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"Sure, whatever you call happy. It's not my intention to fuck anything up, but here we are." The truth of what had happened over the last few days was still a tangled knot in my brain, and I rubbed the back of my neck in an effort to ease some of the tension. "Why can't you see she is mine? She was always mine. She was always going to be mine. That's it. You never had a shot. Besides, you don't want Gwen. She’s a habit. And she never would have given you what you want."
He gaped at me. "What the fuck? You don’t know me."
"You want someone who challenges you. Who lights you up. Yes, you love Gwen. She's easy to love. And she's a crusader for her people. But you want someone to fight with. Someone who will call you on your bullshit like her sister does. In a few years, go bark up that tree. This one's occupied."
"You really are an asshole. You just had to come back. Fine if you had to save her, but did you have to mark your goddamn territory? She’s not a prize.”
“She’s my prize. I’m just trying to work on earning her.”
“You’re too late. But fuck all of that. I want to know what's wrong. Who tried to hurt her, and what are you doing about it? When you called and said she was coming to me, you said to keep her safe. You didn’t say fuck all about anyone trying to kill her."
I had to give him credit. "Best guess is my father. And we are on it. In the meantime, she needs to stay safe.”
“Then why are you here? You are the reason that someone is trying to kill her. If you go back, you remove the danger to her person and her heart."
The truth of that statement had already occurred to me. That maybe I needed to leave her all the way alone. But I couldn’t. "Bullshit."
"No, not bullshit,” he insisted. “Before you turned up, none of this was happening. Go back to where you came from and leave her to me. I was making it work."
"No, you weren't. Sorry, Lakewood, I'm not going anywhere. I know what she needs. I also know what's going to keep her safe. Sending her away was a mistake."
"A fucking mistake? You shattered her to the core.” Lance rubbed his temples and started to pace. “And then I gathered up the shards and tried to glue them together. And just when she was able to hold her own pieces together, you come back and pulverize them. That's what you did to her. To Gwen. The woman you're supposed to love."
The razor wire of his words sliced deep and clean. The fury I’d been holding for myself bubbled up, tipping into rage. When I threw my glass at the wall, to his credit, he didn't even flinch. He just tilted his chin, glowering at me. "Go ahead. Give her another reason to hate you."
Rage was a sneaky, forgetful bitch. It always forgot about the shame that shadowed it. Lakewood wasn’t wrong. All of this was because of me.
"That's what you don't understand, Lakewood. Hit you or not, Gwen is going to be my wife. The irony of it is, I was trying to protect her, but by sending her here, I miscalculated and just put her in more danger. I should have kept her by my side and never let her out of my sight. It turns out that the one way to keep her safe, to keep the boogeyman away, was to marry her after all."
He scowled. "You’re fucking insane if you think she’s going to marry you now."
"Yeah, I had a feeling you'd say that."
"I will not let her do this,” he said adamantly.
"You don't have a choice. Neither does she. She’ll see that. This is happening. Because the people coming for her wanted to keep us from getting married. This has nothing to do with you, Lakewood. In another life, you would have made a great choice for her, but not this one. Not while I walk this earth. So you're going to have to get out of my face, or you're going to have a glass of scotch. Either way, you and I need to get to some kind of common ground because we both want what's best for her. There isn't a world that exists for me without her. Especially not now. Now I know what hell feels like. And I think you feel the same."
Lakewood watched me. "You're dead serious, aren't you?"
"I won’t be without her. Even if it’s on the periphery. We orbit each other. It took me too long to realize that. It’s my job and my honor to keep her safe. And she’s not always going to like how I go about that. Something tells me, the one thing that will keep her the safest is to tie her life irrevocably to mine."
"Oh, and just when are you going to tell Gwen this?" he asked.
I poured myself another glass of scotch. "That's the thing… The less I tell her, the better."
Chapter 12
GWEN
I could do this. I was fine. Absolutely fine.
So fine that your palms are slick, your heartbeat is erratic, and your breath is short and choppy.
"All good?"
I slid my gaze to Lance. "Yeah, of course. Just getting mentally geared up."
"You don't have to do this, Gwen. You could do literally anything else. Do you know how many contacts would hire you on the spot? The brain who birthed that algorithm? Come on."
