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)
Maybe if I offered myself to the McCarthys outright… Maybe if I could come up with enough money to be useful on my own terms… Maybe if I could make a convincing case that having two Kavanagh sisters embedded in the same family is an asset, not a liability.
But it isn't true, and I know it. So does he.
I could tell myself we never pursued anything because we were just friends and it was always uncomplicated. That sounds excellent. It's also a lie.
Declan parks his car a few miles from the hotel and calls a taxi. It’s almost like he’s planned this out.
“Sure about this?” he whispers as the taxi pulls up. “I can tell them to take you home. I can tell them—”
“I'm sure.” I interrupt, then lean in and kiss him. He kisses me back with his hand behind my head, bracing me, his lips gentle and tender as the cab pulls to a stop.
It only takes a few minutes. In the back of the cab, his hand is warm against my thigh. My head is on his shoulder. How can something feel like we're on the verge of forever and the verge of goodbye at the same time?
The taxi drops us off at a hotel I've never been to. Outside the hotel entrance, a man is leaning against the wall smoking. Dark jacket, cap pulled low. Declan goes still.
“Everything alright?” I ask in a low whisper.
The man turns, stomps out his cigarette, and walks away, hands tucked in his pockets.
“It’s nothing,” Declan says, shaking his head with a rueful smile. “Seeing ghosts. Come, lass.”
He opens the door, his hand warm on the small of my back.
My shoes click on the polished floor as we walk hand in hand through the lobby without hesitation.
“James and Mary Murphy,” he tells the woman at the desk. “How much?”
She gives him a price that sounds like a lot to me, but he doesn't even blink. “How many nights?” she asks, as if she doesn't notice we have no bags and doesn't see that there's no way we're spending more than one night here. She doesn't ask for any ID either.
“Just the one,” he says quietly. He pays with banknotes from his wallet.
I press my lips together. I have a strong urge to giggle my arse off. He glances over his shoulder at me and raises an eyebrow.
“Something funny, Mary?”
“Not a thing, love,” I say with the sweetest smile I can manage.
Then she's handing him a key card, and he's pulling me along. I'm trying to keep up with his quick steps through the lobby when my phone buzzes with a text from Erin.
Erin
All right. Tell me when you get in safe. I'm exhausted and heading to bed.
I text her back.
I’m in safe. Good night, love you.
Even though I'm deliberately misleading her, it's not entirely a lie.
I am safe. I'm with Declan.
The room is large and spacious, genuinely lovely, actually, with floor-to-ceiling windows and glass accents on every gleaming surface. It smells faintly of lemon. I cross to the window immediately, pressing my palm flat against the glass and looking out at the lights below. “Oh, it's gorgeous,” I say, mostly to myself. I turn around. “Have you seen the toilet? Can I look?”
I don't wait for an answer. The bathroom is all white marble and chrome fixtures and has one of those rainfall shower-heads I've only ever seen in magazines. There are tiny bottles of everything lined up in a little row—shampoo, conditioner, body lotion—and I pick one up, smell it, set it down, and pick up another. A fluffy white bathrobe hangs on the back of the door. I press my face into it.
Declan shrugs out of his jacket, drapes it over the back of a chair, then turns and looks at me the way he looked at me in the club… and in his car. The way I used to fantasize he'd look at me when I was alone in the hospital, grasping for something to give me hope. He looks at me now with nothing short of adoration.
“Are you going to smell every bottle in the bathroom,” he says from the doorway, “or are we doing this?”
“I'm appreciating the amenities,” I tell him primly, setting down the lotion. “I want to… savor.”
He watches me for a long moment, then pushes off the doorframe and crooks a finger at me. “We're on borrowed time, love,” he says. “Come here.”
When I reach him, he brushes his knuckles across my cheek, then holds my chin between his thumb and forefinger. “You can still go home,” he reminds me. “I won't be upset with you. I'll take you home myself. I don't want you to feel like you have to do something you don't want.”
I tilt my head to one side. “What's possibly giving you the idea that I don't want this?”