A bird lands on the fountain's edge. Small, brown, unremarkable. It dips its head to drink, then launches itself skyward in a flutter of wings. I watch it disappear over the garden wall, and something sharp twists in my chest.
That bird has more freedom than I do.
It can fly away. Can choose where it goes. Can make its own decisions about its future.
I press my palm against the cold glass and imagine what that would feel like. To just walk out of this room, out of this house, out of this life. To get in my car and drive until the roads run out. To book a flight to somewhere no one knows my name or my family or what I'm worth as a strategic asset.
But that's a fantasy. The kind of thing girls dream about before they understand how the world really works.
I know better.
I've known better since I was fifteen years old and watched my mother waste away in a bedroom that rivaled luxury hotel suites. She had everything money could buy. The best doctors, the softest sheets, flowers delivered daily. And none of it mattered because what was killing her wasn't cancer.
It was this life.
The fear. The violence. The knowledge that every day could be the last. That the man she loved might not come home. That her children were being groomed to step into the same darkness she'd been swallowed by.
She didn't die from cancer. She died from being an O'Rourke.
And now I'm about to become a Murphy.
"Aoife."
Father's voice cuts through my thoughts. I turn from the window to find both men looking at me.
"Perhaps you'd like to sit?" Aidan suggests, gesturing to the empty chair across from them. His tone is kind, but I catchthe calculation in his eyes. He's evaluating me, measuring me against whatever standard his family has for acceptable wives.
I wonder if I'm passing.
"I'm fine here, thank you." My voice comes out colder than I intended, but I don't soften it. If they expect me to show gratitude for this situation, they'll be disappointed.
Aidan's eyebrows rise slightly, but he doesn't push. He returns his attention to Father, and they resume their pointless small talk about territory disputes I already know about and shipments I've analyzed the numbers on.
They're stalling. We all know it.
I look at the door for probably the hundredth time. Still closed. Still no sign of the man who's supposed to be here, performing this charade with me.
Twenty-five minutes now. Or maybe thirty.
My heel taps against the hardwood floor in an anxious rhythm I can't quite control. I force myself to stop, pressing my foot flat, but the energy has to go somewhere. It coils in my chest, tightening with each passing minute.
I want to run.
The urge is so strong it takes my breath away. Just turn and walk out. Let Father deal with the embarrassment. Let Aidan explain to his family why the O'Rourke daughter couldn't even sit through one meeting.
Let William Murphy find someone else to save his crumbling empire.
But I don't move.
Because I'm my father's daughter. Because duty was drilled into me before I could spell my own name. Because underneath the fear and the anger, there's something else. Something I don't want to name but can't ignore.
Curiosity.
I want to see him. Want to know if the rumors are true. Want to measure the man I'm supposed to marry against the reputation that precedes him.
William Murphy. The wild one. The reckless one. The one who nearly died and came back wrong. The one everyone whispers about in tones that mix uncertainty and fear.
What kind of man earns that reputation?What kind of man am I about to tie my life to?
