Where her face, a moment ago, had exposed her hurt, it was now blank. No emotion. No anything.
MacGregor glanced at his wife’s confused face and then at his daughter, who had yet to respond. The giant Scotsman’s body stiffened further if that was even possible.
“We’ll take our leave, Murphy.” Gathering his women, he gave Daria a cursory glance, barely containing an impressive sneer of dislike, before leading them away.
Finally pulling his head from his ass, Ciar pulled Daria’s claw from his thigh and placed it on her own. “No pictures. I can suggest a few places you and your assistant might like to check out later that are sure to get you thousands of likes.”
Her unintelligent eyes lit up like a Christmas tree, all the awkwardness of the past three minutes forgotten with the promise of gaining new IG followers.
Seventy-two minutes had passed since he’d quite possibly screwed up every chance he’d had with Gray.
He kicked Daria to the curb, literally, at Fitzwilliam’s posh entrance and had the driver take him directly home.
He’d been tight fisting his phone since the moment Gray had stood over his table. The situation was bad, dire, absolutely catastrophic. He wasn’t an ignorant man. He lied. She caught him. Even though he had no plans further than dinner, she would never believe him after what she saw.
He realized he was sawing in breaths, the closest he’d ever come to what must be a panic attack.
He ripped the front door open and stormed through the living room where Daniel and Jonathan were watching a rugby match on television. He ignored their questions and went straight to his bedroom, shutting and locking the door behindhim in case his two roommates decided they wanted to come in for a chat.
Shedding his dinner jacket and unbuttoning his dress shirt at the neck so he could breathe, he sat on his bed and stared at his phone.
She wouldn’t answer. He knew she wouldn’t.
He’d never felt frantic over a woman. Panicked. But Jesus, the look in her eyes flayed him. She had the ability to hurt him, physically and mentally. She just didn’t know it.
His hands shook as he brought up their text thread.
Ciar: I know it looked bad, Gray. Meet me. Let me come over. Let me explain. I promise what you saw isn’t what it really was. Please.
He watched his screen until the sun brightened the sky. Silence, the most damning of replies, met his plea.
five
GRAY
A weekafter Ciar ripped her heart out, Gray was hunkered over a toilet seat, puking her guts out and wishing she could die right alongside him.
She’d caught some horrific bug that, unfortunately, had her spewing from both ends. Her mom sent a doctor round to give her enough nausea meds to keep shit in, literally, so Gray could hop on a plane and fly to Scotland and let her mom take care of her.
Moms knew just how to rub a sick child’s back or scratch their scalp. Gray didn’t care that she was twenty—a month from twenty-one—Moms could fix everything.
She was snuggled up in her childhood bedroom on the second day of her convalescence, when her mom came in with a tray of Lipton’s unsweetened iced tea. A beverage her Oklahoma-born mother refused to give up when she moved to Scotland.
She tossed a few decorative pillows from the chair next to the bed and made herself comfortable.
“Thanks, Mom,” she said as she took the proffered red Solo cup of tea—another favored Oklahoma thing.
Her mom propped her feet on Gray’s bed before asking, “Are you and Ciar a thing?”
Gray decorated her nutmeg and cream-colored bedspread with Lipton’s best thanks to her mom’s zinger of a question.
“What the hell?” She asked while using an embroidered tea towel to dab up the mess. “Why would you ask me that?”
“Are you under the impression that your mother is ignorant, young lady, because I can assure you that I am not. You’ve had a crush on that boy forever, and yes, I’m aware Ciar Murphy is far from a boy, but still, he’s the only man you’ve ever made moon eyes over, and he did something that night at dinner to hurt you.
“Your father saw it, and trust me when I say, I’ve had to distract him with a lot of sexual favors so that he didn’t fly back to Dublin and beat the shit out of Ciar.”
Gray felt her gorge rise even though she was well past whatever flu had ravaged her body. “Never. Never, never, never, speak to me of sexual favors and Dad again.”
