CONNOR
When I storm out of the new apartment, I have only one thing on my mind—putting as much distance between Saoirse and I as possible before I say or do something I might regret.
How did she turn the tables on me like that?That one question has been seething through me ever since she acted as if going down on me washerchoice, spinning it into something she’d decided to do rather than a lesson in obedience, and my own physical reaction to it had only made me feel all the more as if I’m going insane.
Why her? Why fucking her?I ask myself over and over as I tell my driver to take me to a restaurant that used to be one of my favorites downtown, an upscale steakhouse with melt-in-your-mouth filets and even better top-shelf whiskey.Why Saoirse?
I’d thought nothing of her, once upon a time, before I’d left for London. I’d known I would marry her in a detached, casual sort of way, like knowing you’ll inherit money or drive a certain car when you get older. I’d thought she was pretty enough, but I hadn’t paid her much attention. She was something for later, and back then I was caught between my efforts to impress my father, and enjoying being a young, handsome, rich man and all the pleasures that can offer.
Now—she’s different. She’s not exactly the spoiled princess I thought she was, but she confounds me at every turn. And I can’t bring myself to trust her. I know her father’s craving for power, for the seat he’ll never hold now, and I can’t find it in myself to believe that she’s not still working to further his ends somehow.
She was mine, and then Liam’s, and now she’s mine again—this time fully, forever.Til death do us part.And unless our existence together becomes slightly more palatable, it’s going to feel like a long fucking life.
As soon as I arrive the hostess sweeps me back to a corner table, away from the other guests, under low light. I sink back into the curved leather booth, ordering a whiskey and shrimp cocktail when the waiter arrives, and when I take the first smoky sip of the whiskey I feel the tension starting to leave my body.
Until I look up, and see my brother and his new wife several tables down.
My first instinct is to be irritated—I can’t even go out for a fucking dinner alone without having to deal with him?—but when that first spark of anger subsides, I realize it’s an opportunity to observe him—them—without being noticed. Other than the cemetery, I haven’t reallyseenmy brother since my return.
They’re both facing in my direction, though I’m far enough away that they haven’t noticed me, and the first thing that I realize to my surprise is that my brother looks—happy.
Actually happy.
He has to be under immense pressure. His place at the table is in danger, even his very life, the safety of his family, his future. His home, his sources of wealth—so much for him is on the line, and yet he’s sitting next to his wife, smiling, laughing, his expression and movements light and easy, as if they’re just a couple out on a date on an ordinary night.
As if nothing is wrong.
She looks happy, too. I hadn’t seen or met Anastasia before, and it’s my first opportunity to really look at her. She’s very thin, long-limbed and flat chested, like most ballerinas, with long straight blonde hair that she has pushed back behind her ears. She’s wearing a pink dress, something sparkling dangling at her ears, and when Liam says something in a low tone to her and touches her hand she flushes the same shade as her dress and laughs.
There’s an ache in my chest that I hadn’t expected, watching them. They look happy, relaxed, in love. They look as if whatever is happening in their world, none of it matters as long as they have each other.
I can see, in that instant, why Liam risked everything. He was always the type to be reckless, careless, impulsive. And if Anastasia is the source of the happiness on his face, the easy way he moves as if the burden of his childhood has finally been lifted off of him, then I know why he risked so much to marry her.
Liam has wanted all his life for someone to give him that kind of joy. That kind of love.
So just leave,I think, gripping my fork in my hand as I cut the filet the waiter set in front of me.Leave Boston with the woman you love. Why are you fighting so hard for something you were never even supposed to have? Something you never even wanted?
It makes no sense to me. I don’t plan to leave my brother a pauper. He and Anastasia can live out their lives comfortably anywhere on what he already has. His half of our mother’s trust fund alone could keep them going for a decade. He doesn’t need money. If he has love—why not just give in and give me back what should have been mine to begin with?
Why keep risking his life?
It angers me, as so much seems to these days. The steak I’d been looking forward to tastes like cardboard as I mull over it, the dull throb of anger pulsing in my veins as I drink another whiskey, and another. For so long I thought I knew my brother, and yet now I can’t seem to understand him at all.
I finally get up to go to the bathroom, unable to stand looking at them any longer. I stare in the mirror for a long time as I wash my hands, trying to see myself as he might. Trying to see my way forward.
I look older. More tired. More like our father, if I’m being honest. There’s a hint of lines at my forehead, my skin roughened by the wind and harsh weather of London, my hands callused from my motorcycle and doing hard work alongside my men. I don’t look like my father in that regard, a soft man with soft hands. I look harder, angrier.
I wonder what Liam thought, when he saw me in the cemetery?
Shaking my head to dispel the thoughts, I dry off my hands, striding quickly out of the bathroom—only to almost run directly into a tall, thin blonde in a pink dress standing in the dimly lit hallway.
It takes me a second to reconcile who she is as I step back. “Anastasia,” I say finally, my voice a touch harsher than I’d meant for it to be. “What are you doing?”
“Waiting for you to come out,” she says simply. She looks up at me with pretty eyes that I can now see are a soft shade of blue. Everything about her face is petite and delicate. She looks like a fragile porcelain doll, and I can see how Liam might have felt the urge to save her, to be her hero. I’d heard what our half-brother had done to her—I imagine he felt some guilt, too. After years of being blamed by our father for our mother’s death, Liam has always been good at taking guilt on himself.
“You have no business with me,” I tell her sharply. “You should go back to your husband.”
“So you saw us here. And you recognize me.”