Page 143 of A Convenient Secret

“I’m not discussing this, Lily. We all go.”

We still haven’t talked about what happens after she speaks with her father. He still needs his successor. How will that work when she lives here?

“Do you want to return to London and work with your father again?”

“Declan, I love you, and I love Zoya and Zach. That’s my priority. A lot can be achieved long-distance. It’s just a question of figuring out how we will make it work.”

Her words calm the storm within me a bit. They also add another layer of fear. She’s considering options to return to the business. She’s a Spinelli after all. But what if that’s not possible? “You think he will agree to such an arrangement?”

“I don’t know, but there is no point stressing about all probable outcomes until I speak with him.”

“The uncertainty is driving me crazy,” I admit.

“I know. Just don’t give up on us, and we will find the way.”

“Fuck, I wish I could kiss you.”

“As soon as I tell my father the truth about us, you can kiss the hell out of me. You’ll finally make the front page, handsome.” She winks.

I snort. “That has been my life’s ambition.”

She chuckles. Maybe we can try to find some normal amid this madness.

“Please don’t tell him the whole truth about us.”

“You think he wouldn’t like that I took money from you to marry you to help with your custody battle?” She pokes me with her elbow.

“Shit. Don’t tell him we’re married.”

“I’ll tell him we’re engaged.”

“Shouldn’t I ask him for your hand in marriage first?” Fuck, I married an aristocrat.

“My father is an earl, and technically I live in a kingdom, but we’ve moved into the twenty-first century.”

She’s so beautiful, her crooked nose pronounced on her young, smooth face, the sunshine playing on her hair.

“I just want to do right by you, Seagull.”

She watches the kids, but her profile lights up with a smile. “You can never do wrong by me, Declan.”

“Why is your accent American?” How have I not thought about this?

“My mother is American. I spent my childhood in Chicago. That’s another piece of juicy gossip. My mother ran away with me when my father took a mistress.”

“But she returned to England? How long were you here?”

“We were here for three years. We returned to my father as soon as the money ran out. And I came back for two years in high school, before my brother died. Mom had left us by then. I guess my ability to speak without a British accent was the best part of my ridiculous disguise.”

“You were beautiful even with that weird haircut and ugly glasses.”

“I was trying to be invisible.”

“And yet I noticed you the first time we met.”

She whips her head to me. “It wasn’t my voice?”

“I didn’t know the two were the same person until later. I saw you at Caleb’s vow renewal, and I couldn’t unsee you again.”