I’m also aware that I’m the only one who can change the situation.
I’ve never been a fucking coward. But it scares the shit out of me knowing what people will say.
Declan Byrne is having a mid-life crisis.
She’s only after his money. What else would she see in him?
She’s younger than his sons.
He’s lost his fucking marbles.
I lean over the bed and kiss her cheek softly so as not to wake her. Her face is still flushed from the multiple orgasms she had during the night. The mark on her neck isn’t as livid as it was, but it’s still noticeable, flecked with blood beneath the skin’s surface. She kept it covered. She could’ve flaunted it in front of Orla, forced my hand, made the situation so awkward that I had to come clean.
But she didn’t.
Maybe I am crazy. Maybe this is a mid-life crisis. But I believed her when she said that I have all of her.
Now I need to figure out what to do with it.
I avoid Amelia during the day. I don’t feel good about it, but I’ve been too distracted by her to think about what’s going on in New York, and I need to be focused. For Ruairi’s sake. I’ll make it up to her later.
Orla finds me in my study mid-morning and sits down in the seat across the desk.
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
I sit back in my seat. Keep my expression neutral. “Is this about Amelia?”
“You tell me.”
I’m trying to gauge how much she knows, or at least how much she thinks she knows. Orla isn’t easily fooled. But I’m not ready to come clean. For both our sakes.
“I misread her attitude to begin with. I convinced myself that she would be hard work, that we needed someone more like Mary.”
“And now?”
“And now… I realize that this is the twenty-first century, and Amelia York is like throwing open the windows and blowing the cobwebs away.”
She watches me with a steady gaze for several long moments. Then her expression softens. “I’m glad. I haven’t seen you smile this much in years.”
Orla eases herself out of the seat using the armrests for support.
“She’s a good one, Declan. Make sure you look after her.”
She isn’t insinuating anything I tell myself when I’m alone again. Orla doesn’t speak in riddles; if she has something to say, she’ll say it.
Still, I can’t shake the niggling feeling that she suspects. Exactly what she suspects, I have no clue. But maybe she noticed a glance passing between me and Amelia that we were oblivious to. Or the gravitational pull that’s impossible to resist. Or maybe she sensed the reason behind my reluctance to keep Amelia here when she first arrived.
But she suggested that I take Amelia shopping, almost as if she were deliberately throwing us together.
Despite my best intentions to focus on work, my mind keeps drifting back to how it felt to spend the night together. Amelia in my arms. Skin on skin. Her warm breath tickling my neck.
It feels as if I’ve known her for a lifetime.
It feels as if my life has been on hold awaiting her arrival.
And yet… The rational part of my brain is telling me that it isn’t real. The age gap. How little we know about each other. The speed with which our worlds have collided. Logically, it all suggests that this is nothing more than a romantic fling.
Lust.
