Ruinous Love Trilogy, #2
Leather & Lark
by Brynne Weaver
Contents
Chapter Eight: Friction
Overview
Lachlan visits Lark’s workshop to plan their sham marriage optics: a family brunch and a meeting with Leander that will require Lark’s financial commitment. While moving Lark’s new coffee table, the freight elevator fails, plunging them into darkness and triggering Lark’s severe panic and cryptic number-chant. Lachlan repairs the elevator, but Lark retreats emotionally, revealing deeper trauma and widening the rift between them.
Summary
Lachlan finds Lark sanding a resin coffee table in her workshop, guarded by her Akita, Bentley. They trade barbs, then focus on logistics: a Sunday family brunch to sell the marriage and an imminent meeting with Leander Mayes, likely requiring Lark’s financial commitment. Lachlan warns Leander is dangerous; Lark accepts the risk, determined to proceed.
Lark abruptly fixates on adding a black glitter star to the table, sending Lachlan upstairs for a cake tin. He notes her surprisingly meticulous kitchen, returns, and watches her pour and cure the resin while they briefly talk music and his leather work. Lark asks him to help move the table upstairs via the old freight elevator, despite visible nerves.
The elevator lurches and stops; the light fails. Lark panics, curls up with Bentley, and chants a sequence of numbers. Lachlan keeps calm, uses his phone light, and offers to lift her out. Lark refuses to leave Bentley, so Lachlan exits through the roof hatch, reaches the floor above, scavenges tools, and repairs the electrical connection within the hour.
He positions the table in her living room, offers tentative comfort, but Lark shuts down the conversation and withdraws. She skips dinner despite his text. Later that night, Lachlan wakes to find her alone, tearful, singing the same numbers with a guitar. He leaves without being seen, burdened by her pain and their growing emotional distance.
Who Appears
- LachlanLeander Mayes’s enforcer and Lark’s new husband; plans meetings, stays calm during elevator failure, fixes it, and observes Lark’s hidden distress.
- Lark MontagueArtist and singer; drives planning with family and Leander, crafts a resin table, suffers a severe panic in the dark, chanting numbers, then withdraws emotionally.
- BentleyLark’s American Akita; protective during workshop scene and elevator crisis, stays by Lark’s side throughout her panic.
- Leander MayesLachlan’s dangerous boss; off-page but central to plans requiring Lark’s financial commitment and a formal meeting.
- RoseLark’s friend; takes Lark’s call during the elevator outage, providing a lifeline to keep Lark talking.
- SloaneFriend; Lark tries to call her first during the elevator panic, but it goes to voicemail.