The truth is there, staring me in the face, even though it’s a thousand times more painful than I could have ever imagined it would be.
I want my husband. I’m in love with my husband.
And if I want to keep from getting my heart broken, I’m going to have to risk it anyway and fight for the life I want.
16
SAOIRSE
Iagree to go see Niall. He deserves a face-to-face talk, and Connor has a business dinner with Viktor and Luca that I haven’t been asked to attend, so the evening is mine. Once he leaves, I throw on a pair of jeans and a black t-shirt, my hair in a loose high ponytail, my skin still smelling of sunscreen even after the shower I took. There’s a hint of flushed pink over my nose and cheekbones from being in the sun, and I don’t bother covering it up with makeup.
Niall never cared about my wearing makeup. He never cared about anything other thanme, bare and open to him, without any pretense. I know what I’m losing out on, by letting him go. I know the kind of man he is.
But there was never a future for us, even without Connor in the picture. This life would never work for the only child of the O’Sullivan family, their princess, and the roughened enforcer for the head of the Kings. We were never meant to be together, not in any way that’s more than what I can give him now, and I know he can’t ever be truly happy with that. He’d pretend, and pretend, until it only broke us both.
Better to stop it now.
I meet him at his apartment, like before. There’s no candle burning this time, no offer of wine. His stubble is thicker than usual when he opens the door, his eyes tired as if he hasn’t been getting much sleep. I feel my heart ache when I see him like that, barefoot in rumpled sweats and a t-shirt.
“You look like you should be getting some sleep instead of talking to me,” I tell him gently as he ushers me inside and closes the door behind me. “We don’t have to do this right now, Niall—”
“We do,” he says firmly. We’re in the hall next to his small kitchen, and I take a step backward onto the tile floor, putting a little space between us. It’s hard to think when he’s so close, when I can smell his skin, his cologne, his laundry soap, the musky heat of him, muscled and male, and pulling me in.
“Okay,” I say softly, biting my lip. “What is it, then?”
Niall runs a hand through his already messy black hair; his dark blue eyes are tired and restless. “I’ve been mostly at the hospital for days, Saoirse. Sitting with Liam, keeping him calm. Ana’s been stable, but it was touch and go with the baby for a bit, and they’re only just releasing her to go home tomorrow. He’s been a fucking mess, thinking he might lose her, that they might lose their child, and it got me thinking—” He presses his lips together, shaking his head.
“I can’t do this, Saoirse,” he blurts out. “I can’t fucking sit on the sidelines and be half a man for you. I can’t watch if something happened to you and pretend like I don’t fucking love you, like it wouldn’t tear my heart out to see you in pain or hurt or sick or—or anything. To see Connor being the one at your side, making decisions, playing the role of the worried husband, and all the while, I’d be fucking dying to be there next to you.”
I’d known this was coming, planned to tell him we needed to end it even if this wasn’t the direction he was going to go, but it hurts all the same. I feel like my heart is pounding out of my chest, my throat closing up, and my eyes burning as I stare at him, hearing a man I’m not even with tell me he loves me and break up with me all at once.
I’ve never been broken up with before.
Come to find out, it really fucking sucks.
Niall takes a step forward, grabbing my hands in his broad, roughened ones, looking down at me with that intense gaze. “Leave him, Saoirse. Leave it all. Be with me. I know it won’t be easy, and I know we’ll have to face hard times, but I’ll try to convince Liam to leave Boston and let Connor have the whole bloody thing. He’ll take Ana, and you can come with me, and we’ll start over—a life beholden to no one but ourselves. We can have that, you and I.” He takes a deep, shaky breath. “I know you’re going to say, ‘what if I’m already pregnant,’ and I don’t care, Saoirse. I don’t care if you’re pregnant with his baby. Liam doesn’t know if the baby is his, and he loves it anyway, and it’s not even here yet. I could do the same. I don’t care about anything but you. I fuckingloveyou, Saoirse. I’ve tried to stop loving you so much, to be happy with what I have, but I—I fucking can’t. I can’t do it. So just—come with me. Please.”
For a split second, I think he’s going to get down on his knees. But instead, he drags me towards him, still clutching my hands in his, and his mouth comes down on mine in a hot, searing, desperate kiss.
One of his hands lets go, burying itself in my hair, pulling my ponytail free as he clasps my mouth against his. There’s nothing gentle or sweet or romantic about it. His tongue plunges between my lips, tangling with mine, hungry and passionate and full of such desperate need that I nearly give in.
I can see him taking me down to the floor, ripping off my clothes, burying himself inside me. I know where this is going. He’s rigid against my thigh, hard and throbbing, and I feel his teeth scraping against my lip, his gasping breath, and my heart threatens to race out of my chest.
“Don’t make me stop,” he groans against my lips. “Saoirse—please. Don’t make me stop. I need—”
He can’t finish the sentence. He’s kissing me again, and it takes everything in me not to give in. His need is so raw that it’s very nearly my undoing because it would feel so good to do this with someone who wants me so completely.
But I know what comes after, and I can’t do it. I can’t throw it all away for an uncertain future, no matter how good it feels as my body arches into his. I think of what it would feel like to tell himyesand let him ravish me to his heart’s content.
“No,” I whisper.” I pull my hands out of his, wrenching them free, and he doesn’t try to grab them back. I knew he wouldn’t. It’s not like him. I break the kiss and see the pain in his eyes, but he doesn’t drag me back towards him. He stands there, nearly trembling, his hands fisted at his sides as we look at each other. I see a bruise on his jaw that I hadn’t noticed before, the new crookedness of his nose that I hadn’t noticed in the first rush of us seeing each other, and my heart stops in my chest.
“Wait,” I say breathlessly. “Go back. Why is your nose like that? Did you and Connor get into a fight? And what—what do you mean, Liam knows the baby might not be his?”
I’d heard that information in the midst of his outpouring of emotion, and my heart had nearly stopped. That’s huge, if so. It’s information that could change things, that Connor would want to know. But it feels like a betrayal of Niall, of his trust in me, to share that when I know he didn’t mean to let it slip.
I can see from the way he pales slightly that he didn’t. “That’s not my business or yours,” he says, his voice sharper than I’ve ever heard it directed at me before. “It has nothing to do with either of us, except that if that were the case for you, I’d feel the same.”
“You know that’s not true,” I say softly. “If the baby isn’t Liam’s, it changes everything.”