“What are the hidden terms?”
“None. Just four days, four nights, and you’ll give me a fair chance without judging me too harshly.”
His green eyes hold mine, open and waiting.
Four days and four nights, and if I don't like what I see, I walk with the kids and enough money to keep them fed and safe and together.
It's the first time in a very long time that anyone has ever offered me a leg up.
And there's something else. A thought I don't quite let myself dwell on, but it’s there in the back of my mind anyway.
Thenights.Spending four nights with Lorcan. Yes, he’s a mobster, but he’s a very sexy mobster.
I'm nineteen and I've never done anything remotely sexual with a man—there's never been time, never been room, never been a single second of my life that belonged to me instead of the kids. I've been mother and father and provider for so long. I’d never even been kissed until today at the altar.
I'm married to him regardless—but this way I get to decide what happens next. On my terms.
"And if I say no at the end of the four days, you’ll actually let us go. No arguments."
"On my word." He holds out his hand.
This time, I take his outstretched hand. "Deal.”
Chapter 9
Lorcan
Dinner at the estate is a study in survival techniques.
Jamie eats like a soldier behind enemy lines—fast, efficient, one eye on the exits. When he’s offered seconds, he hesitates like there's a trick in it. Then he takes the seconds anyway. Then thirds. The kid's stomach is at war with his pride, and his stomach wins by a landslide.
Cara doesn't eat much, but her eyes track everything—which fork Ma uses, where I put my hands, every detail of the room. I've seen professional surveillance guys less observant than this nine-year-old.
And Oisin has decided the safest place in the universe is Maeve's lap, where he eats his dinner one meatball at a time while shooting me looks like I might steal his plate at any moment.
By nine, Oisin's asleep on Maeve's shoulder, and I watch as she carries him upstairs. Jamie mutters something that might be goodnight and disappears into his room, and I hear the lock click. Fair enough, kid.
Cara pauses at her own door, looks back down the hallway at the room Maeve and Oisin entered, then at me, then closes the door softly.
They're safe. All of them, under one roof, with a gate and top-notch security and the O'Rourke name wrapped around them like armor.
Then it's just us. My wife and I. And a bed.
Maeve stands by the window in a sleep shirt, her arms wrapped around herself like she's waiting for a root canal.
Night one of four, and I know what she’s thinking.
"Relax," I say, toeing off my shoes. “It’s not as though I’m going to force myself on you."
Her head turns.
"Tonight, nothing happens. Nothing sexual.” I stretch out on top of the covers, on my side of the bed, hands behind my head. "I just want to know you."
She stares at me like I've spoken Portuguese. "Know me."
"We have a conversation, and then we sleep. That's it." I pat the mattress beside me. "Talk to me, Maeve. "
She doesn't move for a long moment. Searching for the trap, maybe.
