He starts toward the door, then stops. “I hope you don’t mind my asking: are you with someone? I don’t want to overstep.”
“No,” I say. “No, I’m not.”
Siena brightens.
He looks surprised. “You’re gorgeous. You cook like that.” Hegestures at his half empty plate. “If you’re half as good to the people in your life as you are to the people you feed, I don’t understand how you’re single. You’re the total package.”
The total package.Exactly what Vin said.
He nods once and leaves.
The restaurant is quiet for exactly one breath.
“Sophie—”
“Don’t.”
“But he’s amazing! Why not just try—”
“Don’t, Siena.”
She presses her lips together. Emilia babbles and bangs her little fist on the table. Instead of letting myself spiral on Vin, on those words, on Siena’s insistence that I move on, I smile.
My niece is beautiful. My restaurant is opening. Everything is as it should be.
4
VIN
Isuck in a breath and glance back at Ashlyn standing a few feet behind me. She’s adjusting the belt of her robe and giving me a bright smile I can’t read.
I consider it a win that I don’t roll my eyes before turning back to the door leading to the glassed-in courtyard. Ronan and the rest of the Irish are still drinking despite the fact that it’s about 8am.
I’m still wearing the same suit from last night but I shed the coat, shirt, and tie. Standing in just an undershirt and suit pants, I feel more exposed than I want but it’s what has to happen. It’s all part of the show.
Everyone turns our way when I pull open the glass doors. In my hands is a white sheet—more accurately, a formerly white sheet. I shake it open like a flag and hold it up for everyone in the courtyard to see. It’s stained dark with bloody splotches in itscenter like the sheet is our contract and the blood is mine and Ashlyn’s signature.
The silence that falls lasts exactly two seconds before they erupt.
“There he is!” Declan’s voice bounces off the high ceilings as he surges to his feet, nearly knocking over his glass. “The man of the hour!”
The roar that follows is loud enough to rattle the paintings off the wall. Luca shoves a tumbler of whiskey into my free hand before I’ve even crossed the threshold, and I stand there while the MacCuinn Clan celebrate like I’ve just won a war.
I guess I did just stop a war from starting. But it doesn’t feel like a win.
Ronan closes the gap between us and claps me on the back.
“I knew you’d come through,” he says with a layer of sentimentality I’m not used to from him. “I knew it.”
I nod against his shoulder.
Declan raises his glass. “Best possible way to ring in the bloody New Year! Our sister is finally spoken for, and our brother is finally ours!”
More cheering. Someone produces a bottle of Redbreast Dream Cask that probably costs more than Sophie’s car and starts filling glasses. The fire in the massive stone hearth crackles, fighting the December cold seeping through the windows. I drop the sheet and down the whiskey, barely tasting it.
There’s a swish of fabric behind me, then Ashlyn is next tome. Her robe is silky white, which is either fucking ironic or intentional, and her thick auburn hair falls loose over one shoulder. Her smile is different now and doesn’t reach her green eyes. This smile I can’t read either.
She slides her hand into mine. I let her, but when she leans her head against my shoulder, I stiffen.
