Page 63 of Faithless Vows

“Seamus had been in Boston for years before I was asked if I had interest in a match with Alannah.”

“You think so?” He tips his head, just a little. “Funny, then, that the minute a match with Finn Walsh was spoken of here, my son was suddenly making plansto leave for Boston to be your da’s second. And when I raised the matter before they left, asking for Alannah to be allowed to stay here with her family, Seamus told me she was already spoken for, and that she needed to go with them.”

What the hell am I supposed to say to that? I search his face, looking for any sign of a lie, but I find nothing but cold disdain.

“Cormac may have brought the match to you later and made it sound like it had just come to him, but don’t be stupid enough to think your father didn’t know exactly what it meant to have his son tied to my family, or that Seamus didn’t know what he was getting in return for it.”

He lifts a hand and counts them off on his fingers, one by one. “You. Her da. Your father. And then there’s her brother, Michael.” His mouth tightens. “He’s no better than the rest of you. Angry because his father chose for the both of them. Bitter because the life he might’ve had here was gone before he was old enough to fight for it. Jealous because in Boston the best he could hope for was second to another man, while his sister stood closer to power than he ever would by marrying you.”

He pauses, letting his words sink in. “Your father wanted the power that came with tying his family to mine. Seamus wanted power without ever having to carry what came with our name here. Michael wanted the power he thought he was owed. And in the end, it was Alannah who paid for the lot of it. And you—”

He leans forward, eyes locked on mine. “You wanted her well enough. You just wanted everything else too.”

I swallow hard. “I came here because I love her.” The words come out rougher than I mean them to, and weaker too.

“Do you?” he says evenly. “The moment you walked out of that ballroom with another woman on your arm, I had no less than three men who were there ringing me to tell me what you’d done. By the time they realized Alannah was gone and that joke of a reception had ended, I’d heard enough to know you’d been carrying on with other women the whole time you were meant to be with my granddaughter.

“What you did to that girl is not what a man does to the woman he loves. Too many men have wanted things from Alannah and called it love, and you’ve proven yourself no different.”

I open my mouth to protest, but he keeps going before I can get a word out.

“She knows you’re here,” he says. “I told her you wanted to speak to her. And against my better judgment, she wanted to hear you out.”

For a second I forget the ropes, the pain in my ribs, the hard wooden seat of the chair beneath me. “She’s coming?”

“She was willing to hear what you had to say,” he says. “Don’t make me regret allowing it.”

The denial is out before I can stop it. “I’m not going to hurt her.”

That earns me a look colder than any he’s given me so far. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t put much stock in your promises where my granddaughter is concerned.” He leans back in the chair, relaxed as ever. “I’ll tell you this: if you upset her more than she already is, if you frighten her, distress her, or put so much as one more crack in that girl than you’ve already managed, I’ll kill you where you sit and be done with it.

“The only reason you’re still breathing now is because your father had the balls to ring me and ask that I not put you in the ground the moment you arrived in Ireland. And because once, before he made a mess of his own house, he was one of mine. Not the worst of them, either. But that goodwill only stretches this far and no farther.”

So that answered one question. My da knew exactly where I’d gone.

A soft knock sounds at the door, and my eyes go to it at once. Malachy catches the look. “Mind yourself,” he says, getting to his feet. “You said you wanted to talk to her, and you’ll have your chance. After that, I expect you to sign the papers and go home.”

I meet his eyes. “I’m not signing.”

“No,” he says. “I gathered that. But it’ll be happening anyway.”

He turns and crosses to the door, then lets himself out. The door thuds shut behind him.

I stare at the closed door after he’s gone, straining to hear anything from the other side while I try to get my thoughts in order and remember everything I came here to say. I crossed an ocean to talk to her. To get her to hear me. But now that she’s this close, I can’t remember a damned word of it. Sweat breaks out across my forehead, and all I can hear is my own pulse hammering in my ears. After all the silence, all the miles, all the pain… she’s really here.

A few minutes later the door opens again, and my wife steps inside. She looks around the room as she pulls off her hat and shrugs out of her coat, laying both on the table nearest the door. She’s wearing a pale blue dress, one of her favourite colours. She walks farther into the room before her eyes finally meet mine.

All I can do is watch as she walks closer, taking her in. She looks thinner. There are dark circles under her eyes, and the bright blue of them is duller now, wary as they hold mine.

“Alannah.” Her name comes out barely above a whisper.

She keeps walking until she reaches the chair Malachy left in front of me, then lowers herself into it. Her eyes move over my face, over the bruising and the split in my lip, then down to the ropes binding me to the chair. Her brows pull together. “Are you all right?”

It shouldn’t surprise me that after everything I’ve done to her, she’s still worried about me. But it does. “Yeah, doll. I’m all right.”

She flinches at the word, and my stomach drops. I’ve always called her that. Her hand drifts to her wrist, where she absently turns a small silver bracelet I’ve never seen before between two fingers. “Grandda said you wanted to speak with me.”

“I did.” I keep my eyes on her. “I had to see you.”