Page 119 of Wicked Ruin

They pass.

I exhale so hard my shoulders drop. “You go downstairs, get a cup of tea, and pretend nothing's happened.”

Right. Excellent. I open the door and walk down to the kitchen while my head spins. Bronwyn’s theory can’t be right.

Kyla sees me on the landing and smiles. My voice comes out completely normal when I answer her, which is remarkable because I am not completely normal.

She looks up cheerfully, and she is never cheerful. “You alright?”

“Aye. You?”

“Grand.” Then she walks by with a smile on her face. What is making her so happy? Strange.

I walk into the kitchen at the same time as Caitlin. “Ah, Bridget. Just the girl I wanted to see.” She smiles with the same type of smile on her face that Kyla did. I can't quite put my finger on it.

“Oh?” I ask, just as Bronwyn comes out of the pantry.

“We have a very important event happening this evening,” Caitlin says, “and it's crucial that you come, Bridget.”

“What's that?” I ask, helping myself to a biscuit from the plate on the side table. I am very hungry. I’m at the end of my first trimester, and there are only so many fit-and-flare empire-waist dresses I can wear. My days are numbered.

“It's a party,” Bronwyn says, smiling too. “Valentina's family is in town. We're going to toast the engagement. Please say you’ll come. We want you there… I promise.”

I look at Bronwyn for just a second longer than I mean to. There is something in her face I can’t read. She has always been kind to me, and I have always trusted that, but she is smiling at me across this kitchen, telling me to come to the party meant to seal Declan's future away from me. I can’t tell whether she knows something or is simply being Bronwyn.

I decide to trust her.

What are they not telling me? I look between the two of them. Do I really trust the McCarthys? Do they know what this evening is? Are they setting me up?

Of course not.

These women love me, don't they?

But why would they think I’d be eager to meet Valentina’s family?

“Come early,” Caitlin says with a smile. “Help us set up. Please.”

I think about what Erin said about our parents, and I wonder whether Caitlin took me in because she was told to or because she actually wants me here.

For just a second, I let myself want him. Not carefully. Not managed. I let the full weight of what he did, what it cost, blossom in my chest. I turn to the side, pretending to tidy a shelf of cookbooks so no one will see my face. I love him so much it’s a physical thing, a tightness in my throat.

Then I put it away.

I turn and nod, and for the first time in my life, I lie to Caitlin McCarthy. “I wouldn't miss it for the world.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

DECLAN

I'm here, in the home where I spent most of my childhood, and my mind is a mile away. Favors to call in. People to reach. Everything balanced on a knife's edge.

Aunt Caitlin sees me first.

“Y’alright?” I ask her.

“Oh, grand,” she says. “I just need to make sure you'll be here tonight. I'm having a very important dinner, and it's essential that you be here too.”

“As in?”