“Congratulations, brother,” Ronan says.
“Congratulations,” the others echo.
As I lift my glass and drink, Cillian’s eyes never leave mine.
After dinner, when Kathleen asks me to retire to the sitting room with her so the men can talk business, the same way she did the first time I was here, I’m a little reluctant to follow her, but I do.
The two of us again sit in the pale room with the antique furniture. We are both very aware of what went down in this room last time.
Kathleen speaks first. She smooths her skirt, then informs me, “Cillian is proud of you.”
That admission is something I wasn’t expecting. “He told you that?”
“He tells me very little, but what he does say is usually significant.” A pause. “He told me you were both the strongest and the kindest woman he’d ever met. At the time I thought he was being sentimental.”
“And now?”
She considers my question. “Now I think he was being accurate.”
I study her—this woman who tried to dismantle me at a charity luncheon, who called me a stray, who arranged for Aoife Sullivan to sit beside me in an attempt to show me how much I was lacking. And underneath all of it, I see a woman who raised four sons alone after a violent man died and left her with an empire and nothing soft to hold onto.
I don’t forgive everything. Not yet. But I understand it.
“I’d like for us to try,” I say.
Kathleen quirks a brow at me. “Try what?”
“This. Repairing our relationship.”
A long pause. Then, she responds quietly, “Yes. I suppose I’d like that too.”
It’s not a stirring declaration of familial devotion.
But it’s a beginning.
Epilogue: Cillian
Six months later…
Nora’s at the kitchen counter in one of my t-shirts, reading a textbook with a highlighter between her teeth, one hand absently scratching her temple.
I stand in the doorway and don’t say anything.
She hasn’t noticed me yet. Her brow is furrowed at whatever she’s reading, and every few seconds she uncaps the highlighter, drags it across a line, recaps it, and chews the end again. Her hair is loose and messy. There’s a coffee mug near her elbow that she occasionally sips from.
“You’re staring again,” she says, without looking up.
“I know.”
“It’s early for that level of intensity.”
I cross to the coffee pot and pour myself a mug. “What are you reading?”
“Child development theory.” She makes a face at the page. “Fascinating and impenetrable at the same time.”
“You’ve been up for an hour.”
“I wanted to get ahead.” She looks up. “Don’t you have a business meeting this morning?”
