“One of the Dublin gangs is bragging that they killed Connor McGregor. Word of it made its way through the streets to the kings. It’s not confirmed,” Niall adds. “No body has been seen, not by anyone we’d trust. But all the same—” He pauses, looking at me squarely. “Rumors or not, true or not, this is your family’s legacy that we’re talking about, Liam. If your brother is dead, if he’s evenpresumeddead, as many have already these past years, this right here—it’s all that’s left of the McGregors.Youare all that’s left.”
Niall stands up then, slowly, his hand heavy on my shoulder where Luca’s was before. In it, I can feel the weight of the burden I bear—the burden of my family’s name and the expectations of every man who sits around this table.
“Ya didn’t ask for my advice,” Niall says quietly. “But I’ll give it to ya anyway.”
He pauses, and I feel his fingers wrap around my shoulder, squeezing in remonstration or sympathy, I can’t tell which.
“If you keep making the wrong choices, Liam, it’ll all be gone. You’ll lose the Kings. And there will be nothing left of the McGregor name.”
EIGHT
ANA
Iwoke to an empty apartment.
Part of me was grateful for it. After what had happened last between Liam and me, I’ve had difficulty facing him. We’ve kept some distance from each other—me out of embarrassment, him out of…well, that I don’t know, exactly.
If I’m being honest, I’m afraid to ask.
The trust between us is tenuous right now, at best. I believe what he told me about Saoirse, for better or worse. I believe that he’d made the betrothal out of expediency, not love, and I believe he now intends not to go through with it. But that doesn’t change the fact that he kept it a secret from me or that he’s now technically engaged. It doesn’t change the fact that every time he leaves the penthouse, I wonder if he’s going to see her. If he’s on a date with her, having lunch, having dinner, pretending to be her fiancé until he can find a way out of it.
I know it’s not entirely fair of me to resent sharing him. After all, he still shares a part of me with Alexandre, one that I’m desperately trying to escape. But since the moment Liam came for me, I’d believed that I had all of him. HesaidI had all of him, that he doesn’t want anyone else, and still, even after I found out about Saoirse, he still insists that’s the truth.
I want to believe him, and I’m afraid to, all at once. Deep down, I know, too, that’s how he feels about me—wanting to trust in my feelings for him, afraid that at some point, I’ll run back to Alexandre, and he’ll lose everything for nothing at all.
I understand it better now, but it still hurts.
The penthouse always feels too big without him. I start my day slowly, cleaning up the living room, eating a small breakfast in an effort to please him even though he’s not there, and cleaning up afterward. Part of me, beforehand, would have thought that Liam “punishing” me the way he had would only make me want to disobey him more. After all, what girl doesn’t want to be given endless orgasms by a devastatingly handsome man as he croons filthy things in her ear in his accented voice?
But I’d discovered that, while I absolutely want Liam to strip me bare and pleasure me endlessly again, I don’t want him to do it as a punishment. I don’t want it to be to teach me a lesson, even if it’s done pleasurably. I want him to do it because he wants me, and for no other reason—to do it because he’s happy with me, because he wants to reward me with pleasure, not torture me with it.
No matter how exquisite the torture had been.
Partway through the afternoon, as I’m curled up on the couch reading a book, there’s a knock at the apartment door. I nearly jump out of my skin, as always, afraid of who it might be, but the knock comes once more before I hear footsteps going back down the hall.
I go to the door with mingled excitement and trepidation, opening it slowly, unsure of what’s on the other side. But what’s there, to my surprise, is a large box not unlike the one that Alexandre left for me, what feels like forever ago now.
This time, though, I’m almost certain it’s from Liam. I realize, as I pick it up and carry it inside, that Ihopeit is, and not from Alexandre.That feeling means something, I think, as I lift the lid off of the long white box and see the card atop the tissue paper inside.
Anastasia,
I’d like to take you out tonight on a date—a real date. Our first date, and show you Boston. If you’d like that too, my driver will be there to pick you up at seven. I’ve enclosed some things for you—if you like them, I hope you’ll wear them for me tonight.
Liam
My heart skips a beat as I see the last word, the confirmation that it was Liam who sent me this. I’d never, not in a million years, tell Liam that Alexandre had done something similar for me when he’d wanted to take me out. I want Liam to feel that this is something special between us—I want it tobesomething special.
Slowly, I undo the tissue paper. There’s a pair of shoes tucked on one side, black strappy Louboutins with a diamond strap across the toes, and next to them, I know, is a dress nestled in more layers of paper. When I peel it back, I gasp softly.
The dress is bright emerald green, and when I pick it up, it falls in silky folds, slithering over my hands richly. It’s a floor-length dress with slits up either side nearly to the hip, and a reinforced v at the neckline that cuts low enough that it’ll stop just below my cleavage. The sleeves are nothing but thin spaghetti straps, fragile enough to look as if they could break with a touch.
It’s a dress designed to highlight all of my best attributes—my sharp collarbones, my ability to wear a dress cut so low due to my lack of cleavage, and my impossibly long legs. It’s as if Liam thought of everything about me that he found most beautiful and chose a dress that would point out all of those things specifically.
But that’s not all. There’s a sleeve with small, cushioned pads—one to go underneath the balls of my feet and another to cushion my arches and heels, and then next to it, a black velvet box bigger than my hand.
When I open the box, there’s a gold necklace with an emerald teardrop surrounded by diamonds and a matching pair of emerald studs—teardrop-shaped with a diamond halo around each.
If you like them,the note had said, as if there were any possible way I couldnotlike such beautiful things. It takes everything in me to fold the dress and shoes back into the box, setting it carefully on my bed until it’s time to get ready. I want to put it on now, but I force myself to wait, letting myself savor the anticipation.