“I did not storm out. I excused myself, politely.”
“And then you stormed out.”
“Aria.” He was too tired to fight with her. “Please go.”
“No.”
He wanted to hurt her. To lash out, to make her feel a fraction of the pain and anger churning inside him. The same pain and anger he’d been carrying with him for over a decade.
Swallowing down all the ugly, angry things he wanted to hurl at her, he sipped his wine and watched the darkness as silence stretched between them.
“My parents should be here.” The words slipped out before he even registered the desire to say them, but they were out now and there was no point in pretending they weren’t. “That’s what happened back there. I was listening to Reagan laugh and it just hit me how unfair it was that none of those who came before us are here to listen to her laugh or to watch you run me ragged.”
“I’m not running you anywhere.”
“Princess, you’re spinning me in circles. And they would have been thrilled to see it.” Turning, he met her dark gaze from across the room. “My mother would have adored you. She would have already had you at some boutique, trying on wedding dresses, and you would have gone because you wouldn’t have been able to help falling in love with her right back.”
Even from a distance, he could see the wariness in her eyes. “We aren’t getting married, Killian. Not in this lifetime or any other.”
“See, she would have loved that about you. The way you stick to your guns and don’t let anyone push you around. She was the same way. I miss her, every fucking day.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.” Draining his wine, he forced a smile. “We should get back to dinner.”
But when he moved to pass her, she stopped him by simply laying a hand on his arm. “It doesn’t make you weak, you know. Missing them. It just makes you human.”
“Princess, being human is exactly the kind of weakness a man like me can’t afford.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Aria
Once again she found herself awake at a ridiculous hour of the morning, unable to sleep. The conversation with Killian about his family kept playing over and over in her mind.
Being human is exactly the kind of weakness a man like me can’t afford.
She still wasn’t sure what he’d meant by that.
Rolling over, she tapped the screen on her phone and groaned at the bright white one-three-two glaring up at her.
Well, if she wasn’t going to sleep, she should do something productive.
Picking up her phone, she opened a search window and typed in what she wanted to know.
And got an immediate hit that knocked the air clean from her lungs.
Mob massacre. O’Rourke family devastated by shoot-out at local restaurant.
She’d known his parents had died years ago, but she'd deliberately avoided learning more about it. And now that she had…
Jesus, no wonder he was so overprotective. Losing not just his parents, but an entire generation of family like that, all in one fell swoop?
Restless now, she slipped from her bed and out into the hallway. The logical thing, the safe thing to do would be to go downstairs and fix herself a snack. Maybe some of the sleepytime tea Reagan had ordered for her.
But she didn’t want those things.
“Where’s Killian’s room?”
