I grind my erection into her, and she moves with me. Then I kiss her, filling her mouth with my tongue, filling her pussy with my cock, and taking it slowly until I can no longer tell where my body ends and hers begins.
When I explode inside her, she clings to me, holding me so tightly, that I know she wants it too. When the time is right. When she is ready.
With little effort and zero manipulation from either of us, our lives fall into a pattern of spending the evenings together, either in front of the log burner in the living room or conservatory, sitting out on the decking with cozy blankets, or at a quiet inn in the countryside.
If Orla notices us growing closer—we don’t flaunt our relationship in front of her—she doesn’t mention it. Eoghan is preoccupied with Emily. And I’m biding my time before I strike out at Ruairi’s killer.
I feel like a youth again. I bring flowers home for Amelia whenever I’ve been out of the house on business. I buy warm sweaters and jackets for her when I notice her shivering on the decking. And when she’s feeling unwell, I leave her in my bed and make breakfast for her, ignoring her assurances that she’s well enough to get up and work.
I want to take care of her. I would swaddle her in cotton wool if I could. I would rewrite our histories so that she would never have to discover either of our mafia legacies.
And Amelia seems to bloom in front of my eyes like a rare flower.
Then, when I’m finally starting to believe that we might have a future together, Eoghan calls me from New York. He doesn’t believe that the Murrays—Emily’s family—were responsible for Ruairi’s death and he’s going to prove it. With their help.
And I have to stop him before I lose both my sons.
11
AMELIA
I feelguilty whenever I look at Orla. The woman who was so vital, so full of energy when I first arrived, appears to be fading away in front of my eyes since her grandson’s passing. While everything in my life is growing sunnier by the day.
As much as I care about Declan, it feels wrong that we should find happiness when she can’t find a way out of her grief.
There’s also the little matter of me hooking up with Ruairi in New York that I can’t keep sweeping to the back of my mind forever. Some nights, I wake up in Declan’s bed in a blind panic, panting and sweating because I can feel the lie choking me in my sleep. But in daylight, when Declan is being loving and attentive, and I’m reminded of what he has already lost… I know that I’ll hate myself if I bring it all crashing down around him.
I don’t know what to do.
I’ve never lived with a secret before. I don’t know how serial liars and cheaters can sleep at night. Do they simply block it out of their minds, or do they eventually become so blasé about their lies that they start to believe them?
The first time that Declan holds me in his arms and says, “I love you, Amelia,” the words bubble up inside my chest, trying to beat their way out of me.
I see nothing but honesty in his blue-gray eyes. Honesty, adoration, and the kind of love that audiences cry over in the movies. How can I destroy that for the sake of unburdening my own guilt? Because that’s all I would be doing. I’d be off-loading my secret so that I can sleep easier at night, knowing that no good will come from it.
So, I bottle it up inside and tell no one.
Not even Carol.
Especially not Carol.
My friend would never let me forget that sleeping with the father of a guy I shared a night of bed-shaking passion with is never going to work. For so many reasons.
Instead, I avoid speaking to her and my mom. And the more I dodge their calls, the bigger the secret grows inside my chest, and the harder it becomes to even think about telling anyone. It’s like a carousel ride that never ends, and I keep getting dizzier while the operator looks the other way.
But when Declan flies to the States to attend a business meeting with Eoghan, I decide that I can do something about Orla.
I find her in a lawn chair on the decking, with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders to keep her warm while she stares out at the grounds.
“Orla?” I perch on the edge of the seat next to her. “I’d like your help with something please.”
She drags her eyes away from the weak, watery sky and the leaf-strewn gardens to peer at me through her spectacles. “What is it, Amelia?”
She has stopped calling mechild, I’ve noticed. I’d put it down to me settling into the job and getting to know her better. But the way she looks at me now, as if she’d forgotten I was still there, makes me question if she has seen me with Declan and knows how we feel about each other.
“I don’t know where to start with looking into my heritage, and I thought you might be able to point me in the right direction.”
Her expression doesn’t falter. “Is this not something that you can do online?”
