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Two
Farrell watchedJenna after she turned her face to the helicopter window. She was as lovely as ever, her long chestnut hair falling in glossy waves around her shoulders, her cheekbones high enough to warrant a magazinecover.
He would never get tired of looking ather.
Leo made an adjustment to their altitude and Farrell forced himself to face forward, checking the controls to make sure all was well before slipping a hand into his jacket pocket and closing his hand around the small velvet boxthere.
It had become familiar in the two weeks he’d been carrying it around, the shine of the ring inside no less brilliant for the many times he’d stared atit.
He was beingfoolish.
Since he’d bought the ring, he’d had at least ten solid opportunities to ask Jenna to marry him, but none of them had feltright.
Or that’s what he told himself when he needed a good excuse not to feel like a bloodycoward.
In his more honest moments, he had to admit he wasscared.
It was a ridiculous admission, and one he would never have spoken aloud, but he wasn’t in the habit of lying — especially tohimself.
He wasn’t worried about Jenna leaving him. They were happy. Or he was happy, and he did everything in his power to make sure Jenna and Lily were happytoo.
It was true that he’d been gone more lately, taking extended trips to New York, and more recently Las Vegas, aiding their efforts to bring the old Syndicate territories undercontrol.
And maybe he hadn’t been as focused on Jenna and Lily as he should be when he’d been home, owing to the constant conference calls with Nico, Christophe, and Luca, the assistance they’d given Damian in New York, the problems inVegas.
Jenna seemed to take it all in stride, and if she’d looked a little more tired lately, her mouth set in an uncharacteristically anxious line, well, who could blame her? Farrell made sure she had plenty of help both in Tuscany and in London, but household staff — no matter how beloved — was no substitute for apartner.
It was still Jenna who took primary responsibility for Lily, who made sure Lily ate the right food and did her homework and learned to be kind and smart andfierce.
It was Jenna who made decisions about the houses and properties Farrell had scattered all over the world and Jenna who ran her charitable foundation and Jenna who visited Ethan, Farrell’s autistic brother, when Farrell couldn’t get to the institution where Ethan had lived since he was achild.
Farrell cursed himself. He should have been home more, should have insisted Nico go to the States more often, or better yet, Christophe, who had nochildren.
It was vanity that kept Farrell moving. Vanity and the hunger for violence, which hadn’t abated since he’d gotten Jenna back, since he’d learned aboutLily.
He’d once used Jenna’s abandonment and his father’s death as an excuse for his rage, but he’d finally come to accept it was the way hecame.
Hitting things feltgood.
It was part of why he’d been sent to talk to Damian when they’d begun the takeover of New York; he understood Damian’s quiet fury, knew that no amount of reason would appeal to it, that it could only be channeled, notextinguished.
“Tenminutes.”
Leo’s voice, streamed directly into Farrell’s ear through the helicopter’s communication system, broke into Farrell’sthoughts.
He nodded and took another look at the controls. He trusted Leo implicitly, but he could never be too safe when it came to Jenna andLily.
And therein lay the insecurity about Jenna and the marriageproposal.
He’d made a fatal error when she’d first come back to him, had allowed a breach of the Cornwall property in spite of the already-heavy security he’d installedthere.
Jenna and Lily had survived, but Lily had been forced to hide in the stables, and for one terrifying moment, Jenna had been held at gunpoint by Adam Denman, Farrell’s oldestfriend.
Farrell hadn’t thought twice — before or since — about shooting Adam in the head, but the moment still hauntedhim.
Afterwards, Jenna had left him again, retreating to London with Lily while Farrell doubled the security at all his properties and installed Leo in the city to keep an eye on Jenna and Lily fromafar.
He’d only gotten them back after a months-long manhunt that had set he and Jenna on the run throughEurope.
