Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 87709 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 439(@200wpm)___ 351(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87709 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 439(@200wpm)___ 351(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
“Who?” she asks. Just the one word, but it's loaded.
“Don't know yet.” I say it as steadily as I can.
“When?”
“Don't know that either. But after what I found out in Boston, I'm afraid it might be sooner rather than later.”
She doesn't say anything. Neither do I. We both leave the obvious thing unspoken: It won't be her. It can't be. She has nothing to offer that Seamus McCarthy would say yes to. He's not in the business of mending hearts—he's in the business of mending lives. And lives, in our world, are measured in alliances.
“So we’re on borrowed time,” she says after a moment. “As… as friends. Your wife won’t want to share you.”
I don’t answer. She’s not wrong.
“I have a question for you.” She's tapping her knee nervously. Her nails are long, painted white, with little sparkles on them. They're entirely, ridiculously her.
“What's that?” I ask.
“It's more of a confession, actually.”
“Go on, then.”
“I was lying,” she says. “When I said I didn't remember the kiss.”
The car purrs.
“I want you to kiss me again,” she says. “Before they seal your fate with whoever the hell they choose. Before everything changes. I just—I want that. One more time. Just once. Is that wrong?”
So I act before logic talks me out of it.
I pull the car over onto a vacant street and cut the engine. She's gone soft and thoughtful beside me, looking at her hands. Then she looks up at me—and that's it. That's all it takes.
I unbuckle her seat belt, then mine. I reach for her, and she comes, easy and right, settling into my lap like she was built for it, like this is the most natural thing, which it is. Which it has always been.
I take my time. I breathe her in. I don’t want to ever, ever forget this.
“Christ,” I groan. “What are you wearing?”
“Perfume,” she says with that little smile. “Supposed to make men wild.”
“Worth every fucking penny, but if you wear that around any other goddamn man…” Then I kiss her.
Slow. Unhurried. Like I have all the time in the world, even though I don't—as if this moment is the only one that exists, even though it isn't. Every argument I've ever made against Bridget Kavanagh dissolves. There's only her, warm and real in my arms, and she fits so perfectly it's almost unbearable.
I slide one hand to the back of her neck, the other framing her face, tilting her chin up and holding her the way she lets me. Then I kiss her until the city outside the windows might as well not exist.
“I missed you,” I whisper against her ear. “I want you, Bridget.”
“Me too,” she whispers. Her voice is steady, but her hands aren't. “I want you. Not only did I never forget the club—I've never been back there. And I've never been with anyone else, Declan. Not properly. Not the way—”
She stops herself. I feel the shape of the rest of it anyway, and it hits me somewhere I don't have a name for. All this time—she’s been keeping this for me without either of us admitting that's what she was doing.
“If you're going to marry somebody else,” she says, “and there can't be anything between us after that… we need tonight, Declan. Just tonight.”
I don't care if Cavin kills me for this, or Seamus. I'm not engaged yet. She's sober, she's willing, and she's mine, whatever I'm allowed to call that or not.
“Aye,” I murmur against her hair. “We can, can’t we?”
She's trembling slightly. I pull back to look at her.
“Are you scared?”
“Maybe a little,” she admits. Then, softer, “No.”
“Don't be. Come on—let's get some snacks first. You must be knackered.”
“Actually,” she says, brightening in that way she does, the way that makes the whole car feel warmer, “do you know they opened a little chipper right here in town?”
“Have they?”
“And there's a new place doing cookies—enormous ones, big as saucers, like the American-style ones.”
I groan. “Do they do chocolate chip?” I can hear the smile in my own voice. “I've gotten rather fond of a good chocolate chip cookie, living in America.”
“Well,” she says, “I suppose we'd better find out.”
She checks her phone quickly, then tucks it away. “Just making sure Erin’s not after me yet. I texted her that I needed a little time to myself. Now that Erin's pregnant, she's gone pure mammy on all of us, and Cavin's even worse.”
“Cavin loves you,” I say.
“If you mention that one more time, Declan McCarthy, I swear to Christ—”
I catch her hair and tug, just like I did that first night in the club, the way that makes her cheeks flush and her breath catch. She goes mock-outraged, then laughs, and I pull her close and kiss her again and again until she's warm and loose against me. The world around us fades, and the only word I hear in my head is mine.