"You're thinking too loud," she said softly, her fingers finding mine on the gear shift. The contact sent a shot of warmth up my arm, grounding me in this moment and yanking me out of the past. "We don't have to do this, Ronan. I'd rather have you whole in London than haunted here."
The concern in her voice nearly undid me. After everything I'd put her through—the violence, the secrets, the world of blood and brutality I'd dragged her into—she still worried about my demons more than her own.
"I want to give you this," I said, bringing her hand to my lips, tasting the salt and sweetness of her skin. It wasn't the complete truth. Alexander's reports had been increasingly cryptic, and there were business matters that demanded my physical presence. But watching her face light up when she'd spoken of home... Christ, I'd have faced an army of ghosts for that expression.
The estate loomed ahead, its stone facade catching the dying afternoon light like a mausoleum. Beautiful and cold and haunted. I'd taken it over for revenge, torn it from Eleanor's grasping fingers as payment for my father's betrayal. But now, with Cressida beside me, it felt like something else entirely.
A reckoning waiting to happen. Maybe the place was cursed beyond redemption.
Willis appeared before we'd even stopped, his weathered face creasing with genuine joy at the sight of us. The old man had served this house through three generations of Ashfords, had watched Cressida grow from a wild-haired child into the womanwho'd brought me to my knees. He was now mostly retired and living off property in a small house I’d provided for him and his new puppy, Tommy, although he insisted on working some days to keep busy.
"Miss Cressida, Mr. Flanagan," he greeted with his usual dignity, though I caught the tremor in his voice. Emotion, kept in check but unmistakable. "Welcome home."
Home. The word hit me like a punch to the gut. This place had been many things—conquest, fortress, monument to my father's failures. But never home. Watching Cressida's face soften as she took in the familiar surroundings, I wondered if that might change. If love could transform even the darkest places.
"Willis." Cressida embraced him with the unselfconscious affection that still amazed me after eighteen months together. She'd learned to be guarded with most of the world, but not with those who'd earned her trust. "You look wonderful. How are the gardens?"
"Maintained exactly as you requested, madam." His eyes sported a conspiratorial twinkle. "The east wing has been prepared as well. Both rooms, though I suspect..." He trailed off with the discretion of a man who'd served an elite family his entire life.
Both rooms. A polite fiction. We hadn't slept apart since the night I'd almost lost her to Connor O’Malley.
"Is Alex around?" I asked, scanning the grounds. My man had been managing operations here while I focused on expanding into Ireland. His reports had been thorough, professional, and lately, wrong in ways I couldn't define. Something in his tone during our calls had set every instinct I possessed on high alert.
"He's waiting in the drawing room, sir." Willis's voice carried that carefully neutral tone that suggested storms brewing beneath calm surfaces. "He's ... eager to speak with you."
The way he said it made ice form in my veins. In my world, eager conversations rarely ended well.
"Go," Cressida said, reading the tension in my shoulders. "Handle whatever needs handling. I want to walk through the gardens anyway—see if the climbing roses survived the winter."
Every protective instinct screamed against leaving her alone. This place held too many bad memories, too many corners where nightmares could hide. But she was right—I couldn't shield her from shadows forever. Part of healing meant reclaiming this ground, making new memories to overlay the blood-soaked old ones.
"Stay where Willis can see you," I said, unable to help myself.
She rose on her toes to kiss me, soft and reassuring. "I'll be fine. This is our home now, remember?"
Our home. The words sent something warm and terrifying through my chest. I watched her disappear toward the gardens that had once been her sanctuary, her honey-dark hair catching the light, and tried to push down the feeling that something was about to go very, very wrong.
I found Alexander in the drawing room, standing rigid by the window like a man facing a firing squad. Everything about his posture screamed tension—shoulders locked, spine straight, hands clasped behind his back in a position I recognized from our military days. He was preparing for battle.
"Alex."
He turned with the precise control that had made him invaluable to our operations, but I caught the micro-expression before he smoothed it away. Dread. Not of me, but of what he was about to tell me.
"Ronan." He moved to the sidebar without being invited, pouring two glasses of whiskey with hands that were almost steady. "We need to talk."
"The distribution routes?" I accepted the glass he offered, noting how he gripped his own like a lifeline. "Your report mentioned concerns."
"Handled." The word came out too sharp, too quick. "Production numbers are solid. The greenhouse expansion planning is ahead of schedule."
All the right answers, delivered in his usual professional tone. But Alex's tells were carved into my memory after over a decade of business partnership and an even longer friendship, of watching each other's backs in situations that would have unravelled lesser men. The way he held his glass without drinking, fingers tight around it, spoke volumes. The absolute stillness of his free hand instead of his usual economical gestures. The eyes … skilled as Alex was, lying was not his strong point.
"What else?" I settled into the leather chair, keeping my voice conversational despite the alarms screaming in my head.
"What do you mean?"
"Cut the shit, Alex." I let steel creep into my voice. "You're wound tighter than a piano wire, and you've been dancing around something for weeks. As long as I’ve known you, you've never been afraid to give me bad news. So what the fuck is it?"
He drained half his three fingers of whiskey in one swallow—another tell. Alexander Moore didn't drink like that when he needed his wits sharp unless the situation was catastrophic.
