Igive Aoife a tour of the house, with my hands wedged firmly in my pockets to stop myself doing something stupid like touching her hair, or her hand, or any other part of her.
I show her the extensive gym which I work out in almost every morning. The lavish dining room overlooking the pool and the outdoor lounge area. The drawing room. The cinema room with its eighty inch screen and plush, low set dove grey suede couch. She takes it all in quietly. I imagine she’s still struggling to process all that’s happened today. But once she settles in, she’ll see our arrangement will benefit both of us. She gets protection. I get to kill Kavanagh. Everyone’s a winner.
‘Help yourself to anything.’ I motion for her to step into the library. ‘This is your home now. I know it isn’t what you would have chosen, but I want you to be happy here.’
‘Wow.’ For the first time since we met, her entire face lights up. Bright blue eyes practically double in size as she takes in row upon row of books lining the floor-to-ceiling shelves.
‘I can’t believe you have a library,’ she exclaims enthusiastically.
‘Why wouldn’t I?’
Her full lips pop open, but she clamps a hand over them before she can blurt out whatever she’s thinking. Maybe there’s hope for that mouth of hers yet. What would it feel like around my… no, Dom, just no.
I clear my throat. ‘You read?’ I can’t claim to have read many of the books in here, but the interior designer I hired to help me decorate this place—Zara Beckett, sister of my good friend Sean—insisted an opulent library was a necessity. Now, as I witness Aoife’s smile, I can see precisely why. It’s the first real one I’ve seen, and it stirs something in my chest. Something that makes me want to see it again.
‘Getting out of my own head, away from reality is the only thing that got me through my grief when Jason died,’ she says; her smile is rapidly replaced with a frown. She turns her attention to the bookshelves again.
She looks so young, but she’s clearly endured so much already. A fresh burst of rage at how her father could marry her off to a monster like Kavanagh ripples over my skin.
‘How old are you, Aoife?’ As we speak, my men are at her house pulling passports, documents, anything that ties her to Kavanagh. Another team is scraping every digital footprint she’s ever left. By nightfall, I’ll know exactly who I’ve just brought into my world.
Well, not quite everything. I won’t know what she likes. What she avoids. What makes her fight. What makes her stay.
And for reasons that have nothing to do with this arrangement… I find myself wanting to.
She tears her eyes from the bookshelves to look at me. ‘Twenty-two. What about you?’
‘Thirty five. Though some days I feel fifty-five,’ I admit. The weight of running The Syndicate is heavy. It never stops. But it’s part and parcel of keeping control of the city. And if we don’t, someone far worse will take over.
‘Some days I feel older than I am, too.’ She drags her fingers through her glossy curls. ‘Usually after pulling an all-nighter to get an assignment done, then facing a double shift at the café. It was worse for the months I was on placement.’
The woman is clearly a grafter. I respect that more than she’ll ever know, but while she’s here under my care, things will be very different. ‘What kind of placement?’
‘Teaching.’
‘Impressive.’
She shrugs, then turns her attention back to the books.
‘Pick out as many as you want. Take them upstairs. I’m sure you could do with a rest. It’s been one hell of a day.’
She trails her fingers slowly over the book spines until she finds one she wants and whips it out.
Tess of the d’Urbervilles.
Why am I not surprised?
‘I’ve read it before.’ She holds it up. ‘But I’ll take comfort where I can get it today.’ Her irises flash with a steely determination.
A slow smile pulls at my mouth.
There it is.
That flash fire I knew was in there somewhere.
The penny drops.
She reminds me of myself fifteen years ago.
