“I’m starving.” She catches crumbs in her palm. “Sorry, I won’t eat more than I earn, I promise.”
I smile. I want to tell her that she is a breath of fresh air. I’ve never met anyone like her before. She says what she thinks, eats when she’s hungry, smiles when she’s happy. And gets these tiny frown lines between her eyes when she’s worried.
I want to smooth those lines out with my thumb. I want to show her everything and see my home and this beautiful island through her eyes. But she’ll be on the first flight back to New York to escape the clutches of the lunatic Irishman if I say this out loud. And besides, Orla is listening and watching, and she doesn’t miss a goddamned thing.
“Child,” Orla says, “you’ll find no judgement in this house. We don’t want you wasting away because you’re too scared to help yourself to food.”
Amelia smiles. Finally, she relaxes back in her seat, and her face seems to glow even more brightly.
“Your father…” Orla diverts back to the conversation. “Perhaps Declan can help you find what you’re looking for. Will save you a whole lot of time and effort.”
“You want to know his name?” The frown lines are back. When Orla nods, she blurts it out as though it has been trapped inside her for too long. “Michael Morran.”
I wish Orla hadn’t asked. I want to turn the clocks back to the moment when Amelia entered the kitchen, steer the conversation in a whole different direction, a million miles away from the name that is still hanging in the air awaiting a response.
I know Michael Morran. He’s the kind of man who would cut out his own grandmother’s heart and sell it to the highest bidder if it would buy him a little more power.
I refuse to believe that Amelia is related to him.
And I pray to God in heaven that she doesn’t track him down because guys like Michael ‘Monster’ Morran don’t take kindly to surprises, especially the life-changing kind.
“Declan?” Orla is watching me closely.
“No, I don’t know him, sorry.”
“Is this your wife?” Amelia is studying a picture of me and Niamh in a simple silver frame on the mantelpiece in the living room. “She’s beautiful.”
“Yes.” My voice is clogged with emotion.
Twenty-three years, and it still hits me like a sledgehammer in the gut whenever I think about never seeing her again.
“I’m sorry.”
Amelia doesn’t look at me with pity in her eyes the way other people did after Niamh died. I don’t know what it is that I can see, but it isn’t pity.
“You have nothing to be sorry for.” I smile.
I’ve been giving her a guided tour of the house, and the questions have been relentless, like a child who just learned to read soaking up every book they can find.
“How often do the floors get polished?”
“Is the hot water system on a timer?”
“Am I allowed in the study?”
“Where do I run errands?”
She tucks an apology onto the end of every question because she thinks she’s driving me crazy. When, in fact, the opposite is true. My sons would tell her that I’m not a patient man, but I could answer Amelia’s questions all day long, and still not be bored in her company.
“Come.” I guide her back to the conservatory and out through the sliding doors that open onto the back garden.
“Holy crap!” She stands on the decking and blinks at the land surrounding the property. “Sorr—” she stops herself from apologizing. Again. “Please tell me that you have a gardener.”
“I have a gardener, Amelia.”
“Thank God for that.” She scrunches up her nose by way of yet another apology, and my pulse speeds up. Just a little. Enough for me to notice, anyway. “I can’t tell a daisy from a dandelion. I couldn’t even keep a succulent alive in my dorm room at college.”
I laugh. I can’t remember the last time I laughed out loud, and this thought is as frightening as knowing that a stranger, a young woman from New York City, can have this effect on me within hours of making her acquaintance.
