Swallowing the saliva in my mouth and closing my eyes, I took a deep breath, the water now cold on my skin.
It’s only day two.
In just two days of meting Ivy O’Davoren, soon to be Callahan, she had seen the very worst of me, of my family, and had me inside her anyway. Two days, and yet it felt like years had gone by.
Finally able to see straight again, I turned off the water, leaving her as I walked over to the white cast iron tub in the corner. I filled that up with warm water before turning back to pick her up and take her with me.
“Oh…” She smiled when the water touched her skin.
Leaning back against the tub, I watched as she stared up at the skylight, the day diming to night.
“We’re getting married,” I told her.
“I know. You kinda made a big deal about it.” She snickered, lifting the ring I didn’t even remember seeing on her.
However, that wasn’t my point. “I mean, we’re getting married tonight.”
Her mouth dropped open. “Say what?”
“As tragic as today has been, it allows us to forgo a massive wedding on the grounds that our family church is no longer…” I bit the inside of my cheek. “My whole family is in the city. We’ll do it in my grandmother’s room and be done with it.”
She turned to me and pouted. “You really aren’t romantic, are you?”
“I told you that yesterday.”
She rolled her eyes. “Fine! And even though you just fucked me all over your room, I’m still wearing white.”
“I hardly fucked you all over my room. There is still the closet, the balcony—”
She put her hand over my mouth. “Are you trying to kill me?”
She was asking me? As if she wasn’t the reason I was like this to begin with. Reaching up, I took her hands off my face, drawing her closer to me, her lips just barely hovering over mine as I spoke.
“My father once told me history acknowledges four dangerous women: the woman who gave Adam the apple, the one who cast a thousand ships, the third who opened Pandora’s box, and the fourth…the wife of the Ceann na Conairte.”
She smiled from ear to ear and replied, “I’ve always wanted to be dangerous.”
Smirking, I leaned back, looking through the skylight. “That song you sang yesterday…sing it.”
She rested back against me, and I closed my eyes, hearing her voice.
She was made for me.
THIRTEEN
“We live in a dark and romantic and quite tragic world.”
~ Karl Lagerfeld
ETHAN - AGE SIXTEEN
“Let me see—”
“I got it.” He snapped, yanking his tie away from me and walking toward my aunt Cora by the fireplace. She glanced at Wyatt and then back at me.
“Don’t mind him. He’s just—”
I know. I mouthed back. He was always at his worst this time of the year. There wasn’t much anyone could do but just let Wyatt do what he wanted. Seeing Dona writing, as always, sitting by the window, her black shoes on the ground beside her. She was concentrating so hard, wiggling her toes excitedly. She didn’t even notice me as I sat opposite her by the window.