“May we write her story into our movie?” Clare asked.
Griffin’s father nodded and raised a petrified fist. “Éirinn go Brách.”
Later that evening, Griffin sat with Clare and her two friends, Sorcha and Maeve, at a table on top of the round tower overlooking his vast gardens and land. The mid-summer heat made everyone languorous and the delicious Irish meal, always a little heavy, had them satiated and halfway sleepy.
He was still recovering from his surgery, with frequent tripsto the clinic, followed by mental exercises, brain teasers, and of course, memory games.
He won them all, while Clare and her friends excelled at coming up with the most insane and confusing mental traps for him.
Today, he was not having more riddles and brain teasers. Nope, he wanted answers. It wasn’t because he had any holes in his memory, not at all. He’d examined every detail.Nothing was missing except for what he couldn’t have known.
“Since you gals have been asking me riddles,” he said. “It’s only fair if you answer mine.”
“What do you want to know?” Clare asked, her eyes wide and innocent. “We’ve told you everything to the last detail.”
“Oh, there are quite a few things I can’t figure out,” he said. “For one, how did you swap the Heart of Brigidwith the quartz replica right before Detective Donnelly removed you from my side?”
“A pickpocket doesn’t give away her secrets,” Clare said, hiding a smile with her dainty hand.
“I could have sworn the entire time we were surveying our domain, you had the real Heart of Brigid, but my last glimpse of you was of the six-sided crystal.”
“I did have the real Heart,” Clare said.“Up until you had your seizure.”
A pervading sadness descended on him, and he took her hand, squeezing it. “Did you think I’d forget you?”
“Maybe.” A solitary tear trailed down the side of her face. “I noticed you had the replica when you were dressing, and when you had the seizure, I swapped the stones.”
“I would have let you keep the real one,” he said.
“I’m disappointedyou believed I took it.” She leaned toward him. “But I’m so glad your memory was sharper.”
“It was the last piece of the puzzle,” he admitted. “But once it clicked in place, I knew we were both lucky like love.”
They kissed, enjoying the interplay of their lips and smiles.
“Yoohoo!” a chirpy female voice called out. “Are they up there?”
“Please, let me announce you,”the voice of his new butler, Finn, bounded up the stairway. He cleared his throat.
Griffin and Clare ended their much too frequent smooching and turned toward the doorway.
A pregnant blonde appeared with Finn, who said, “Mrs. Jenna Hart Davison from San Francisco.”
“Jenna!” Clare jumped from the bistro table and rushed toward her cousin who was a fashion designer.
She hugged her, bouncing up and down, and led her to the table. “I have a surprise for you. My cousin Jenna brought new ballgowns and dandy outfits for us. We’re going to be extras in the movie, and we will get to dance under the stars right up here for the final scene.”
Oh yes. He’d kept his promise and bankrolled a movie from Clare’s latest romance. Did he really think he could get awaywithout costumes and paraphernalia?
“We’re going to be in the movie?” Sorcha asked, readjusting her glasses. “What role do I get?”
“Am I Niamh?” Maeve asked. “I’ve been branding myself with the Quill of Niamh everywhere I go.”
Sorcha rolled her eyes and tossed her braided pigtail back. “I do not want to be the Aine, or have anything to do with love.”
“Don’t worry,”Jenna said. “You will be a merwoman, a salmon of knowledge. I know how you like shiny, scaly outfits.”
“Perfect!” Sorcha clasped her hands together. She’d always favored bodysuits that made her sleek and iridescent. “I wonder what my magical object will be, since I’m not into hairpins.”
