I slammed my phone down on the table, my heart sinking.
It wasn’t the article itself that bothered me—I’d been dealing with this kind of crap for years, and Brad would take care of making sure Francia would be shut down.
No, what worried me was how Dee would react when she saw it.
I didn’t need another reason for her to question me, to doubt what we had. Things had just started to feel solid between us, and the last thing I wanted was for some stupid tabloid story to mess that up.
I found Saoirse stacking whiskey bottles under the bar.
“Do you read The Irish Star?”
She gave me a quizzical look. “Aye.”
“Does everybody in Ballybeg read the feckin’ thing?”
She shrugged carelessly. “Not everybody, but many do.”
Damn it!
“Where’s Dee?”
“In the kitchen.” She stood up and put her hands on her hips quite like Dee did. “What did you do, Jax Caldwell?”
“I didn’tdoanything, but tabloid journalism is fucking with my life.”
Saoirse grinned. “Is this about you and that fancy supermodel?”
I shot her a glare brimming with frustration and panic. “You saw it.”
“Aye, I did.”
“Dee?”
She scoffed. “Like Dee would sully her eyes with that kind of gobshite.”
Okay, that was something.
Dee came into the bar then, a bright smile on her face.
I froze, my heart pounding. “Hey.”
She raised an eyebrow. “What’s with you? You look like you’ve spotted a banshee wailin’.”
I had no idea what that meant. “There’s, uh…something you should probably see.”
“Okay.” She walked to me, wiping her hands on her apron.
I swallowed and pulled out my phone. I gave it to her, my stomach twisting into knots as she picked it up and scanned the headline.
For a moment, her face was unreadable, her green eyes narrowing slightly as she skimmed the article.
Then, without a word, she handed my phone back to me. “Was that it?” she asked nonchalantly.
“Yeah.”
“Good, ‘cause I need to check on that arsehole Martin Glancy because he shorted me last week.”
I blinked, stunned. “Wait…that’s it?”
