“You left this,” he says. He takes my left hand and slides the ring back onto my finger. The weight of it settles where it belongs, and I stare at it until my vision blurs.
“I’m sorry I took it off.”
“Don’t do it again.”
He kisses me again, longer this time, his hands in my hair, pulling me against him with a need that mirrors everything I feel.
When he pulls back suddenly and looks around the room, something shifts in his eyes. “We’re not doing this here.”
“What?”
“I’m not making love to my wife in a place like this.” He stands, pulling me up with him. “Get your bag. Or, better yet, leave it here. We’re going home.”
Home.
Not the penthouse. Nothisapartment.
Home.
Chapter 19
Nora
I dress in a mauve cocktail dress and turn to look at myself in the mirror.
I’m a little surprised to find that the woman staring back at me looks like someone who belongs on the arm of Cillian O’Rourke.
“Ready?” My husband appears in the doorway. Dark suit, no tie. He’s so handsome that looking at him makes me feel a little dizzy, which is unfair given that I need all available brain cells for what’s coming.
“No,” I reply honestly. “But let’s go anyway.”
His mouth curves. “That’s my brave wife.”
The estate looks the same—iron gates, the long gravel drive, the house at the end of it that isn’t ahouseat all. The O’Rourke estate is the same, butI’mdifferent from the last time I was here.
My hands are twisted in my lap. Cillian reaches across and takes one without looking away from the road.
“We can turn around.”
“We can’t.”
“We absolutely can. My family, my rules.”
“Your family is going to be the family of any children we may someday have.” I watch a grin spread over his face. “I want to do this right.”
He lifts my hand and presses his mouth to my knuckles. “You’re already doing it right.”
I watch the gates as they open. “What if Kathleen?—”
“I’ve spoken to her and made our position clear.” He glances at me. “Whatever happens in there, I’m with you. You and I are a team. You walk out the door, I walk out the door. Understood?”
I nod, feeling my courage replenish.
They’re all seated in the formal living room when we arrive. Declan with his arms crossed, Ronan holing a glass of what might be whiskey, Lorcan sprawled in an armchair. And Kathleen, her spine ruler-straight, her face closed.
The conversation dies when we enter the room.
Cillian speaks first.
