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)
She opens one eye. “How did you get so handsome overnight?”
I grin, bend down, and kiss her forehead. Goddamn, why does she have to make this so hard?
“Oh,” she says, soft and delighted. “Forehead kisses. I love forehead kisses.”
“What don’t you love?”
“Hmmm,” she says with a little smile, her eyes closed again. “Cold chips and scratchy clothes. You?”
I sigh. “Cowards. Goodbyes.”
Her fingers find mine in the quiet and squeeze.
Her face in the first moment of waking is so honest and unguarded, as if she hasn't remembered yet to put anything back in place. “How long have you been awake?” she asks with a yawn, her voice rough with sleep.
“A while.”
“Did you sleep at all?”
I shrug. “A little. You?”
“Hardly any,” she says, “but it was worth it.” A wink, then another yawn. “Today's my day off. I can nap. Can you?”
“I’ll manage.”
She leans over and kisses me, slow and unhurried, and somewhere in the room my phone buzzes, over and over, relentless. Probably Seamus.
Already, it’s over. We’re over.
I extricate myself with difficulty because I don’t want to leave her. She leans on one elbow and watches me, and I can tell by the little pucker between her brows that she’s concerned.
Predictably, it’s Seamus. A text, not a call. I climb out of bed and read it with my back to her, my voice low and unhurried when I say, “Give me a minute.”
Seamus
Her name is Valentina Esposito. Italian-American. Strong family connections. Twenty-four. Her family is eager to move on this. Details in person.
Goddamn.
He sends me the sum of what her family is offering us, and my brows rise in surprise.
I don’t care if she’s Cinderella and brings ten million with her. It’s not going to work. I won’t love her. I’ll be expected to court her, to knock her up, to perform everything I’m not.
Christ.
Seamus
Her family wants you to meet her at dinner tonight. They’re eager to move on this and so am I. Tell me you’ll be there and I won’t mention the fact that someone saw you leave with Bridget fucking Kavanagh last night.
Jesus.
I scowl at my phone and type my answer.
I’ll be there.
Then I throw it, hard. It hits the sofa and slides to the floor.
Bridget wordlessly pushes herself out of bed and comes up behind me. She wraps her arms around me and presses her lips to the space between my shoulder blades, standing on her tiptoes. I close my eyes and hang my head.
“You’ll always be my best friend, Declan,” she whispers. “No one will ever take that from us.”
I don’t know if she believes it.
I do know that she’s wrong.
Chapter Ten
BRIDGET
Three weeks after the best night of my entire life, and I’ve barely spoken to Declan.
I don’t know if anything could have prepared me for this. For the way the McCarthy family celebrated his engagement. For how devastatingly beautiful his fiancée is. She is refined and elegant in all the ways I am not.
So I do what any sensible woman would do. I stalk the bitch’s socials, which is incredibly easy to do because, apparently, her part-time job is posting her idyllic life and garnering followers.
And with every post I see, I hate her, brick by brick.
I shouldn’t. I know I shouldn’t. I don’t have any right to Declan—that’s what everyone would say, and they’d be right. Except I can’t quite make myself believe it.
God, their babies will be infant models.
Why should the choices our parents made years before us dictate anything? It’s unfair, and I hate it. I hate it so fucking much.
I know in my heart that I will never love anyone the way I love him.
“Hey,” Erin says, appearing in the kitchen doorway.
Even though I've moved into my own apartment, I still swing by here to work sometimes. Erin is adorably pregnant, and Cavin worshipping her bump is arguably cuter than the bump itself. He follows her in, bare-chested as usual, which means, lucky me, I get a front-row seat to my brother-in-law falling all over his wife on a daily basis. Eye roll.
I should be happy for them.
I am happy for them.
Mostly.
“Bridge, will you be home at the weekend?” Cavin asks. He pulls away from Erin and scratches the back of his neck, wandering toward the cabinet.
His voice is too casual, and I’m immediately suspicious.
“Of course,” I say. “Why?”
“Dinner at the McCarthy house.” He still isn’t looking at me. “For Declan’s engagement party.”
Well, cut my heart out with a dull blade, why don’t you.
“Of course,” I tell him. “I’ll be there.”
He turns around, and the look he gives me is curious enough that I have to wonder whether he knows more than he’s letting on. Erin definitely doesn’t. Thankfully, she’s oblivious to anything that’s happened between Declan and me. I don’t need an older-sister lecture on top of a broken heart.
“I want to talk to you about the American accounting,” I tell him, deliberately changing the subject.