Ruinous Love Trilogy #2
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Disclaimer: I have read this book of my own volition. Any and all opinions and interpretations contained herein are my own.
The Spoiler Report is a recounting of the major events of the novel mixed with my own interpretation of the meaning and symbolism of events, emotions, and actions. Reading this report is NOT a substitute for reading the actual novel and should not be taken as such. Not every single detail, feeling, and event is divulged within. It is essentially a lengthy outline of the story. Many details and all dialogue have not been included. This report is for those who appreciate knowing what happens or feels they may miss things when reading, or just want to have a detailed overview of a book before, or during, reading.
****THIS REPORT CONTAINS SPOILERS****
This is not a book review. For the full review of this book please visit here.
Lark Montague has Andrew, her cheating boyfriend, strapped to a chair in the middle of a meadow with fireworks attached to his most sensitive member. But what truly landed him in this predicament, he’s a predator of young girls.
Through the events of her past, Lark is acting on her self-proclaimed vows and rids the world of one more loser.
Consequences.
A pedo high-school teacher finds his end as his car sinks into the water. Not what Lark had planned. Unlike the firework ‘incident’, Lark needs help cleaning this one up. Using her stepdad’s contacts, help arrives.
Two men who assume Lark is an entitled brat and the whole situation is an accident that needs to be swept under the rug.
One man, Conor, is almost empathetic toward her. The other acts as if he has a personal grudge against Lark while never personally having met her.
After they remove the body, Lark is able to get free of the whole panic inducing endeavor. AKA, Broodyman locked her in his trunk to get her away from the scene but she escaped.
One year later. Lachlan is in Leander’s basement throwing darts into an already tortured drug dealer’s face. It’s not the way Lachlan likes to do things as a contract killer. But after he sullied the relationship with one of their biggest clients last year, Leander feels the need to remind him who is in charge.
Fortunately, Lachlan has an excuse to leave. Rowan, his brother, is opening his second restaurant that night, Butcher & Blackbird.
Before leaving, he makes his desire to retire known. His blunder from last year had quite ruinous consequences. While Lachlan believes he has more than paid Leander back for saving him and his two younger brothers, there’s now this debacle to atone. He is in it for the foreseeable future.
Arriving at Rowan’s apartment, Sloane introduces Lachlan to the most beautiful woman he has ever seen, her best friend, Lark. Neither truly recognizing the other from the incident a year ago. Nothing more than a hint of recognition they can’t shake. This time the chemistry is immediate.
After sharing a devouring kiss, Lachlan’s blasphemous, signature expression jolts Lark’s brain into recognition. Now realizing why he seems so familiar. Lachlan is the Broodyman who helped her cleanup last year and shoved her into a trunk.
The same passion they had when kissing is mirrored in the way they bicker. Lachlan still believes she is nothing but an entitled brat who doesn’t know what consequences are. Blaming her for his current status with Leander.
Frustrations running rampant at the way Lark is being hypocritically viewed. Though she makes no attempt to explain herself or that night they originally met.
Even after Lark pointedly ignores him the rest of the night, Lachlan is still unsettled. And not just from derision.
A phantom breaks into Sloane and Rowan’s apartment after everyone made their way to the restaurant. Hellbent on revenge against Rowan for murdering his brother. The phantom views his revenge as divine justice. Witnessing events that happened there that night, he forms a new plan. Lachlan is no longer his sole target to wounding Rowan.
Another year later.
Lark visits her Aunt Ethel. Before making her way upstairs to her elderly relative, Lark overhears a conversation between her parents and another man, Stan Tremblay. He believes someone is targeting her parents because of two suspicious deaths. Throwing out Lachlan and Rowan as possible suspects. Her parents are not convinced. They know Lachlan is a gun for hire but they don’t know Rowan is the Boston Butcher.
Tremblay can only speculate a violent tendency from Rowan’s past. Her parents may not be convinced, but Lark is. She needs to protect Sloane and Rowan. She just doesn’t know how yet.
After talking with Aunt Ethel, who set her up to hear that conversation, she realizes she doesn’t need a plan. Ethel already has one.
As Lark and Lachlan begrudgingly dance at Sloane and Rowan’s wedding, she tells him the plan Ethel proposed. The plan where Lark marries Lachlan, Leander regains her family’s contract, Lachlan is protected and can achieve his wish of retirement.
On her own wedding day, Lark is encasing her next victim in resin. Thinking of her nerves and wanting to share the justice-serving part of her life with Sloane. But her need to keep her friend safe is stronger than the desire for complete transparency.
Even though Sloane suspects something is not as copacetic with the wedding as Lark claims, she supports her friend – mostly. Despite Sloane’s attempts to give her a way out, Lark simply reassures her, asking for her friend’s trust.
In a civil ceremony filled with bitter-sweetness, Lark and Lachlan marry.
Lachlan visits Lark in her art studio as she is working on refining her new resin coffee table. Discussing their plans to introduce Lachlan to her family while she works. Hitchcock would very proud of this nod to Rope in this story.
But it is not just her parents they have to worry about. Lark also needs to meet Leander. While they talk, Lark continues to work on sanding the resin table. Without paying attention to what she was doing, Lark covers a spot on the table with her hand. A sudden rancid odor fills the workspace. Lark quickly blames it on her dog who doesn’t appreciate being the scapegoat.
Working to cover her mistake, Lark falls into easy conversation with Lachlan. Talking of missed opportunities.
Lachlan doesn’t want to deepen their connection. Ensuring they have a clean break when the time comes.
Taking the finished resin table to the apartment via the service elevator Lark has been able to avoid up until this point since moving into the building. For good reason. The rickety thing stops between floors. The lights go out and Lark is panic stricken. Lachlan’s heart begins to break for her especially when she turns to anything and anyone other than him for comfort. He isn’t even on her radar.
After he fixes the elevator, frees Lark and the coffee table, he tries to convince himself the cold distance she places between them is for the best. Though seeing how deeply the hurt and scars go, he can’t help but relate. It is not a good feeling.
Lachlan turns to Sloane hoping she can help shed some light on Lark’s extreme clausterphobia. That does not go well either. However, he does begin to recognize how inconsiderate he has been toward Lark’s feelings. He has gone out of his way to keep as much space between himself and Lark as possible. That has dubiously backfired.
In an attempt to fix some things, he invites Lark to lunch with him, Sloane, and Rowan.
During lunch Lark tries to hide how exhausted and overworked she is. He wants to step in, hating how thin she is spreading herself. Then bad goes to worse as Claire interrupts – a professional pot-stirrer. Once she leaves, Lark excuses herself. Sloane and Rowan apprise Lachlan of Lark’s not-so-sweet side. They even suspect her capabilities go beyond sadistic vengeance and into possible murder.
Rushing from the restaurant, Lachlan catches up with Lark in an alleyway. Confessing who Claire is to him and his brothers. Lark now understands his attitude toward her the night of the accident, the night they met. That still doesn’t mean she is ready for a heart-to-heart. She slips past Lachlan who now has a new resolves to demolish the distance between them.
Back at the apartment, Lachlan begins to snoop. Looking for any insight into his wife. What he finds is a box of trophies from her secret accomplishments.
Confronted, Lark finally admits to having ‘deleted’ a few men. While she is almost giddy with relief after finally telling another soul, Lachlan is dumbfounded. She didn’t tell him to finally shed some emotional weight. Lark believes Lachlan couldn’t think any less of her. Whereas revealing her truth to Sloane or Rowan might damage her in their eyes. Lachlan is beginning to see her truth, her pain. Now he is even more determined.
The next morning Lachlan corners Lark in the most domestic, caring way. They are meeting her parents, and probably should know enough about each other to pass as a married couple. It might not be a deep conversation, but it leaves cracks in Lark’s armor against Lachlan and the world.
Arriving at her parent’s house with Aunt Ethel in tow, Ava, Lark’s sister is their first test. It spirals from there. With a nudge or two from Ethel they do survive.
After an in depth inquisition over a meal, Ethel broaches the subject of the family’s contracts. One of the catalysts/consequences of their marriage. Causing Lachlan and Lark to show how committed they are to their plan, to each other.
Lark accompanies a nervous Lachlan to Leander’s house. His protectiveness sparks something in Lark she tries to dismiss as mundane. It’s quickly over ridden as she must now play the part of a master negotiator.
Deal made and one tainted muffin later, Lark and Lachlan take advantage of one term of their deal: unfettered access to Leander’s resources.
Leaving the nursing home, Lachlan is waiting for Lark. She’s skeptical of his decent, attentive behavior. Lachlan finally apologizes for his actions and behavior the night they met. Not asking for her forgiveness but wanting to earn it.
Lark is finally beginning to relax around him. That is until they arrive at their destination; a sleep clinic. All of Lark’s suspicious nature returns. It doesn’t last long as Lachlan explains he simply won’t stand and watch her pound herself into the ground.
After weeks of his small, kind gestures, this is his way of ensuring she is taken care of. No nefarious motives. Lark breaks down, revealing some of her fears. Lachlan reassures her and she allows him in just a little.
That night Lark calls Lachlan only minutes after he told her he would be home and available. Lark is still guarded but when Lachlan tells her that he’s there, at the clinic, she doesn’t try to hide her excitement.
Sneaking out of the sleep clinic, Lachlan takes Lark to a cabin by a lake were Conor is waiting for them. The cabin belongs to Dr. Louis Campbell, a man Lark had briefly looked up using Leander’s resources but gave no explanation as to why. Doing his own digging, Lachlan discovers the man is the headmaster of the school where Lark and Sloane met. Where they bonded over tragedy and death.
Lachlan no longer wants to keep the distance between the two of them. Needing to pull her closer and also needing what they are at the cabin to do.
As Lachlan is interrogating Dr. Campbell about choosing his school over the safety of his students, Lark enters. Confronting him with a tool box Lachlan packed for her and gets to work.
Lark is back at the sleep clinic without being seen. Lachlan is back at the apartment after cleaning up at the cabin. Lark gives Lachlan a call, catching him in the middle of working on a project for her. She ultimately asks him to read to her, to help her relax. Eventually he just listens to her sleep. Ready to continue reading just in case she wakes.
Waiting for Lark to arrive at his shop, Lachlan is interrupted by an appointment arriving a day early. Abe brings in an old saddle to be restored. There’s something about the man that has Lachlan on edge. He suspects Abe is about to try something when Lark interrupts.
Abe brightens as he thinks he found a connection with Lark. That doesn’t quell the itchy feeling Lachlan has toward the man.
Getting ready to leave the shop, Lachlan is detained and sends Lark ahead to warm the car. The moment she turns on, Lark hears the audiobook blare through the speakers. His choice of material makes sense after a quick conversation with Sloane. Lark can’t pass up the opportunity to tease Lachlan a bit. Trying desperately to ignore the effect the book and Lachlan’s stare has on her.
Following a lead, Lark and Lachlan investigate a popular club. Snooping around the back office, they must hide in a closet to keep from getting caught. Lachlan takes extreme care to ensure Lark stays calm and feels safe in the small, dark space.
While trapped, Lark allows her mind to accept what her body has always felt. As soon as the danger passes, she leans in for what she wants. Lachlan stops her, not wanting to start something until they are certain it will stick.
Leaving the club, Lark receives a text from Sloane. A news article about Dr. Campbell’s mysterious disappearance. Sloane encourages Lark to admit who she really is, to open up to her. Throwing Lark into a turmoil of emotions.
Alone on the club’s empty rooftop, Lark does open up to Lachlan about the root of her claustrophobia and insomnia.
Before Lark performs with a band as a guest artist, Lachlan gives her the present he was making while she was in the sleep clinic. It is a leather harness. Gold stars worked into the leather represent the moments he has had with her that have impacted him the most.
Lark has her own present for Lachlan. One that leaves him speechless. A second one that he is not to open until she gives him the signal during the performance. Along with the gift comes veiled confessions that lead to them almost giving into one another by the back door of the club.
They are interrupted by Xander, the bassist for the band Lark is playing with.
Watching from the bar, Lachlan drowns in the sight of his wife on stage. She posses all the things he never wanted but always craved.
Once Lark sings her newest original song while keeping her eyes locked onto him, it’s over. She has completely destroyed any and all barriers he has ever built around himself.
Gearing up for the next song, Lark gives Lachlan the signal to open the secret present. It’s a small remote Lachlan can use to control her pleasure. Something Lachlan takes full advantage of during the next song.
Lark is eager to see her husband in the audience as the song ends and her pleasure ebbs. Unable to find him, Lark believes the worse – her little stunt was too much and he left.
Lachlan finds her in the bathroom, sobbing. Promptly, he lets her know how wrong those beliefs are. But he wants their first time together to be somewhere that isn’t a bathroom in a bar.
Quickly gathering Lark’s things, Abe approaches, cryptically discussing music. He is gone before Lachlan returns to her side.
Back at the apartment, Lachlan fulfills his promise to Lark.
The following morning, Lark gleefully confesses there’s a dead guy encased in the resin coffee table. Then they fall into a blissful morning routine before going to Leander’s to continue their research.
There they learn surprising news about Aunt Ethel’s loyal enforcer, Stan Tremblay. Bringing out more fear for her family’s safety. Fear of what the future looks like for her and her husband. Neither seems to want things to end.
With Conor’s help, Lark and Lachlan break into the medical examiner’s office to get to Stan’s body.
The Phantom visits Aunt Ethel at the nursing home. She is a spitfire until the end. Her final words, a warning to her murderer.
Lark says goodbye to Rose before Fionn, the youngest Kane brother, drives her out to join the circus. Once Lark is home, her mother calls with the news about Aunt Ethel. Lark’s first call is to Lachlan. They exchange the L-word and plan to meet at the nursing home.
Preparing to head over, her dog barking interrupts Lark’s blissful moment as she realizes she is in love with her husband.
Abe is waiting for Lark in her living room. After causing her to fall, Abe drugs her before turning his attention to the dog.
When Lachlan arrives and sees Lark is not there, he immediately knows something is wrong.
Conor calls with a video of the man that killed Stan. Watching the video closely, Lachlan recognizes Abe.
Sloane and Rowan are out of town. Fionn and Rose aren’t that far from town and meet Lachlan at the apartment. The dog is wounded, Lachlan demands Fionn fix him. As his brother is patching up the dog, Lachlan goes through a span of emotions before he realizes where Abe took Lark.
Rose insists on coming with him after she confesses her love to Fionn.
The apartment across the street showcases Abe’s obsession as only a psychopath can. They also discover Abe’s motivation and where he really took Lark.
Waking as the drugs wear off, Lark finds herself in a rotary oven. Abe is looking in on her through the window. His attention is pulled away from her. From inside the oven Lark can hear Abe tell Lachlan his plan to kill Sloane and Rowan, implicate Lachla in all the murders Abe committed, and bake Lark alive.
Abe tries to force Lachlan to choose. Rowan, his brother, or Lark, his wife. He refuses. Lark chooses for him as she confesses her love. Telling him to give her love to everyone and says goodbye.
There is a series of sounds before the fans inside the oven turn on. Lachlan and Rose appear in the oven’s window desperately trying to save Lark.
Finally they break through to pull her to safety. Sloane and Rowan have been warned and are safe. Abe is dead.
Lark signs Leander’s contract as promised. Lachlan is now officially retired.
Back at their apartment, Lachlan gives Lark a gift, a trophy to add to her collection. He also gives her divorce papers and an itinerary for their honeymoon and a ring. Asking her to make a choice.
Lark tears up the divorce papers and throws herself at Lachlan.
Rose watches as Lark and Lachlan embrace after they save her from the oven. With all the chaos of the moment, no one notices the blood trickling down Rose’s body until Fionn bursts into the room. Rose feels a sense of home before everything turns white.
