Page 144 of The Devil’s Lair

The door to my office flies open, and Rebecca bursts inside, panting and waving something in the air. Amused, I close my laptop and swivel my chair, standing to greet her.

“Where’s the fire?”

“I’m sorry to interrupt, but you have to see this. Oh, and I have something to tell you, but first this.”

“Never be sorry for interrupting me. You’re the best kind of interruption. And what is ‘this’?”

“It’s from the solicitor,” she says, brandishing the object, which I now realize is an envelope. “It just came. God, I’m panicking. What if it’s bad news? I can’t bear the thought.”

It won’t be bad news. There isn’t a judge in the country who would deny an adoption by a De Vil. I haven’t enjoyed the last two months of waiting, but I never doubted the outcome. Wren has, often, but that’s because she’s still finding her way in this family. She hasn’t yet processed what it truly means to be a De Vil. She will, eventually. It’ll take time, that’s all.

“Open it,” I urge.

“No, you do it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I’m too nervous.”

I take the envelope from her and run my thumb underneath the seal. Wren bounces on the spot while biting her nails, and I remove the wad of papers.

“What does it say?”

I look up at her. “Give me a second.”

“Okay. Sorry. Okay. Just hurry.”

I suppress a laugh and return my attention to the letter. The first sheet is all legalese. I flip to the second sheet, and there it is, in black ink. I take a second to process it, and when I look up at Wren, she’s all blurry.

“It’s official,” I say, my voice hitching. “Isla’s legally a De Vil.”

Wren throws herself at me. I drop the papers and wrap my arms around her. For so long, I hid my pain behind a quip or a joke, known in this family as the funny one, the one who never took things seriously. Little did they, or I, know the trauma buried deep within me. Trauma that Wren helped reveal so I could heal.

It's in her arms, with the adoption papers lying at my feet, that I make a decision—one I wish I’d made earlier but hadn’t been capable of until now.

I pull away, wiping her tears with my thumbs while my own fall. “I want to tell my brothers and Saskia.”

“Absolutely. And your dad. This is a cause for celebration. And I have⁠—”

“No. I mean tell them what happened to me as a kid.”

“Oh, I see.” Her arms come around me again, and she squeezes me tightly. “For what it’s worth, I think this is absolutely the right call.”

“I should have done it before now.”

“No, you shouldn’t. You’re doing it now because you feel ready. You weren’t ready before. You don’t owe anyone an explanation for why you’ve decided to tell them now, or why you didn’t tell them earlier.”

I gently clasp her hips. “Will you come with me?”

“Wherever you go, I’m by your side. Always.”

Bending, I rest my forehead against hers. “First, though, let’s go and tell Isla.”

Unsurprisingly, Isla doesn’t grasp the momentousness of the piece of paper I show her, but when I tell her that it means I’m officially her daddy and no one can ever separate us—not that they could anyway, but it’s important to explain that no one can take her from me—she climbs onto my lap and snuggles against my chest.

My throat closes. I swallow past the lump, kiss the top of her head, and hold her. My eyes find Rebecca’s.

This is it. She’s mine. Both of them are. Nothing and no one will ever come between us.