier for them to swallow than the truth.
So I ask him a question back. Why the Ledger? Why choose to guard escorts?
He doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t flinch like it’s something shameful. His mother was a sex worker. His father married her, had him and his brother, but people never let her forget what she did for a living—like it was a stain on her, like she should hang her head in shame. That never sat well with him.
The words sink into me, heavier than I expect. Love is not in the cards for some of us. That’s what I told him. What I believed. Yet the way he speaks about his mother—with respect, with pride, with love—undoes that certainty thread by thread. Maybe it isn’t the work that makes someone undeserving. Maybe it was only me convincing myself it did.
“What happened to her?” I whisper.
His voice goes quieter, lower. “She walked away. Had to. Left me and my brother. Our father raised us.” His jaw flexes hard. “He wasn’t a kind man. Crossed a line I could never follow him across. So I left too. Took my mum’s name. And here I am.”
I swallow. “What did he do?”
This time he hesitates. His eyes flick away like the truth is too heavy to set between us, but then it comes anyway. “He burned down a church with his enemy inside.” His throat works, and I know there’s more.
The words fall like lead. “Children’s choir inside too. Called them collateral damage.”
I gasp, hand flying to my mouth.
“I tried to stop him,” Killian says, voice rough as gravel. “Tried to get them out. He fought me. Gave me this scar.” His finger brushes the line above his brow. “Held me back. Made me watch.”
Tears sting my eyes before I can stop them.
“My father was a big man,” he says quietly. “So I became bigger. To make sure no one could ever stop me again. Not when people needed saving.”
I stare at him, my heart breaking and swelling all at once. For the man who tried to save them. Who’s carried that fire in his chest ever since.
And in that moment, I know—I will only see the shadows around him as proof of his strength. His heart. His refusal to be anything like the man who made him.
A man who will protect those around him—but deserves to be protected too.
Iwake in my bed, every inch of my body remembering where Killian touched me last night. My thighs ache, my lips are swollen, my skin still tingles.
Beside me, he sighs deep in his sleep, chest rising slow and steady. We’d gone to bed wrapped around each other, skin to skin, no barriers between us. And now, we wake the same way.
We’d talked until the hours blurred—about childhoods and rebellions, first kisses, first heartbreaks. Everything about my twin sister. And he didn’t hold back telling me about his brother, Cormac—the image of their father.
