Page 3 of Ruthless Claim

“—husband and wife,” the priest says, and something in my chest shifts into a grief I do not have the capacity to handle for right now and am saving for later, much later, alone, with a very good bottle of wine.

Cillian turns to me. I have braced for this moment—the kiss, the thing we have to do for all these fucking witnesses and an alliance—and I have decided I will be completely neutral about it. It will be a handshake.

A formality. I will not react.

He tilts my chin up with one finger and he studies me with cold blue eyes.

His mouth meets mine and it is brief and cold and completely, thoroughly perfunctory.

It’s like kissing a fucking fish, and when he pulls back his eyes meet mine and his expression is closed off. I imagine mine looks identical.

“Mrs. Brennan,” he says, quietly enough that only I hear it, and somehow manages to load my new name with so much contempt.

“Mr. Brennan.” I give him the smile my mother once described as alarming in formal settings. “Shall we?”

He tucks my arm through his and we turn to face the congregation, who are applauding our union, and I smile, genuinely gracious, the performance of a lifetime.

I feel his grip on my arm—just shy of too tight, the pressure slightly deliberate, and I make sure to dig my nails just slightly into his arm.

We walk back down the aisle.

I am perfect and composed and I am absolutely going to make his life a living hell.

The Plaza ballroom is magnificent and I don’t care even slightly.

In another world, I would admire the crystal chandeliers and abundance of flowers.

I would enjoy a band that’s very good at playing upbeat music.

But right now, it means nothing to me.

There are hundreds of guests in their best clothes eating the best food and drinking the best wine, and I wish I were anywhere else.

The room is beautiful and it is a cage, and the difference between those two things is something I’ve been contemplating my entire life.

I smile through the receiving line, which lasts forty-five minutes because apparently every Brennan soldier from here to Boston decided tonight was the night to introduce themselves to me.

They come through in waves; big men with hard faces who look at me like I’m a tasty slab of meat.

I shake every hand and say the right things and meet every gaze and I don’t flinch once, because I was raised for exactly this and I am very good at it. I keep a mental ledger of every face and name because information is armor and I am in hostile territory.

Then I see Connor Brennan across the room, and I feel something not quite anger but close to it building in me.

Connor stands near the bar with the ease of a man who is entirely comfortable in any room he walks into while his wallflower of a wife, Teresa, sits at a nearby table, looking longingly at Emma.

He’s deep in conversation with someone who I don’t recognize and he looks…relaxed. Content, even.

He has the posture of a man attending a celebration he’s pleased with, a man whose plans are coming together exactly as intended.

I look at Emma.

Emma is sitting at a table with Leo, seven months pregnant and radiant in a deep green dress that makes her eyes look even more striking than usual.

Her dark auburn hair is swept up into a low chignon and she keeps brushing away her curtain bangs that fall into her face.

She’s laughing at something Leo said and her whole face lights up, those green eyes bright, the flush she always gets when she’s happy high in her cheeks.

And Connor Brennan is not looking at her at all, not caring that his wife clearly wants to be with her daughter.