He held up a manila envelope. “New chapter.”
“Excellent. I need a distraction before I write the letter that could implode my entire identity.”
They settled at the porch table. Ronan glanced at the university correspondence.
“You going back to school?”
“Nope. That’s the list of men who might be my father.”
His brows lifted. “And you’re contacting all of them?”
“Except Patrick Wright. I’ve met him. He was in New York the day I quit my job. The publishing company I worked for wanted him badly.”
Ronan leaned forward. “So what’s stopping you?”
She hesitated. “Fear. Fury. A bit of both. What if he knew and just didn’t care?”
He didn’t rush her. Just sat there, letting her unravel.
“I want to know why,” she whispered. “Why he let my mother go. Why he never looked for me.”
Ronan’s hand closed over hers.
“If it were me,” he said softly, “I’d want answers too.”
That single moment—his rough palm against her trembling fingers—drew something tight and tender inside her. No man had ever reallylistenedwhen she spoke about her missing parent. No one had tried to understand the ache of not knowing why they didn’t want you.
“My father died when I was nineteen,” Ronan said quietly. “He was a hard man. Devout. Stubborn. Thought anyone not Catholic was going to hell. He wanted your grandmother’s land like it was his birthright.”
She managed a small smile. “Sounds like a charmer.”
“He believed the O’Byrnes owed us. Thought he could strong-arm your grandmother into selling.” Ronan’s voice dropped. “If he’d lived to see her pass, he would’ve bought this estate out from under you.”
Céilí bleated loudly.
They ignored the goat.
“And yet here you are,” she said, squeezing his hand. “Listening to me blather about men who ghosted me before I was even born.”
“You deserve to be heard.”
All she wanted to know was why. What had her mother done to keep him from them?
Before she could reply, Fergal called from inside.
“Aisling,” he yelled.
There was urgency in his voice. The kind that makes the hair on your arms lift.
Together, they dashed to the kitchen. Workers surrounded a hole in the far wall—the section where the servants’ quarters had been.
One man held out a tin box. Dusty. Dent-scarred.
Aisling took it, heart thudding. She pried it open.
Inside sat a ring.
And a letter.
