Page 313 of Hide and Keep

“Can you run in that dress?”

“Faster than you.”

“You’re on, little bat.”

“Try to keep—”

We both move at the same time, scrambling off the floor to run toward the back.

The back? That’s so vague.

I’m forced to give Ever the lead just so I can follow her. That’s okay though. I’ll follow her anywhere.

Shouts go off behind us, one after the other, like explosions in a minefield, but we don’t stop. We don’t look back. With Ever with me, I don’t have any reason to anyway.

Beside me, Ever pushes all her fingertips together until her fingers shake.

I grab one of her hands. “Are you ready?”

“No.”

“You don’t have to go in there. I can do it by myself if you want.”

“And miss the look on his face when he hears the wonderful news?”

That’s my petty girl.

After getting the passenger door for her, we pass the motorcycle statues, and go up the front steps together, hand in hand.

“Welcome back, Miss Munreaux,” Edwin greets her, ignoring me altogether. I am breaking the law being here, but it’s still rude as fuck.

“It’s Mrs. Brantley now,” she corrects him before I can. It sounds so much better when she says it.

“My apologies, Mrs. Brantley.”

Edwin ushers us into Arthur’s office, where a new door’s already replaced the one I broke.

“The Brantleys, sir,” he announces to his boss more apologetically than when he offered Ever his apologies.

The face on Arthur though? Priceless.

I can sense Ever’s evil grin without needing to see it.

Now that Ever’s married to me, Arthur can’t sell her off as anyone else’s bride. If he really believes what he told her, that a strategic marriage is all she’s good for, then according to him, she’s no longer of use to him. I rid her of the Munreaux name and burden all at once.

“The Brantleys? Never, what the fu—”

“Ever,” I tell Arthur. “Her name is Ever.”

“I know her name. She’s my daughter.”

“She’smywife,” I snarl even though I swore I wouldn’t lose my patience. But this is the first time seeing him since Ever and I ran out of her arranged wedding and it’s harder than I thought not to jump across his desk and strangle him with his own tie. He was going to sell off the love of my life. “You will use her real name or you will not speak to her at all.”

With a scathing look at me, he grits, “Ever,” before swinging his gaze to my wife. “What the—”

I bring out the anchor from behind my back and drop it on his desk. “Do you know what that is?” I give a one-second pause for dramatic effect, then continue without his input. “It’s a six-pound, stainless steel fluke anchor.”

An anchor guide I found online suggested counting one pound of anchor for every foot of boat length, but I was being generous rounding up to six pounds despite Arthur not being six feet tall. I figured it was better to err on the side of caution here.

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