The idea of love and marriage make me cringe, personally. No one can pay me to go down that road. Especially when a woman learnsmyugly truth. I’ll secure what I can for my family once I have that seat on the council. My brothers will find wives eventually and continue the Quinlan name.
I can’t.
Crossing the sky bridge that leads to the part of the house with our bedrooms, I find my brothers in the media room, drinking coffee.
“Griff, do you have your laptop fired up?”
“Always.” He stands and goes to his office and then returns with it.
“Find Rian and Amelia. Start by looking in Waterford. Find this girl of theirs. Her name. Her age. Her status.”
An hour later, after slamming into several dead ends, we find her.
Darcy Quinlan.
Age twenty-three. Which doesn’t exactly jibe with the date across the Christmas stamp, but the ink was smudged on the envelope, and there wasn’t a date on the letter.
“She’s a beauty,” Connor comments.
“She’s your niece.” I take the photo of her we printed from a foot clinic employment record we hacked.
She’s a nurse.
Interesting…
Staring at her long, dark hair and hazel eyes, something tugs at me. Something familiar. I’m captured by those eyes but shake that away because she’smyniece, too.
Her beauty works to our advantage. Kieran will want her.
“Are we telling Kieran about this?” Connor asks, already booking me a flight to Cork, the closest airport to Waterford.
“No,” I say, thinking of what I need to pack. “Book me a car, too.” I hate that eighty-mile grueling drive.
“It’s the rainy season. Maybe take a private plane from Cork to Waterford?”
“Every season is a rainy season there.” I glance at Darcy’s photo again, something gnawing at me about her. It’s so familiar I can taste it.
Hope. It’s hope. Yeah, I remember being hopeful and happy. When my sister Norah was alive and I still had the chance to have a family, to have children.
Connor finds Rian and Amelia’s home on Google Maps. It looks like a typical quaint, single-family salt-box house found close to the shoreline in Waterford.
Kieran lives in a mansion with sprawling grounds and a staff of hired help. A powerful man in charge of the Irish empire in Astoria, he’ll give our niece a life she’s never dreamed of.
Why would Darcy Quinlan say no?
CHAPTER THREE
Darcy
“There’snowayI’mgoing to America with a stranger.” I stare at my parents in disbelief.
Worse, my brother James is on their side.
“He’s not a stranger,” Mum argues. “He’s your uncle.”
Since I’m adopted, he’s not really a blood relative. I glance at my dad. “Surelyyoudon’t want me sold off to a stranger.”
“We’re not selling ya, Darc. It’s a great opportunity. You’ll have a good life.”