She stood.
Spun in a slow circle, arms wide, pizza in hand, laughing like someone reborn. What a crazy, crazy day.
She was going to Ireland.
She was going to her estate.
She was going to see where she came from. Maybe she could find her father and learn why he’d never been in her life. Why was she considered a love child?
And maybe, just maybe, figure out who she wanted to become.
CHAPTER4
The wheels hit the tarmac with a jolt that shook Aisling from the kind of half-sleep that felt more like a medically induced coma than actual rest. Her neck cracked, her mouth was dry, and her brain was somewhere over the Atlantic, possibly still filling book orders.
Flying never got easier, and sleeping on a plane was something she’d yet to conquer.
Outside the window, Ireland greeted her with a heavy, rolling fog that swallowed the runway whole. Everything was damp, gray, and vaguely moss-colored. It looked like the set of a BBC mystery drama, just waiting for a murder.
She stepped off the plane and immediately regretted not grabbing her heavier coat. The air smelled like wet stone and early spring. It seeped into her bones, made her want to crawl back into bed—or at least into a well-insulated pub.
Aisling rubbed her eyes and yawned, fighting the jet lag. The flight had been brutal; her seatmate had snored like a dying bear, and the free wine had tasted like fermented raisins and missed opportunities.
Still, she was here. At home, it was the middle of the night, and her body was reminding her she’d not had enough sleep.
Shannon Airport was tiny, sleepy, and so quiet, she half-expected someone to announce her arrival with a bell and a goat parade. Instead, a bored customs officer stamped her passport, barely glanced at her, and waved her through.
The lawyer was working on making her a citizen of Ireland. At least for now.
An hour later, she found herself wedged into a small regional bus headed toward Killaloe, her suitcase rattling beside her like a caffeinated toddler. The bus driver had muttered something about transfers and tight schedules. Aisling had nodded, pretending she understood. In truth, she barely remembered her own name at this point.
The landscape outside the window was absurdly green. Not just green, aggressively green. It was the kind of lush, dripping countryside poets probably wept over. Low stone walls snaked through hills. Sheep grazed like fluffy punctuation marks. Ruins popped up without warning as if someone had casually left a castle lying around.
Aisling wanted to be impressed. She really did. But she was jetlagged, queasy, and deeply suspicious of the fact that the bus heater only had two settings: inferno or iceberg. All she needed was a couple of hours of sleep, a good meal, and some time without the sound of engines roaring in her ears.
By the time she arrived in Killaloe, she’d sweated through her shirt, lost feeling in one foot, and managed to drop her phone under the seat twice.
Nothing like crawling on your knees in the tight confines of the bus seating. Awkward didn’t begin to describe how she’d felt.
The taxi stand consisted of a covered bench and a hand-painted sign that read “TAXIS Ring John.” Next to it, a laminated card listed a number and a name: John O’Shea.
She dialed, hoping to God this wasn’t a setup for a horror film.
“Mountshannon,” a voice answered on the second ring, Irish lilt thick and warm like whiskey on cold nights.
“Yes, this is Aisling O’Byrne, and I need a ride from Killaloe out to the O’Byrne Estate.”
There was a moment of silence.
“Holy Mother of God. Are you Noreen’s granddaughter?”
Aisling blinked. “Sorry—what?”
“You’re Maeve’s daughter. Knew it soon as I heard the name. Be there in ten. Don’t move.”
He hung up before she could askhowhe knew any of that. She knew Mountshannon was a small town, but was it small enough that they knew strangers’ names?
Ten minutes later, a silver Peugeot rolled up to the curb. The driver was in his sixties, round in the middle, all smiles and crinkled eyes beneath a tweed flat cap.
