Page 115 of Restitution

She tilts her head. “Yeah.”

I move to the edge of the bed and lean over, pulling the small box out. I unlock it and give it to her. “I know you saw everything sprawled over my floor, but let’s look properly. I kept everything.”

She cries as he picks up the dress. “She would’ve looked like a princess in this.”

I suck in a breath and hold it as I nod. “Like her mother.”

“I hate this,” she says, picking up the five rules I made. “Did you ever break the fifth?”

“I did.”

She smiles weakly. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t. The rules are void and mean nothing. They shouldn’t exist. Keep looking.”

“The little booties too.” She wipes tears from her cheeks and looks at me when she sees the paper rose I made from a napkin. She wore it behind her ear the entire way home from a dinner we had in Edinburgh. “You really never stopped loving me?”

I shake my head. “Not once. I watched you all the time.”

She keeps going through the box, sobbing when she sees ahospital letter about entering the second trimester. The pictures I drew. Pictures she took. The top she left here that I never returned.

She glances at me as she shuts the box. “You watched me?”

“Probably more than I should have. I, um, beat the shit out of every guy who went near you.”

She sits up straighter, mouth open. “You did?”

I shrug and put the box under the bed again. “You were mine.”

“I thought you hated me, and I was single.”

I drag her to my side, squeezing her ass and hiking her leg over me. “I never want to hear that come out of your mouth again. Regardless of where we were in our relationship, I would have slaughtered an entire room filled with people just to get one minute of this with you.”

“Cute – but a little scary. No more killing.”

I chuckle. “I have one more person to kill, then I promise never to lift a gun or use my hands for anything but pleasuring you for the rest of my life.”

“How do you plan on killing Bernadette if you’re arrested?”

She looks up at me, and I wink. “I always find a way.”

I play with her hair as she settles her head back on my chest, and it’s probably the first time we’ve watched the entire movie without her belting out the words.

She tells me she loves me, and I say it back. She tells me that we’re going to have loads of babies, and I tell her we’ll start right away, but she thinks I’m joking. She tells me that she’ll find a way for me to see the dogs while in prison, and I tell her they’ll keep her warm in bed since I won’t be able to.

Stacey falls asleep on me, and I close my eyes, not sleeping, just enjoying the time I have with her.

I shouldn’t have said my name and showed my face in that video of Archie, but in my reality, I don’t get a happy ending. All I can hope for is that I take the fall for everything and my team, Stacey, and my family walk away.

They could all be arrested too.

I swallow the lump threatening to strangle me, staring outside at the sun rising behind the hills and treetops. I hear voices, probably my team still cleaning up my mess.

Then a knock sounds at the door, followed by one of the manor’s workers announcing that breakfast is ready.

34

KADE