Leather & Lark (The Ruinous Love Trilogy, #2) (106)

Even though I knew that was what she was going to ask, it still feels as though she’s reached around my heart and squeezed. “I don’t know,” I reply as I keep my focus on the winding driveway. When I don’t glance her way, Lark lays her hand over mine where it rests on the gear shift. “I hope so.”

“Me too.”

We don’t talk much for the rest of the drive home. Though it would normally be a comforting quiet with Lark, my heart beats too quickly for me to feel relaxed. It only gets worse when we park. I try to take a deep breath as I walk over to the passenger side to open her door. With every step we take, I think she’s going to notice the way I hold her hand just a little too tightly, or the way I can’t seem to stop biting my bottom lip. But if she does catch on to those details, she never says so. She’s seemingly content to walk up the stairs side by side in silence. By the time we get to the landing, I’m nearly vibrating with nerves and anticipation.

“I got you something,” I say. I barely give us time to greet Bentley and take off our jackets before I tug Lark along to the living room. She looks at me with scrutiny and I shrug. “Early birthday present.”

“My birthday is in February. We haven’t even made it to Christmas yet.”

“Extra early.”

Lark’s gaze pans across the room before it lands on me. “Where?”

“Gotta figure that out for yourself, duchess.”

“Do I get a clue?”

I tap my finger against my lips to draw out her suffering before I finally say, “What kind of conduit is universal?”

A crease appears between Lark’s brows. She pivots on her heel, her focus roaming toward the kitchen until her expression suddenly clears. With the most feckin’ adorable grin, she grasps my arms and bounces on her toes. “Water. Constantine.”

And then she’s gone.

I trail in her wake as Lark heads to the Constantine poster and lifts it from the wall to reveal a safe. The smile she beams my way lights up every dark crevice in my heart.

“I don’t need to pry out an eyeball to open it?” she says as she spins the dial.

“Appears not.”

“What’s the code?”

“Go with the theme.”

I watch as Lark thinks on this for a minute then tries a few options. Her frustration mounts when nothing seems to work. It’s a valiant effort, and she seems determined to keep going until she finally lets out a dejected sigh and looks to where I stand with my hands shoved deep in my pockets. “Give up yet?”

“No,” she says with a scoff. She tries three more combinations before her shoulders fall. “Yes.”

I saunter up behind her, only stopping when my body is flush with her back. With a lingering kiss to Lark’s neck, I reach over her shoulder to spin the lock. “Well, well. Look who’s more up on their Constantine trivia now. Three, three, nine, three. The number on the back of Chas Kramer’s taxi.”

With the final number in place, I unlock the safe and stand back.

“Don’t gloat yet, Batman. I …”

Lark trails off as she opens the door, revealing her trophies. The snow globe. The coaster. The maracas were trickier to salvage, so I made her a new pouch from cowhide for the teeth of the broken one. There are a few other things I found hidden in the apartment, like a bookmark made of charred fabric and a beaded bracelet made of bone. And behind all those trophies, there’s something she’s never seen before.

“What’s this?” she asks as she pulls a cube of clear resin from the safe. She twists it side to side, examining the heart suspended in gold wire, frozen in time.

“That’s maybe the wrong question.”

“Who is 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 to blink 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’ sobs as 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 she needed.

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.