‘Some say it’s better than Guinness. They brew it out the back. You should do a brewery tour while you’re here sometime.’
She smiled, remembering that Aidan had suggested the very thing and she’d discounted it out of hand at the time.
‘I might just do that,’ she said, surprising herself. Normally, she’d decline out of habit, without even thinking about it. After all, what did she know about beer? She laughed at herself; she’d know more if she did the tour.
‘And I still want to go back to Dublin. I didn’t see everything I wanted to.’
‘Actually, I’ve to go to Dublin to sign some papers. You could come with me, if you fancied it. I’ll play tourist for the weekend.’
‘That would great, if you didn’t mind.’
‘I wouldn’t mind.’ He gave her a considering look, as if he’d surprised himself.
There was a brief silence, not quite awkward but Hannah felt the need to fill it. ‘I love this place. I can imagine people have been sitting here at this time for years.’
‘Some of them literally did. You had to be careful you didn’t sit in someone’s spot. I remember old Father O’Malley had his own beer glass.’
‘The priest?’
‘Oh, yes. He liked a pint after Mass. He always said it was a good way of keeping an eye on his flock. I think it was a reminder to folk of his presence and that they should be in church the next Sunday. He was a canny aul soul. The new fella’s not quite the same. He’s a bit smarter and he has his hair cut more than once a year.’
‘The other guy sounds a bit like the old guy fromFather Ted.’
Conor laughed and took a swallow of beer. ‘Father Jack. Not quite that mad but he was a character and he had a good understanding of human failings. The new fella is a bit too clean and shiny – makes me feel like I’ve been caught with my hand in the cookie jar.’
She lifted one eyebrow, thinking of the pictures of him with numerous women.
‘I’ve not led a blameless life and I might not go to confession anymore but I hope I do right by people. The newspapers exaggerate.’
‘I know that.’ Her face crumpled. ‘My poor sister ended up in a national newspaper after she went viral on social media.’
‘What did she do?’
‘Unfortunately, she made a rather public proposal to her boyfriend, who’d got cold feet about their relationship and hadn’t bothered to tell her. Or that he was shagging her best mate. Afriendrecorded it and posted it on Facebook – it went everywhere.’
‘Some friend.’
‘To be fair, it was a mistake. They thought they were posting it privately, didn’t realise their settings weren’t right and a friend of a friend shared it and’ – she lifted her shoulders in a resigned shrug – ‘once it’s out there, there’s no stopping it. Anyway, the newspapers made a right old meal of it, painting her as some manipulative bridezilla who was determined to bag her man, even though in actual fact, he was the one that had discussed the church they’d marry in and what their kids would be called.’
‘Ouch. Poor thing.’
‘It made me so mad because it just wasn’t true! And there was nothing we could do about it.’ She clenched her hand on the table; the frustration still rankled. ‘Luckily Mina had left the country by then, so she was oblivious.’
‘So you do know then what the papers are like.’ He sighed and took a long swallow of his pint before he spoke again, his forehead creased in disgruntled lines. ‘I’d be at some do talking to some woman – you know, party talk – “Oh I love your show”’, he spoke in a high-pitched American accent, ‘And I’d do the polite, “Thank you, that’s very kind of you. What do you do?”’
She burst out laughing. ‘Conor Byrne, I’m sure you were a lot flirtier than that. I’ve seen you in action, don’t forget.’
He gave her a sheepish grin. ‘OK, I might have played along a little but I’d only have to speak to someone and the next thing, the papers were printing that we were having it away with each other. If I’d slept with half the women I’m supposed to have done, I’d be a broken man.’
She giggled. ‘I’m sure you would have risen to the challenge.’
‘Well, I always do my best.’ He winked and she felt the quick stain of a blush rush up her neck and across her chest as her heart did one of those funny loop-the-loop things.
She took a strategic sip of her drink, hoping he hadn’t noticed – she really was doing her best to come across as completely cool about things.
‘I never said I was an angel.’ As he said it, his mouth tipped up in a twisted, devilish smile. She tried to give him a disapproving look but failed miserably and instead huffed out a sigh of resignation. How could she condemn him when she found him irresistible? And nothing was quite such a turn on as someone making it clear that they wanted you too. Conor’s direct gaze turned her inside out and when he began to rub his thumb over the soft skin of her inner wrist with slow insistent strokes, she wanted to cross her legs. Each pass over her skin seemed to send a signal direct to her rapidly overheating core.
‘Would you like another drink?’ The husky question seemed to vibrate through her.
