Page 52 of Wicked Ruin

Then she excuses herself, and she's gone, slipping back through the crowd toward Erin with the kind of ease that makes it look like she chose to leave rather than needed to. I watch her go. I don't move, and I don't say anything else.

“She seems nice,” Valentina says, turning back to me.

“She is,” I say. Full stop. “Tell me about New York.”

“New York?” Valentina says, pleased by the subject. “Of course. We had an apartment in the city, but my parents kept an estate up north. I spent most of my younger years at boarding school.” She's warmer on this subject, or something closer to warm, anyway. “My father had certain expectations.”

Right. I glance across the room and find Bridget at the far end, near Ashland's wife. Her shoulders have dropped slightly, some of the tension gone out of her. She says something that makes the woman beside her laugh. She's still a little flushed.

“Do you ride?” she asks me.

“Ride? Colm has a bike, and I sometimes go with him, but I⁠—”

“No.” She shakes her head. “Dressage,” she says. “Horses? I’ve been riding since I was six. I haven't had as much time recently.”

Right. I nod. “We could arrange something. There's a yard outside of town, a good one. Bronwyn’s got horses.”

I try to school my face so she can’t see I’m feckin’ bored to death.

She looks across the room with a small, composed smile. “Perhaps I’ll talk to Bronwyn,” she says.

On the far side of the room, Bridget says something, and Bronwyn doubles over laughing, one hand clutching Bridget's arm, the other pressed to her own chest. I can't hear what it was. I don't need to. Bronwyn laughs like she means it, always has, the kind of laugh that makes whatever room she’s in feel warmer. She latched onto Bridget early and decided they were mates, which is the most Bronwyn thing ever.

“She is very…” Valentina begins, following my eye-line.

“Right.” I cut her off cleanly because if she finishes that sentence, I won't be responsible for what I do with my face.

And I need to make this work.

I promised.

I have to.

Chapter Twelve

BRIDGET

Time goes so much slower when you're paying attention to it. When you're praying that every second doesn't devolve into another symptom.

When you're cataloging every hour you didn't hear from someone, dividing it into morning and afternoon, and the particular awfulness of three a.m.

I mean, I’m not proud of it. I'm trying. I'm… doing other things.

Like lying on the sofa at eleven a.m. on a Tuesday morning because the idea of standing up for any sustained period has lost its appeal.

Like stalking Valentina’s socials again, mad at myself for being angry that she hasn’t posted a thing about Declan, the party, or the engagement, and I know full well if she did, that would piss me off even more.

But how can she post her perfect life in vivid detail and leave out the most important part? She hasn’t posted a damn thing. Hell, maybe Seamus made her promise not to.

My phone rings, and I look at the name. Erin.

“Hello?”

“Hey. Just calling to check in on you.”

“I’m alright. Could use some good news. Tell me you have good news, sis. Did you look into Esposito’s money? Is it tied to the Boston traitors?”

“Why would that be good news? We want it to be clean.”