Page 44 of His Vow

"I know." Ice against glass. A swallow. "Things have been busy."

"You don't sound busy. You sound like you've been drinking since noon."

A laugh. Wrong. Hollow, a performance that didn't reach past his teeth. "Some things you can't take back, Sol. That's all. Some things just stay with you."

The words sat between us, too heavy for the phone line. I wanted to push, but the warmth of the afternoon pulled me back — Nolan's arm, the sheets, the light.

"Call me tomorrow," I said. "Sober."

"Sure, little one." He hung up.

I looked at the phone for a long moment. Filed it.

Nolan was watching me from the bed. His arm still extended across the pillow where my head had been.

"Rhys?" he asked.

"Drinking again." I set the phone down and climbed back in. His arm closed around me. "We have dinner at Declan's tonight."

"A few more hours of this first."

I smiled against his skin.

Declan had called that morning while Nolan was cooking. "Bring Soleil. Thea's making lamb. Julian's bringing wine he stole from a client's dinner." A pause. "It's important." He didn't say why. Everyone knew Declan as someone who never gave reasons. He just expected people to show up when he asked, and they did, because when Declan Hale told you something was important, you believed him.

We arrived at the brownstone at 8:00 p.m. Thea opened the door in a cream sweater with Lena on her hip. The baby's fist wrapped around a strand of her dark curls. The house smelled like rosemary and slow-cooked lamb and the red wine Julian had already opened.

"She won't let go," Thea said, gesturing at Lena's grip. "I've been cooking one-handed for an hour."

I reached for the baby. Lena studied me with enormous blue eyes, decided I was acceptable, and released her mother's hair to grab mine instead. Thea disappeared into the kitchen. I carried Lena into the living room where Julian was already pouring. His sleeves rolled, his tie gone, a cracker in one hand and a wine glass in the other.

"Soleil." He kissed my cheek. "You look radiant. Nolan, you look like Nolan. Consistent, if nothing else."

Nolan took the wine Julian offered without responding. Julian grinned at me and went back to his crackers.

Dinner was long and slow. The lamb fell apart under the fork. Julian told a story about a client meeting that involved a fire alarm and a bottle of Macallan that ended up on the fire escape. By the time he reached the part where the building manager found him on the sixth-floor landing drinking single malt in his socks, Thea was laughing so hard she had to set her glass down and press both hands flat on the table.

Declan sat beside her with his arm along the back of her chair, his fingers playing with the curl at her shoulder, watching her laugh. The grin was there — it was always there with Declan — but underneath it, his eyes held something different tonight. Steadier. More deliberate. Like a man who had made a decision and was waiting for the right moment to say it out loud.

Lena was asleep upstairs. The candles had burned low. The evening had settled into that late, loose place where nobody was performing anymore. I leaned into Nolan's side. His hand found my knee under the table.

I turned to him. "Do you think Thea's grandmother actually made this recipe? Because I've had grandmothers' cooking and this is — "

The sound of silver against crystal cut through the room. Three sharp taps. I turned back.

Declan was on his feet. His wine glass was in one hand, the other resting flat on the table. The room went quiet. Julian set his glass down. Thea looked up at Declan with her lips still parted from laughter, the tail end of the joke still in her eyes.

"I had a speech," Declan said.

His voice was different. Not the warm performance, not the boardroom charm that made rooms lean toward him. Quieter. Stripped.

"I wrote it on the plane. Rewrote it at the office. Practiced it in the car." He set the wine glass down and turned to Thea fully. His hand found hers on the table. "And I'm not going to use any of it. Because you don't need a speech. You know."

Thea's fingers went still in his. Her lips closed. The laughter drained from her face and something else filled it — recognition, the slow dawn of understanding moving across her features like light crossing a room.

"You know that I'm better because of you. You know that Lena is the reason I understand anything about love." His thumb moved across her knuckles. "You know that every morning I wake up next to you, I think, how did she choose me. And you know I would spend every day for the rest of my life trying to earn it."

Julian's hand had frozen on the stem of his wine glass. His mouth was open. The cracker was forgotten on his plate. I gripped Nolan's knee under the table. My nails dug into the fabric of his trousers.