She smiled, and his mood instantly improved.
How the fuck had he focused solely on undermining her all these months? The thought of not constantly wanting to claim her as his own was so foreign to him now.
She said, "Well, I'll be checking in with you, so don't think I'm just going to brush this under the rug, Max Holbrook."
The corner of his mouth ticked up. "Do you have a grand master plan on how to make me forgive myself by a certain date?"
She raised her chin. "Maybe." She winked, and he laughed. "Or at least I can try. I know your feelings and past can't be unearthed like an actual artifact in a straightforward method. However, I can help it along. Both for your sake and our child's."
The words sent a rush of encouragement through him. "So you don't think I'm going to be a shite father now?"
She shook her head. "I never thought that. But…"
Lavinia bit her lip, and he gently squeezed her hand. "But what?"
Her face was serious as she replied, "I have my own emotional baggage to muddle through. Everyone I, well, I thought cared about me ended up abandoning me early in life. Yes, my wandering dragon family stayed with me for a while. But even most of them couldn't handle living in one place and left RiverRock long before I came to England."
Max didn't consider himself an overly selfish person, but he'd never wanted to make someone happy as much as he did Lavinia. "I could say I won't leave you by choice, but I'll find a way to show you I'm reliable, trustworthy, and I don't abandon family. Maybe if you meet my brother and understand how putting up with his shite and still talking to him is a chore,you'll see how you and our baby will be a walk in the park in comparison."
Her lips twitched. "Is your brother really that difficult?"
He sighed. "Sometimes. I shouldn't complain as Antony would die to save me, no questions asked. He mostly raised me once our parents died since he's more than a decade older than me. However, he's been working in the shadows for so long that I'm afraid he doesn't know what standing in the light feels like." He leaned forward a fraction. "And that's something else you can't share. To the world, my brother is just a busy international businessman."
"Of course."
She gestured as if zipping her lips and throwing away the key. Max chuckled. "I like this playful side of you."
"Well, I like the less driven side of you too."
As they smiled at each other, Max was positive something had shifted between them.
However, before he could act on it and do something like haul her into his lap and kiss her, a doorbell chimed. He mentally swore and said, "That would be the blasted key."
Lavinia snorted. "We fought tooth and nail against each other for weeks to find it, and now you're upset it's here?"
He grunted. "Only because now your attention will shift to it, and you'll forget all about me."
She rolled her eyes and stood. "Oh, come on. If you're looking for a fawning female to worship the ground you walk on, that's definitely not me."
As she walked toward the hallway, Max followed. "Not exactly worshiping, but it's felt like a bubble here the last ten days. Having the key and using it will take us back into the outside world."
She raised an eyebrow. "Please tell me you don't think I'm going to chain you up, steal it, and stab you in the back?"
He shook his head. "I know you won't."
They reached the door, and Max decided he needed to stop being such a grumpy arsehole.
As arranged, his associate had slid the key through the one-way opening into the locked box protruding from the wall. After removing it, he opened the package, carefully extracted the metal and stone object, and handed it over to Lavinia. "Well, here it is."
The pure joy and wonder in her eyes washed away his sour mood. This, right here, was one of the many reasons he knew they'd fit. Lavinia had a reverence for history and artifacts that rivaled his own.
He showed her to his study. They scrutinized the key, went over the map, and decoded directions they'd gathered from a cave Max had discovered related to Queen Alviva in Somerset. Adding in what they’d learned at the ruins from the villa, they fine-tuned their plan.
The winter solstice couldn't come soon enough.
Chapter Nine
The days until the solstice arrived flew by. After fetching her stuff from Skyhunter, she’d buried herself in work. Researching with Max instead of against him had quickly become addictive for Lavinia. They each had strengths the other didn't—Max with old English and Latin, her with old Mersae, the dragon language, and understanding outdated colloquialisms—and so as they ascended the hill just outside Basingstoke, early in the morning before sunrise, they were both fairly confident they had the right place.