‘Secret one?!’she whispers excitedly.‘Whassa asecretMari?’
‘You’ll just have to wait and see,’ he tells her, winking.
She beams toothily.‘OK then.’
?
The tattoo artist chuckles when he hands over the sketch.
‘Did you lose a dare?’
‘I want it here,’ he explains, showing her the outside of his left wrist, and not dignifying her question with a response.‘And I want itverycolourful.As bright as you can get it.Practically neon, OK?’
She shrugs.‘You got it.’
In the final week of that slow fourth month, Blaire has implanted subtle changes so that the East Wing no longer resembles the quarters of a rich man under house arrest.Jules is eating better and his mood slightly improves.Mimi no longer cowers or cries when she sees Lachlan, although much to his confusion, it’sonlyLachlan that she seems to have taken a cautious shine to.The others she still doesn’t like or approach, including her childminders who increasingly have less to do.
When he shows Mimi the tattoo he got, something changes between the two of them forever.Lachlan knows it was both a monumental mistake and the best thing he ever did.
She touches it with delicate wonder and whispers, ‘Mari,’reaching behind for the swishy tail of the backpack she wears almost every day to bring it around and brush over Lachlan’s newly healing skin.
He lets her do what she likes, stays kneeling the whole time.
Then she looks up at him and asks, ‘What’s your name?’
‘My name is Lachlan.’
She pronounces it in three bright, careful syllables.‘Locken.Lockern.’Mimi wrinkles her nose.‘That’s not right.’
‘You’reso close,’he tells her patiently.‘Say Lock.’
‘Lock.’
‘Lan.’
‘Lan.’
‘Lock-lan.’
‘Lockerlan.Locklan.Lachlan.’
‘Perfect.’
She beams again, saying it over and over.‘Lachlan,Lachlan!I gonna teach Jewel, he doesn’t know it.He calls youbodygarden,’ she informs him and then runs off.Lachlan lets her go, resists the urge to follow.He has work to do besides, although he maybe does feel a little bit lighter as he checks each security measure that makes this house the prison that it is.
CHAPTER SEVEN
It’s been six months since Lachlan signed his contract while it poured rain outside.He’s visited his slowly dying mother a total of five times.Her debt is paid off.She’s comfortable at home, paid nurses are taking care of her now that Lachlan can afford them.The few times she’s conscious when he visits, she tells him what she wants for her funeral.The most recent time she asks about his new post, says Margot told her he was doing something good for once.He tells her about the kids.
Mostly about Mimi, not much about Jules who has so little privacy as it is that even telling someone about him feels wrong.
He shows his mom the tattoo and she looks at it with confusion, then at her son, her breathing laboured.
They’ve had a complicated relationship ever since he killed his father and she told him to either enlist or go to jail for it.He chose the former and his mom lied to the police, swearing that her husband fell down drunk, hit his head on the countertop.An accident.
Lachlan enlisted at seventeen with her permission, signed himself away.
She never said goodbye, never said much after that, but she asked him why he did it once and he just didn’t have the heart to tell her.Their marriage was flatline cold as it was and what little good memories she had of Dougal Tanner, Lachlan didn’t want to ruin.It doesn’t hurt anymore that she thinks he’s beyond saving, that she tolerates his presence only because he did everything she asked and he now pays her bills.Itdoeshurt that she’s confused when he all but tells her that he cares about Mimi Penhalyx.
