Chapter 22

TWENTY-TWO

Laurel gasps when I turn around and face her. Her eyes flutter shut as she allows the sound of my voice uttering the nickname I'd given her six years ago to settle in her chest. She inhales a shaky breath as she opens her eyes again.

"I told you the other day," I remind her. "Some of my tattoos have meaning, some don't."

Honestly, I'm surprised she hasn't seen the feather tattoo until now. It's not that I was hiding it from her, but maybe I was hoping she would see it at some point. Though I have been keeping her at a distance the past few days. Along with the fear of the depth of my feelings for her, I haven't wanted Laurel to think I suddenly thought it was okay to touch her now that we're husband and wife. But when I felt her still behind me, her hand reaching out to touch the feather, I knew she'd seen it.

Our marriage has been unconventional in all ways. Finding out your contractual husband has a secret tattoo for you could have been received in many different ways.

A small smile plays on my lips, but it fades when a tear slips from Laurel's eye. I reach out, a concerned expression tugging between my eyebrows.

I frown. "Please don't cry."

Slowly, she removes her hand still covering her mouth. "But…" She swallows, trying to come up with the right words. Her eyebrows pull together. "I didn't think you remembered."

"Of course I do." I let out a small chuckle. "I don't think you can have a night like that and not remember it."

"You were drunk," she argues, clearly still in disbelief. "I thought you'd forgotten. The night we saw each other again at Eclipse, you acted as if you didn't know me."

I hold back the emotion climbing up my throat. Everyone always assumes I don't have feelings. It's part of the reason I've kept Laurel and sweet nothings to myself.

"I was an asshole that night," I admit, my chest squeezing. "The look in your eye tore my guts out. I could tell you were smiling your way through dinner, playing along as we all were. But I didn't want my father to know we'd already met. If I did, he never would have let it go. He'd have asked a million questions. He would have stalked you and forced me to manipulate you to get to your law firm. I knew that's why we were there, but admitting I knew you would have made it worse."

Her chest quakes with a shuddering breath. "All this time." She chokes out. "Why didn't you tell me? You could have told me after that night."

I press my mouth into a thin line, knowing I need to tell her. She deserves to know my deepest secret. She deserves to know the darkest parts of my soul I've kept buried.

"I, um." I scratch my chin in thought, coming up with the best place to start. I allow myself to fall on my back and look up at the ceiling. It feels like we've been in bed forever. But honestly, I could stay like this forever wrapped up in Laurel. "It's hard to show others who you truly are when they only ever see you as James Harding's son." I turn my head to look at her.

She rests her head on my arm, looking down at the feather tattoo. She's now seeing the front side of it. The entire feather stretches from the backside of my ribs to the front. She presses her palm against it, feeling my lungs expanding under bone and flesh.

"My father raised me and my brothers to be unfeeling." I clear my throat. "Well, he wasn't exactly successful with Jude. Because of my father's greed and selfishness, he made Jude suffer in ways I couldn't possibly imagine. In ways I didn't learn about until recently. Eventually, Jude stepped away from our father and running the business. I was proud of him because stepping away from my father wasn't an option for me. At least, it never felt like it was. The city heralded him as a savior. They placed him up on this pedestal and no one ever challenged him. Even his children. Until Jude did. I think for my father, he knew even if Jude stepped away from the business, he could still rely upon me. I was always meant to follow in his footsteps." I smirk. "Cold, black heart and all."

"I don't know," she teases, trailing her fingers across my ribs. Across the feather. "Your heart doesn't seem very cold these days."

I smile, her words shooting an arrow straight for my heart.

"I think Jude's betrayal stung worse for my father because he knew I was staying out of obligation. If my brother had stayed, it was because it showed loyalty to him in a different way than I could ever provide. He couldn't control Jude."

"I knew your father was arrogant and calculating," she quietly says. "Being in his presence alone was intimidating. I couldn't imagine what it would be like being his child."

"The earliest memory I have of my father is sitting at the dinner table with my mom and Jude," I start, replaying the memory in my mind. "My dad hadn't come home in time for dinner, even though he promised our mom he would. But often, he usually didn't show up until we were fast asleep in bed. We were eating when he stumbled through the door, clearly drunk. His bloodshot eyes met ours as he walked in with a stranger on his arm. I didn't know who she was at the time, but when I got older, I realized she was one of the dancers from the club he frequented downtown. He'd walked in with her and sat her on the table in front of my mother. With a glare, he laid the woman back on our table and snorted a line of coke down the length of her stomach. Keeping his dark eyes pinned on my mother the entire time. He'd done this in front of his wife and kids."

My stomach sours at the memory.

"Lennon…" Laurel's soft voice says beside me. I run my fingers up and down her back, focusing on the ceiling fan above us. I stare at each blade, watching as they spin continuously.

"That's the first memory I have of my father." My voice cracks. "But it's also the first memory of my mother telling me something sweet."

Laurel sucks in an audible breath. "Sweet nothings?"

"She didn't call them that," I point out with a weak smile, circling my fingers across her smooth skin. "I only coined that nickname the night we met. But that night, after my father walked away with his stripper, my mother stared at us wide eyed. I don't think she knew what to do. Tears streamed down her face when she turned to me and Jude. She inhaled a shaky breath and said, ‘When John Lennon was growing up, he used to play in a field near his house called Strawberry Field.' I recall sitting there looking at her wondering why she would bring that up after watching our father snort cocaine out of a stripper's belly button, but then when I watched Jude's face brighten, I understood."

I turn my head again, looking down at Laurel. I hadn't realized but tears now line my eyes. Laurel places her hand on my cheek. "Whenever I would have a bad day or life turned to absolute shit, my mother would always tell me something sweet. A random fact that has nothing to do with the dark thoughts clouding your mind. She would turn something that seemingly meant nothing and make it sweet."

Laurel's cheeks flush pink, and a dimple presses into her soft skin when she smiles. "I love that."

"The night we met," I tell her, turning on my side, "was the night after my mother died." I slide my hand down her ribs, circling my fingers across her bare hip. She's completely naked lying next to me, the sun shining a warm glow on her pale skin. Thinking back to the night I found Laurel in the back of my car is a mixed bag of emotion.

Laurel's indigo eyes fill with tears. I hate seeing her cry, but I know I need to tell her. I've never opened myself up to anyone. Until her.

"I'm so sorry, Lennon." Her chin quivers. "I had no idea."

"The night before I met you at the club, I'd just made the toughest decision of my life. It's haunted me ever since."

"Your nightmare?" she asks, swallowing.

"Yeah." I trail my finger along Laurel's hip bone, focusing on the good. The sweet. I can't allow my nightmares to control me. Not like they have been. Being here with Laurel helps.

"Is it the same every time?" She wipes her thumb across my cheek.

I nod. "It's of the night I had to let my mother go. She was in a coma after collapsing at home by herself."

"Your dad wasn't there?"

"No." I shake my head. "He never was. I never understood why she stayed with him all those years, but I guess love doesn't make sense sometimes. After she'd collapsed and fell into a coma, though, the doctor told me she wouldn't survive if she were taken off life support. She'd left me as her next of kin, so I had to make a choice. The doctor assured me she no longer had brain activity, but making that decision, with my brother begging me for answers, broke me. I was shattered that night."

"I'm so sorry." Her cry comes out strained on a whisper.

Pressure swells behind my eyes as I look at Laurel. My eyes fall to her hand and the ring wrapped around her fourth finger. "I killed her, Laurel. I killed my mother, and it's haunted me every day since she died."

"Oh, Lennon." With flushed cheeks and concern woven into her beautiful eyes, she grabs my face. "You didn't kill her."

I sniff, the guilt still eating away my soul. "I did. She was breathing until I signed that piece of paper."

"No," she says, tears slipping down her cheeks. "If anything, you saved her, Lennon. It might not feel like it, but you did the right thing."

With my chest tightening, I pull Laurel closer. She wraps her arms around me, hooking her leg over my waist. Warm limbs and soft skin, she cries into my chest.

But I don't want to stay like this too long. I don't want to dwell on the decision I made that night and how it's tortured and haunted me since. I need Laurel to know what she means to me.

I place my hand on the back of her head, threading my fingers through her long brown locks. "I went to the club that night to drown myself in my guilt. I wanted it to eat me alive. I wanted it to chew me up and spit me out. I deserved it. All I kept debating that night was if I made the right decision. Even if the doctor said she wouldn't have ever been able to live without life support, I wondered if there was a slim possibility she could. And I'd robbed her of it because I'd chosen wrong." I look into Laurel's eyes, wanting to get lost in them. My heart hammers in my chest, and my body warms with her around me. It's strange. For so long, I've lived in the dark, detaching myself from everyone in my life. I've never been committed to any other woman because none of them were Laurel. "But then there you were. Sitting in the back seat of my car like a princess in your tight, shimmering dress, with your fucking birthday tiara and large, hypnotic, indigo eyes. Your cheeks flushed in embarrassment, but I was drawn to you. I didn't want you to leave. I wanted more time with you. We had only one thirty-minute ride together, but it was the best fucking thirty minutes I've ever had. And it was a euphoria I never stopped chasing."

She lifts her hand and places it over mine. Lifting our arms up, she looks up at them. Our fingers mingle and intertwine in the sunlight. She watches them over and over, her delicate hand in mine.

"I thought you would hate me for never telling you I remember our night together," I confess.

"I don't." She frowns, still watching our hands.

"You should." My confession drops in the air like a rock sinking to the bottom of the ocean. It's quick and unforgiving.

"But I don't," she repeats.

She shakes her head, sadness drowning in her eyes. I've seen the same sadness in her beautiful gaze before when she thinks I don't notice. It's as if she's stuck in her own head, standing too close to the edge of giving in to whatever sadness she allows to sneak in.

"I figured that was why you were so adamant on not marrying me when I first proposed. Because you hated me for not remembering."

"No." She faintly smiles. Her pink lips twitch. "At least not completely. But mainly because you broke into my office and proposed marriage as casually as asking me to join you for lunch."

I laugh. "You eventually said yes, though. I still don't know what it was that changed your mind."

She doesn't answer. Her face softens and the sadness returns. We let the silence descend upon the room until she decides to break it.

"That night has stuck with me ever since," she whispers, turning to look back at me. She continues to keep our hands in the air, never explaining what made her accept my proposal. "You marked me, Lennon Harding. You scored my heart and claimed it as yours long before you broke into my office and proposed to me."

"I blame it on my enormous black heart," I admit with a smirk.

She smiles, but it quickly vanishes. She presses her lips to mine, selfishly and delightfully stealing the air from my lungs. When she pulls away, she slides her hand under my side, pressing it against my feather tattoo.

"Maybe it isn't so black after all," she teases. "But I do think you underestimate the size of your heart, Mr. Harding."