When I end it, there are red spots coloring the heights of her cheek. She licks her bottom lip, then says, “That was nice, but I still want to know what happened to you.”
I’m right. I know I’m right. Somehow, she figured out that it’s more than what I said it was. So, on a hunch, I say, “What do you think happened?”
Lucy looks surprised that I asked. For a moment, she doesn’t say anything, until she finally hazards her own guess. “The Order of the Owed.”
Goddamn it. “Who told you about the Order?”
She tilts her chin, the hint of defiance going right to my cock. “Haven did.”
On the one hand, I’m so fucking glad that Haven and Lucy got along. According to Connor—who still obsessively watches his wife and makes sure she doesn’t have a setback more than two years after her ordeal—Haven evenspoketo Lucy. I just… I just wish she hadn’t decided to talk to my Dandelion about the fucking Order.
“Okay. What did she say?”
“That it wasn’t just a club. That it was some kind of secret society.”
I jerk my head. A nod.
“That it runs Harmony Heights.”
Another nod.
“That most of the guys in town are part of it. You. Your cousin. Haven’s husband.” She pauses for a moment. “My dad.”
I sigh. “Yes, yes, and yes.”
Lucy takes that in for a moment. I’m not sure how she’ll react. I don’t know how far Haven went in her explanation of what it means to ‘rule Harmony Heights’, and considering she hates the Order more than almost anyone I ever met for the part Jack had to play in her captivity, I can’t imagine she had anything good to say about it.
But all Lucy says is a soft, “And you didn’t think that was important to mention? If it’s a big part of your life… if this is the side hustle you keep bringing up… don’t you think I’d want to know about that?”
The Order ruined her life before she left me, and one of the Owed nearly killed her. If I could’ve kept that part of me away from Lucy forever, I would’ve. The fact that I’m mere days away from the wedding that the old guard are still expecting to go on doesn’t matter. Lucy isn’t ready to know everything. I’ll marry her for real when she is, but not because they think I have to. I’ll do it because I love her, I need her, and I can’t live without her.
But I’m beginning to see that this is a line in the sand for her. She doesn’t want me keeping secrets—and I’m in fucking trouble because she doesn’t even know about the biggest one I have yet.
That’s a later problem. For now, I have to deal with one at a time.
“You woke up without memories,” I remind her. “You were already overwhelmed. I wasn’t about to throw that at you, too.”
“That’s not your choice.”
“I know. And I’m sorry.”
“I don’t want you hiding things because you think you’re protecting me.”
I wish my reasons were as altruistic as that. “I’ll be better, Dandelion. I mean it.”
She nods, slightly mollified. “It’s you and me, Dallas. We’re in this together. Unless you’d rather?—”
There is norather.
Careful not to rub the antibiotic ointment on her sweater, I reach around Lucy, pulling her into a tight hug, holding her so tight, she knows down to her bones that I’ll never let her go.
And, as she sinks against me, wrapping her arms around my sweaty sides, fingers played across the small of my back, I can finally breathe again to know that she doesn’t want me to.
SEVENTEEN
SNOOPING
LUCY
