Connor throws his hands up, shaking his head. “Exactly! I wouldn’t. The woman is delusional if she thought for one second I would move across the world with my mammy. I’m twenty-nine, for fuck’s sake.”
“Well, ye did live with yer mammy.”
Connor glares at me. “She needed a place to live, and I needed a housekeeper. I wasn’t about to throw the woman out on her arse.”
I bite back a smirk. Connor kept his mammy living in his house for one reason. “Are ye sure ye don’t want to move to Ireland? Ye’ll starve living alone in that house.”
Connor shrugs, stretching his legs as much as he can in the SUV's confines. “I don’t need to worry about that. Paddy is hooking me up with a housekeeper.”
Of course he’s getting a housekeeper handed to him. “Lucky by name, lucky by nature.”
“Fuck off, Niall.”
“With pleasure. Mellie is waiting for me. We’re going to visit her mammy.”
Connor’s eyebrows shoot up. “Why on earth would you want to visit that bitch?”
“Yer guess is as good as mine. Mellie wants to go.”
“You should save yourself a trip.”
I grunt at him. I have tried to talk Mellie out of this since the wedding a few weeks again. The lass has dug her feet in on this like nothing else.
Mellie
“Are ye sure ye want to do this,amhuirnín?” Niall asks me for about the sixth time, his fingers tangled with mine as we walk up the stoop of my mother’s Beacon Hill home.
“Yes,” I sigh, frowning over at him. “Why do you keep asking?”
He strokes my hair gently as we reach the front door. “Because I know that ye don’t truly want to, and I figure if I ask enough, ye’ll admit it, and we can leave before ye upset yerself.”
I stare at him for a moment, rolling my eyes. It's not fair that he can read me so well. Not fair at all.
A new maid answers the doorbell, ushering us into the parlor. I perch awkwardly on the edge of one of the plush settees, and Niall prowls around the room, looking completely out of place.
The dog figurines catch his eye, and he beelines for the display cabinet. He picks one of them up, turning it over in his hands. There’s a crunching sound, and he quickly sets it back down, hurrying across the room, perching beside me on the seat, shoving his hands between his knees. Oh. My.God. That didnotjust happen.
“You broke one of her figurines!” I hiss at him. He shrugs, shooting me a mutinous glare.
“They’re more delicate than they look,amhuirnín. It wasn’t my fault!” he hisses back. “At least I broke it accidentally, not with a hammer.”
The look in his eye tells me we will be discussing the porcelain dog and hammer incident further when we leave. Whatever. I’m distracted as my mother walks into the room.
She’s dressed in her fancy clothes, her cheeks red. She could never hide when she was drinking.
“Darling,” she sniffles, pressing her cold lips against my cheek when I rise to greet her. “Who is this?”
Her eyes flicker over Niall, dressed in jeans, boots, and a black button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Her eyes dismiss him just as quickly.
“I’m Niall Byrne.” He shoves his hand at her. She wrinkles her nose at his accent, shaking quickly with only her fingertips and dropping it like he’s burned her.
“A pleasure, I’m sure.” She’s using her snooty accent she developed rather quickly after marrying Hart.
She sits in the easy chair across from us as we sink awkwardly back onto the settee.
“You wanted to see me, Mother?” I ask her, twisting my fingers in my lap. She wouldn’t stop freaking calling. I thought this was the best way to put an end to it.
“Yes, darling,” she sniffs again. “As you know, we recently lost dear Hart.” Mother pauses to dab her bone dry eyes with a lacy, embroidered handkerchief. Oh, please. She got his millions. She’ll be just fine.