He lifts it, letting it dangle between us, metal whispering softly. The sound is wrong in this room. Too intimate.
“You’ll wear my mark,” he says, voice low and even, “or I’ll make a new one on your skin.”
The threat isn’t shouted. It doesn’t need to be. I hold his gaze, hate burning hot and familiar—but my body betrays me, a shiver running through my spine at the promise layered beneath the words. I despise it. I despise that he notices. I despise that he smiles. And I hate most of all that I don’t step back.
His gaze drops, not to the necklace, to my neck. There’s a pause—small, deliberate—and then his mouth curves faintly, like he’s cataloguing something that belongs to him.
“You missed a few,” he says quietly.
My fingers curl into a fist. He steps closer, close enough that I can feel the heat of him without touching, his eyes tracing the line of my throat, the faint bruising I didn’t bother to check for this morning.
“Still there,” he continues. “From last night.”
I lift my chin. “You sound proud.”
“I am,” he replies.
That’s enough.I shove past him, shoulder clipping his chest hard enough to be a warning, and cross the room to where my shoes sit by the chair. Sensible heels. Dark leather. Something I can stand in. Something I chose. My hands shake as I slide my feet into them. Not fear. Fury.
I hate that my body remembers before my mind catches up. Hate that my pulse jumps when I think about his hand at my throat,claiming. Hate that I didn’t sleep because part of me was still there, pinned between wall and want, burning.
I straighten slowly, grounding myself in the feel of leather, the weight of my body over my heels. A woman on her feet again. A woman who refuses to be reduced to marks and metal. He watches me the whole time. I don’t look at him. If I do, I might do something reckless. I smooth my dress. Square my shoulders. Lady Malloy, rebuilt by spite alone.
Behind me, his voice is calm. Certain. “Don’t bother hiding them,” he says. “The necklace will sit right over it.”
He stands behind me as he fastens the necklace. The O’Callaghan crest sits just below my throat—too close to last night’s marks, too deliberate to be anything but a claim. I don’t look at him. I look at myself.
The mirror gives me back a stranger—composed, dark-eyed, silk smoothed flat, an old family mark resting where my pulse jumps hardest. I look expensive. I look owned.
Finn’s reflection watches me like a starving man. His hand settles at my hip, fingers curving with slow certainty, thumb pressing just enough to remind me how easily he could pull me back into him. He leans in, mouth close to my ear, voice low.
“Christ,” he murmurs. “Look at us.”
My jaw tightens.
“You wear it well,” he continues softly. “Like you were made to stand there with me.”
I feel it—the heat, the pull, the way my body wants to betray me again.
“No,” I say, stepping forward and out of his reach. “We’re late.”
I turn before he can say anything else.
“Let’s go.”
We walk downstairs together. Side by side this time. No distance. No pretence. His hand rests at my lower back as we move through the house—not gripping, not guiding, just there. Possessive. Seen. The staff pause as we pass, eyes loweringrespectfully, the rhythm of the house adjusting around us like this is already familiar.
Finn speaks as we walk, voice low and casual, as if we’re not hurtling toward something irreversible. “The priest’s waiting in the green sitting room,” he says. “Tea’s been set. He likes things orderly.”
“Of course he does,” I reply lightly.
“You’ll behave,” he adds, not a question.
I smile without warmth. “I always do.”
The priest is already on his feet when we enter. He’s older than I expected, kindly-eyed, a little flustered by the speed of all this. He chuckles as we sit.
“Normally,” he says, smiling between us, “we begin these meetings at least a year before the wedding.”
