“It does not seem right that you end up with nothing to your name,” Raphael noted, playing his role as the devil’s advocate. “I think we are well aware that evidence can disappear.”
“Yes, but the truth does not,” Felicity stated firmly. “And I don’t have nothing, I have all of you.” She squeezed Emmaline’s hand. “And more, besides.”
“You can stay with us, of course,” Titus offered. “Nora would be so glad of the company, especially once the child arrives.”
“Or she lives around the corner with us,” Prudence interjected. “Caro and Lottie already adore her, and there’s decidedly less blood at our estate than in the hospital. And room for a garden out back.”
Mercy snorted. “If you are not taken in by our sisters’ obvious ploys to turn you into the spinster aunt who helps them wrangle their unruly children, you are welcome aboard the yacht with Rafe and me. We can have the adventures we always planned.” Smiling brilliantly, her twin twinkled mischievous eyes at her sisters, confident she’d won Felicity’s favor.
“Or you can stay in your home,” Emmaline murmured, with her heart shining in her eyes. “I think you would love being here with family… If Emmett is to be the patriarch, I assure you there is no brother dearer than he is. He will revel in his duty to dote on and care for you.”
“No.” The one deep, cutting syllable sliced through the swell of love and sentiment in the room as Gabriel stepped from the shadows, his features set as if ready to do battle.
“She is mine. I will care for her.”
Chapter 17
Gabriel’s teeth slammed shut after inadvertently speaking the words that his heart had shoved into his throat and out of his mouth.
Peace erupted into chaos again as three men surged to their feet, and as if with one mind, created a line of muscle and masculine challenge between where Gabriel stood and Felicity’s chaise.
Even his brother took an uneasy stance against him, scrutinizing him with the eyes of someone who knew all of his sins.
He couldn’t blame any of them, they’d just cleaned up the corpses he’d left strewn about the house.
For her.
Their shoulders blocked her perfect features from view, and he wanted more than anything to see her response.
God, he hadn’t even asked her what she wanted. He’d just claimed her like some bloody barbarian marauder claimed his spoils of war.
But she had to know she was so much more than that.
Sharing a bed was a great deal different than sharing a life, and the mention of it that morning had been hanging like the sword of Damocles over his head all day.
Because he’d wanted it so much, and knew she’d made other decisions already.
They’d never spoken of what a future between them might look like… but he’d been in love with her since the first night she’d reluctantly assisted Honoria Goode with the clandestine mission that’d brought them into each other’s lives.
Raphael had also been struck by Mercy at the beginning, but Gabriel…
He’d been devastated by Felicity.
She’d been his in his heart, his imagination, his every decision since that day.
He knew it was pathetic, and he didn’t give a dusty fuck.
He lived and died by her word.
Raphael stepped forward, his eyes both cautious and contrite. “Gabriel… you cannot just announce that—”
“Let him speak.” Felicity shouldered through Titus and Morley, attracting all attention in the room.
A spark ignited in his chest. One he’d thought had been extinguished forever.
Hope.
In that moment, everyone else in the room disappeared.
“Felicity. Even though I lied to you about my name, I was honest when I said I’d only known violence. I’d thought people were only capable of malice and greed, cruelty and guile.”
Lifting a hand, he caressed her cheek with the backs of his scarred knuckles. “But your goodness— your light— it beckons me. It humbles me. It makes me want to twist myself into you. To tear the parts of myself away that offend you and see them crushed beneath the heel of your boot so that I might weave something better into my tattered soul.”
Her mouth dropped open, but he forged ahead, needing to spill his entire heart before she either accepted or condemned him.
“I’m in love with you,” he blurted. “I wish I could undo all the evil that I’ve done for your sake. I have been a liar and a thief. I am a bastard in every sense of the word. But my feelings for you are