I could argue. I could tell her that my wife scrubbing some stranger's toilet makes me want to buy the Bryants' house and the Finkelsteins’ house and bulldoze them both.
But I look at her—chin up, eyes blazing, ready to fight me for the right to work her fingers to the bone—and I understand. Self-sufficiency isn't a preference for her. It's a necessity.
"Counteroffer," I say. "Come work at O'Rourke's. The pub. With me."
She blinks. "Doing what?"
"Whatever needs doing—books, bartending, keeping me humble. I’ll give you a job on the books. Competitive wages. In fact, I’ll double what you’re making now. You earn your own paycheck, every cent yours."
She narrows her eyes at me and is silent for several minutes.
“Deal,” she says at last, settling back down against me. Her cheek finds my shoulder on the first try. "I start tomorrow."
“Deal,” I agree.
Chapter 10
Maeve
A scream jolts me awake.
Oisin.
I'm upright before my eyes are fully open, heart slamming against my ribs, hand already flying to the other side of the bed. Empty. The sheets are cool. Lorcan's gone.
And Oisin is screaming somewhere in this enormous, unfamiliar house.
Stupid.Stupid.I should never have let him sleep alone. He’s three years old. It’s his first night in a strange place the size of a museum, and I tucked him into a room down the hall like everything was normal. He probably woke up, didn't recognize the ceiling, didn't know where I was, and now he's terrified and alone, and it's my fault because I got too comfortable.
One night of sleeping on an actual mattress with a warm shoulder under my cheek, and I dropped my guard.
I'm out the door and down the hallway at a dead run, my bare feet slapping against hardwood.
His room is empty. Blankets thrown back. Bed abandoned.
My stomach drops through the floor. "Oisin!"
Another scream rips through the house—and I'm sprinting toward the sound, toward the staircase, already taking stock of every horror this place might hold. Oh god.
"HIIIIII!"
The scream bounces up the stairwell and ricochets off the high ceiling.
And then, giggling.
Uncontrollable, breathless, three-year-old giggling.
I skid to a stop at the top of the stairs, one hand clamped over my hammering heart, and look down.
Oisin stands in the middle of the grand entry hall in his footie pajamas, head thrown back, staring up at the ceiling like it's performing magic. Beside him, crouched at toddler height in a rumpled t-shirt and sweatpants, hair sticking up in every direction, is Lorcan.
"Again," Lorcan says. "Louder this time."
Oisin sucks in a huge breath, cups his little hands around his mouth the way Lorcan is clearly demonstrating, and shrieks—"HIIIIIII!"
Hi...the house answers in a faint echo.
Oisin collapses into giggles so hard he sits down right on the marble.
