“But—”

“Gotta run.” In a single spin she grabs her bag off the couch and steps toward the door, the dog trailing at her heels. She stumbles and I instinctively take a step closer but she puts her hand up and I stop short.

“Goddammit, woman, where—”

“Bye.”

The door slams shut.

I stand for a long moment in the space between the rooms. Not quite the kitchen. Not the dining room or den. The void.

Whenever she leaves the room, it’s as though the warmth disappears. It’s like returning to a version of myself that isn’t me anymore.

Well, fuck that shit.

I stride toward the door and pull it open with more force than necessary, a crash of metal against the wall. Lark is already two thirds of the way down the stairs.

“Stop right there, Lark Montague,” I call after her.

“Not sure who you mean,” she yells back.

“Lark Kane.” My voice echoes through the open warehouse space and bounces back toward us. Lark halts with one hand gripped to the railing, but she doesn’t turn around. “We need to talk about this.”

“Actually, Lachlan, we don’t.”

“Discovering you’re married to a serial killer—”

“Multiple deleter.”

“—‘multiple deleter’ probably warrants a conversation, don’t you think?”

Lark shrugs. “Not particularly.”

“Then why in the bloody hell would you admit that to me?”

Her grasp tightens around the railing as Lark turns just enough to cut me with her glare. “What was I going to say when you shook the finger jar? ‘Oops, not sure how those snowflakes wound up in there with a severed digit but I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about’?”

I swallow my irritation and stay planted to the landing, unwilling to approach her even though I want to. But I can’t. I can’t bear that flash of fear in her again. Not of me.

“Just … just come up here and talk to me.”

Bentley plops down between us on the metal stairs with a disgruntled huff like I’m the dumbest feckin’ eejit to walk the earth. I swear his eyes roll as Lark lets out an incredulous bark of a laugh. “Talk to you? Since when have you made it fun to do that? You cannot wait to judge the shit out of me again. You really are an asshat, Lachlan Kane.” Lark shakes her head, and the smile that should be so bright it’s blinding only comes off dark and lethal. “You asked me once if I really cared what you thought about me, and I said yes. Well, go ahead and judge me all you want, because I got over that. Fucking fast too, I might add.”

“That’s …” That’s what? Good? Bad? Fuck, I don’t know. I shake my head and wrap my hands around the railing, but the cold metal does nothing to soothe the heat that courses through my palms.

Lark watches. Waits. But I feel like something is broken inside me. Like I keep pressing a piano key and no sound comes out.

For a moment, the look in Lark’s eyes is pitying. “I haven’t told Sloane because I love her, Lachlan. I haven’t told Rowan because I love him. They expect me to be a different person than the one I am. Everyone does. And I don’t want them to be disappointed. I don’t want them to think the worst of me. But you already do. You have from the first moment you laid eyes on me. So what does it matter if I tell you? What is it really going to change about living with you? You’ll like me less?” With a sardonic snort of a laugh and an eye roll, Lark turns away. “I’ve got bigger things to worry about than how much less you’ll like me.”

Her footsteps echo against concrete walls and steel beams as she descends the stairs, Bentley a ghost in her wake. And I just watch. I don’t call after them, and they don’t look back. The door is an exclamation of metal, and then silence.

I’m still here. Standing still. Holding on. Holding on to what?

I release the railing from my grip and turn my palms upward. Tiny flakes of rust stain my skin.

It’s only now that she’s gone that the realization truly settles in my thoughts.

Even with these secrets revealed, I still know next to nothing about Lark Montague.

“Kane,” I say aloud. “I know nothing about Lark Kane.”

I enter the apartment, determination growing with every step I take. Then I grab my keys and jacket and leave.

OceanofPDF.com

HOLOGRAM

Lark

My eyes are still closed as one thought plays on a loop in my head, a song on repeat: I have many regrets. And most of them are related to this fucking chair. Maybe one or two related to Lachlan. But mostly the chair.

It was shortly after midnight and I’d just torn myself away from cleaning to sit in this round wicker chair by the windows. This is where I can almost convince myself that I’m out in the open, the city lights spread before me like a blanket of stars, a view that feels endless. Lachlan had gone to see his boss after our argument and came back with the details memorized of what Leander wants from my family. It’s a pretty simple list. A minimum of four jobs per contract per year. A five-hundred-thousand-dollar retainer fee. Muffins homemade by Ethel herself.

“Are they really that good?” Lachlan had asked.

I gave him a suspicious glance as he loomed in my periphery. “You’ve never tried one?”

When he shook his head, a little sliver of disappointment wedged into my thoughts. If the situation were reversed, I’d have tried every flavor by now so I’d know my adversary better. Just like I’ve googled everything about his studio, Kane Atelier. I’ve seen every photo in Lachlan’s portfolio and read every testimonial for his business. I scoped out his social media posts too—they’re mostly about his different leather projects, with the occasional scuba diving photo dump. I mean, I only really care that he knows fuck-all about me because it’ll make it that much harder to convince my family that we’re truly in love. That’s one hundred percent the only reason.

“Well,” I’d said with a shrug, “I’d like to think so. But if you ever decide to try a Montague Muffin, go to the flagship store on Weybosset Street in Providence. It’s always better than the mass-produced stuff.”

Lachlan lingered as though he wanted to start another conversation, probably about the elevator, or Claire, or maybe my cache of trophies, all of which are absolutely the last thing I want to discuss with him. So I shifted my headphones over my ears and tried to concentrate on the sheet music in front of my folded knees. I strummed my guitar until Lachlan finally disappeared.

It must have been nearly five when I finally fell asleep in the round chair, and it was just after six when I awoke with the guitar still resting on my lap.

And now I’m trying to unfold my legs.

I can’t feel my feet. Or my ass. Or one of my hands, which spent the last hour trapped between my leg and the body of the guitar. I pull my headphones off and groan, a sound that dissolves into an exhausted whimper as I rub my eyes.

When I open them, a cup of coffee hovers in view, clutched by a tattooed hand.

“Didn’t want to wake you with the espresso machine,” Lachlan says as I give him a single eye, the other still unwilling to face reality. “This is the freeze-dried shite, but I thought it might help while you get your bearings.”

As I accept the cup, I study him. He seems serious today. There’s not a single teasing note in his voice. He looks down at me like I’m dying and he doesn’t know what to do. A deep crease has formed between his brows and even after I take a sip of the vile brown liquid that I refuse to call coffee, he still hovers, some kind of pent-up anxiety rolling from him in waves despite his attempts to cover it. He even whisks the guitar from my grip when I try to set it on the floor.