FILTHY RICHER

A FIVE POINTS’ MOB COLLECTION: NOVELLA

SERENA AKEROYD

Copyright © 2022 by Serena Akeroyd

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Photo: Wander Aguiar

Cover Design: Letitia Hasser

TRIGGER WARNINGS

Whether you’re new to my books, or are an avid fan of the Five Points’ Mob universe, I hope you’ll enjoy this novella.

While it’s a love letter to my readers, those who’ve fallen hard for Eoghan and Inessa O’Donnelly, it’s also a teasing, sexy little tale about life after marriage.

Seven year itch? What’s that when you’re a mobster’s wife. ;)

Anyway, please note that this novella does have violent scenes and references suicide.

Much love to you all, and happy reading!

Serena

xoxo

THE CROSSOVER READING ORDER WITH THE SINNERS & VALENTINIS

To enjoy the full universe, which is on KU, here’s the reading order.

HOWEVER, this novella can be enjoyed as a standalone for new readers.

FILTHY

FILTHY SINNER

NYX

LINK

FILTHY RICH

SIN

STEEL

FILTHY DARK

CRUZ

MAVERICK

FILTHY SEX

HAWK

FILTHY HOT

STORM

THE DON

THE LADY

FILTHY SECRET

REX

RACHEL

FILTHY KING

FILTHY DISCIPLE

THE CONSIGLIERE

THE ORACLE

LODESTAR

SILENCED

END GAME

FILTHY RICHER

ONE

EOGHAN

Pride wasn’t something I felt often.

It was, in fact, something I felt rarely.

But as I watched my wife waddle onto the stage from the steps at the side, ’proud’ didn’t cut it.

Elation soared through me.

There were shadows under Inessa’s eyes from the last couple sleepless nights because our kid, Bump, had decided to turn into a basketball and it was tough for her to get comfortable.

I’d watched her drag concealer under her eyes, and she’d done a good job of hiding those marks from the world, but I noticed everything when it came to her.

From day one, I always had.

Aside from those signs of fatigue, her blonde hair gleamed in the spotlight. Her cheeks were rosy pink. She wore a neat Kate Spade dress that I’d picked for her as a celebration gift, which made her belly look smaller thanks to something called an Empire waistline, and she wore heels that we’d argued over this morning.

Heels that I wanted her to only wear in the bedroom now that she was six months into her pregnancy.

They were four-inch platforms that I knew she’d slipped on to rub me the wrong way.

It had worked.

But for all that she’d annoyed me by being a brat this morning, the joy I found in watching her fulfill her dreams of becoming an interior designer diminished that irritation almost entirely.

At my side, Aidan, my eldest brother, cheered, whistling into the crowd which triggered the rest of my demon siblings and their wives into whooping and clapping.

She jolted in surprise, but her beaming smile hit me straight in the heart as she heard her family rooting for her.

That smile packed more of a punch than a fucking bullet.

She squinted into the light but I knew she saw us on the upper levels of the audience where the filthy rich were watching their spawn collect their diplomas.

Knew it because her eyes drifted onto mine and held until the dean cleared his throat and her head whipped around to shake his hand.

Annoyed, I rubbed my chin as I noticed his prolonged hold then cracked my knuckles as I watched her tug on it as if she were fighting to be released.

“Cheer up, you miserable bastard,” Brennan grumbled in my ear. I didn’t bother glowering at my elder brother as he drawled, “You’d think you were about to get into a fight.”

Little did he fucking know—I was.

But I wasn’t miserable about it.

I was excited.

I’d been on a three-month-long promise. Inessa had made me vow that I wouldn’t do anything until she graduated.

Well, here she was.

Graduating.

I narrowed my eyes on the weasel who was about to feel a world of hurt, and I murmured, “I’m happy.”

“You need to tell your face that.”

“I’m happy,” I repeated.

“I swear, the older you get, the more your poker face is like a fucking death mask.”

“Thanks, Bren. I appreciate that.”

“What are older brothers for?”

I grunted.

“You did good with the dress, Eoghan.”

I didn’t look at my sister-in-law, Savvie, who was standing on my other side.

“Thank you for telling the store what she needed. I need to research dress styles.”

She snickered. “That’s what personal shoppers are for.”

Inessa stepped off the stage and made the return to her seat with her diploma in hand.

The second she was sitting down again, my head whipped over so I could stare Savvie down.

“You could teach me.”

Her brows lifted. “Why does that sound more like a demand than a request?”

“Never a demand. Always a request.”

She contemplated me. “You want me to teach you about fashion?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

I hadn’t liked not knowing what to buy my wife.

Relying on other people, even family, had been difficult lately.

My OCD was flaring.

I knew it and accepted it.

Because it was better than the other options.

Controlling the world around me was better than discouraging Inessa from ever leaving the apartment.

I’d promised her I wouldn’t do that again.

I always kept my promises.

Even if they killed something inside me.

But, how to encapsulate all that into an answer that would make Savvie teach me the bewildering ways of fashion?

“Why didn’t you ask Cammie for help?” she grumbled, letting me know that she wished I had now. Cammie was Inessa’s elder sister.

“Because I wanted the gift to be a surprise and you’re good at keeping secrets.”

Her nose crinkled. “You make that sound like a bad thing.”

“Depends, doesn’t it?”

She huffed, but her eyes zoomed in on me as she read between the lines. “What do you know?”

I loved that my sister-in-law was a smart woman.

“Nothing that’ll come out if you help me,” I informed her.

“Blackmail?”

“More like you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.”

“You touch my back and Aidan will snap your wrist.” She grinned at me. “Okay, forget I said that because I’d like to see him in action again.”

Her bloodthirsty ways had only increased in her time as Aidan’s wife.

“Plus, I’ve always wanted to be coerced. Let’s up the stakes, yes?”

I rolled my eyes. “To what?”

“Blackmail.”

I heaved a sigh but played it her way. “If you don’t help me figure out how to dress Inessa, then I’ll tell Aidan about your side gig.”

She leaned into me. “Say it like you mean it. All mobster-like.”

“You want him to break my wrist or my back?” I snapped. “I’m not saying anything that revs that fucked-up brain of yours.”

She huffed like she was disappointed.

I shook my head at her. “It’s creepy when you do that.”

It was, as well. It took a lot to creep me out, but Savvie and her weird mobster obsession was up there with guys who liked wearing diapers.

I didn’t kink shame, unless my sister-in-law wanted to play dress up and pretend I was blackmailing her.

I’d already caught her and my brother in my bathroom this morning.

My bathroom.

Not the guest one.

I was going to have to sanitize that later.

After I spanked Inessa for wearing those goddamn heels.

Unwittingly, I’d gotten myself quite the to-do list, so I zoomed my focus in on the strangest sister-in-law I had—and considering the coterie of women my brothers had settled on, that was saying fucking something—and murmured, “I want to know how to dress her.”

“For when?”

“You mean a time limit?”

“No, like, for what kind of events?”

I shrugged. “Every event.”

She studied me a second, then her voice softened. “Eoghan?”

“What?”

“Are you doing okay?”

Her hand reached out, and she awkwardly settled it on my forearm. “I know Moscow was bad⁠—”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Slowly, she nodded, but I saw that she took note of the hard breath that rattled from between my lips.

“Okay, Fashion 101. We can start tomorrow if you want?”

Stiffly, I said, “Thank you, Savannah.”

“You’re welcome.”

I turned my gaze back to Inessa.

Though I could only see the back of her head, I kept it trained on her and watched as she laughed at something a guy beside her said, saw her shoot a disdainful look at the girl in front of her who twisted around to talk with them both.

For the next forty minutes, as my siblings and their spouses chatted softly among themselves, I stayed quiet.

Watchful.

Then, when the ceremony was over, I drifted away as everyone got to their feet.

I knew Inessa would walk to the back of the atrium, and I knew my brothers would keep her safe.

I had business to attend to and a promise to enjoy.

TWO

EOGHAN

The second the dean walked into the bathroom, I was there.

Waiting.

One forearm around his throat, the other lifting his arm and squeezing until the bastard was on the brink of passing out.

Before he could, I dropped him to the ground, satisfied with the clink of his head colliding against the floor tiles.

Around a groan, he slurred, “What do you want?”

Slipping my knife out of its ankle sheath, I crouched down beside him. “To talk.”

“To talk?” He whimpered. “My wallet is in my left breast pocket. Take it. My watch—it’s expensive too. Please, take it. Just leave me alone,” he pleaded.

I narrowed my eyes on him. “Look at my shoes.”

He groaned, didn’t comply, so I reached down, grabbed a hold of his chin and forced him to look at me.

Did I look like a goddamn mugger?

“These were hand-stitched by monks,” I sniped. “Do you think I need your shitty watch or your shitty wallet?”

“Don’t understand,” he rasped, his brow puckering as he started to regain more of his motor control.

“I’ll explain…” I tucked the knife under his chin, digging the pointed end into the soft flesh.

He whimpered again, froze, and stared at me with terrified eyes.

“You touched my wife.”

“I didn’t!”

“You did. You don’t even know who my wife is,” I said with a sneer. “Inessa told me you asked her to go to your office when you were offering her valedictorian, and when she was in there, you accosted her.”

She hadn’t said much more than that.

I knew he hadn’t assaulted her because she hadn’t been upset. Just angry.

I was upset, however.

And angry.

Enough for the pair of us.

“Inessa O’Donnelly is your wife?”

Much as always, hearing her full name sent sparks of life through my veins.

The reason I got up in the morning.

The reason I didn’t put a gun to my head and blow it off.

I dug the knife in deeper until I felt the skin part and start to seep blood. He squealed at the pressure, at the pain, and I rasped, “Yes, she’s my wife. You. Touched. Her.”

“It was a misunderstanding!!”

“It wasn’t. My wife doesn’t misunderstand.”

“She came onto me! I didn’t want her for valedictorian. She wanted to persuade me into giving her the role!”

A hiss escaped me as I grabbed the measly strands of his combover and dragged his head back. “I wasn’t going to slice your throat, but now⁠—”

“No! Please! No! I’m innocent.” He opened his mouth to scream so I moved the knife and quickly shoved it between his lips.

Letting the blade rest on his tongue, I whispered, “I should slice this off.

“You don’t lie to a man like me. You don’t try to sell me bullshit.”

As I scowled at him, I let one knee come down.

Right on his throat.

I hovered it there, the heat of it, the weight, settling above him, and he garbled words around the blade in his mouth.

“Are you ready to tell me the truth?”

Tears pricked his eyes as he pleaded with me through them.

“If you try to scream, I’ll break your neck.”

I didn’t need to see the puddle to smell what his reaction was to that.

I scoffed at the scent of piss then slowly drew the knife back.

Mouth wobbling, his pupils pinpricks of fear, he shakily explained, “She came into my office. I propositioned her. Offered her the chance to be valedictorian if she slept with me.”

“What did she do?”

“Kneed me in the balls.”

There was my good girl.

“Did you touch her?”

He licked his lips, but I knew it was to distract from the way his bottom one quivered.

“Are you thinking about lying to me?” I demanded before he could speak.

The dean trembled. “I touched her behind.”

“Her behind,” I repeated. “So proper when you’re a dirty, fucking pervert.” My mouth curved up in a sneer. “You’ve got options.”

“I-I do?” His eyes widened again, hope dancing into being in the bland blue irises.

“You do,” I confirmed. Letting my knee press deeper into his throat, I reached for one of his hands. Tugging on a finger, I spat, “I can cut off a finger or you can resign.”

“Cut off a finger?” he choked out.

“I think you should be more grateful I don’t want your whole filthy fucking paw.” My sneer deepened. “Let’s make that two fingers⁠—”

“No! No! One, please, just one. Just the one. I’ll, you can…” His mouth worked. “When?”

“Now, of course.”

He blinked at me again. “Now? I have a class of graduates out there.”

“Is there a better time for an amputation?”

His chin wobbled.

“Of course, you could always resign.”

Whatever his choice, there were consequences for his actions.

A nice package would have dropped into his mailbox by now. The contents would have let his wife see what the fucker had been up to with his secretary.

I was kind like that.

“The finger.”

“Which hand is your dominant one?”

He hesitated. “My⁠—”

“If you lie, I’ll come back and take another.”

Terror leaped into his expression again. “No! I’m left-handed. Left!”

I hummed under my breath then moved back. “Lean against the toilet and don’t say a fucking word or I’ll stick this in that fat gut of yours.”

He scurried to obey, leaning back against the toilet as I requested.

Snagging his hand, I twisted his pointer finger back and away from the others and set the blade against it.

“You will not scream. You utter a sound, I’ll slice something else off. Do you understand?”

He squawked like a dying bird but I didn’t let him think about it.

With my gaze trained on his, his glued to mine, I let the blade dig into the digit and sliced through.

I’d made sure my knife was nice and dull, too, so he felt every sawing, jagged motion.

A high-pitched squeak escaped him, but I could forgive him that because it was high enough that only bats would recognize it anyway.

A minute later, as blood spurted, he started to pass out from the pain, but I rasped, “If you faint, you could die of blood loss on this bathroom floor.

“It’s down to you to get yourself to the ER and to find an excuse.

“I know where you live, Forrester. I know everything about you. Everything.

“I will renew our acquaintance if a whisper of this finds its way to the authorities. Do you understand me?”

He moaned.

I got to my feet and peered at my pants.

Not a drop of blood in sight.

Satisfied, I snatched a handkerchief from my pocket then picked up his finger and tucked it inside the folds.

“B-But—” he stuttered, clearly trying to gather enough strength to get to his feet. Fear immobilized him though.

Good.

“Where would be the fun in giving it back to you?”

Dropping the digit into my pocket, I drifted out of the cloakroom where his private bathroom was located and did as I always did in situations such as these—turned into a ghost.

The second I was back with my family, it came as no surprise to realize that Inessa saw me before anyone else.

I shot her an innocent smile she didn’t trust then tucked her into my embrace.

“Well done, babe.” I pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I’ll give you my second gift later on.”

She snorted, but her gaze fastened itself on my face as she pulled back. Her hand stayed on my chest, the heat from her fingers sinking into me as she demanded, “What did you do?”

This time, my smile wasn’t innocent.

It was pleasant.

Placid.

“Gave him a reminder he’ll never forget.”

Inessa squinted at me. “What’s that?”

“Don’t touch what doesn’t belong to him.”

Though she huffed, I saw her pupils dilate in response to my words.

Becoming a student had given her all kinds of ideas and notions that her father wouldn’t have approved of, and while I had no problem with her turning feminist on me from time to time—even applauded her for it—I loved that I could still turn her to mush.

“Come on, Nessa,” Aoife inserted cheerfully. “You must be starving. I made you your favorite.”

My wife finally broke eye contact with me, her cheeks flushed, before she turned and gave our sister-in-law her attention.

Not all of it, however.

One hand stayed pressed against my chest.

Her thumb tucked itself between the overlapping flaps where the buttons sat.

I felt that caress like she was sucking on my dick.

Knew it for the promise it was.

Later.

THREE

EOGHAN

The dog was barking when we made it home.

I grunted at him as he danced around Inessa’s feet, waiting for her to stroke him, to greet him how the beast wanted to be greeted.

Glowering at it as she squished him to her chest, I muttered, “He’s dirty.”

She glowered back at me. “Charlie isn’t dirty. I cleaned his feet earlier.”

I grimaced as she pressed a kiss to his nose. The dog belonged to Inessa’s younger sister, and we did not get along. Man’s best friend? More like woman’s.

“I don’t understand why Victoria had to leave him here.”

Nessa rolled her eyes. “It’s for three weeks, Eoghan. Just while they’re in Paris. He owed her a damn honeymoon,” she grouched under her breath, her displeasure with her new brother-in-law as clear now as it had been on the day of the wedding itself. “Especially after that farce of a service. It made ours look festive.”

I snorted at that, received a disgusted glance for my pains, but she finally put the damn dog down.

As she stepped away, I grabbed the handkerchief from my pocket, squatted and handed the digit to the beast.

“Doesn’t get much fresher than that,” I told him.

“Since when do you give him treats?” Nessa called out as she waddled down the hall toward our room.

I loved that waddle.

She hated it.

I thought she looked sexy.

Sure, it was different than her usual catwalk stride, but now that I’d gotten on board with us having a kid, the changes it made in her body were fascinating.

As Charlie chowed down on Forrester’s finger, I smirked as he licked his chops before I followed her to our room.

Catching her just in time to see her wince and grimace as she slipped out of her heels, I drawled, “Want a foot rub or a spanking?”

“Don’t you dare say, ‘I told you so.’”

My smirk deepened. “Two options.”

She huffed. “Foot rub because my back’s hurting.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “You have to stop acting like you’re not pregnant.”

“Camille wore heels until she was eight months along⁠—”

“If she walked off a cliff in them, would you follow her?”

“You’re itching for a fight tonight, aren’t you, mister?”

I laughed. “With you? Always.”

She’d stopped being the compliant wife years ago.

Thank fuck.

If she’d stayed that way, I’d have drowned us both in my…. Well, calling them idiosyncrasies was being kind.

It was also an understatement.

She brought fire to this dead apartment. Life.

Some mornings, I woke up and wondered how the fuck I’d survive if she weren’t in bed at my side.

The seven-year-itch was supposed to detract from a wife’s appeal, not strengthen it.

Unaware of my thoughts, she grumbled, “It’s not fair that Cammie had dainty kids and I won’t.”

Her logic had me arching a brow at her. “She had hers premature. I’m sure that helped.”

She sniffed as she dragged off the dress, swooping it over her head and making my blood pressure surge when she revealed a bunch of lingerie that had plenty of other things surging to life as well.

“God, that’s better. I can breathe again.”

That snagged my attention. “It didn’t fit?”

“It did, but it was tight.” She patted Bump. “He likes it when I’m naked.”

I snickered. “I had something to do with that.”

A wicked glint appeared in her eyes. “I’m sure you did.”

“You’re not technically naked.”

“Might as well be. Plus, I can’t sit on the sofa with no panties on. You’ll start Lysolling it after I get up and hormones will make me cry because they’ll think you’re saying I’m dirty⁠—”

I winced but didn’t argue. She shot me a pointed look then stepped out of the bedroom, out into the hallway, then down into the kitchen.

Like she was the Pied Piper, I followed her after I’d hung my sports coat in the closet, and finding her with her butt sticking out of the refrigerator, I enjoyed the view as I took a seat on one of the stools at the counter.

As she dragged out the ingredients for one of her smoothies, I simply watched her as she started setting out the produce she wanted to use.

It was late in the day for a breakfast drink, but this was one of her cravings.

Breakfast smoothies that she tossed pickle juice into.

Disgusting.

When she’d stopped dipping into the fridge, she cast me a look and asked, “What did you do to Dean Forrester?”

I merely smiled. “Why would you think I’d do anything?”

“Because I know you?” She waggled the knife at me. “Don’t give me that innocent look. I stopped believing that when you told me you dognapped my professor’s Pomeranian with a blank expression.”

I shrugged. “People like that don’t deserve dogs. I gave Fluffy to someone who needed her.”

“Your mom.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “You can’t go around⁠—”

I arched a brow. “Watch your words, Inessa. I can’t go around… fixing things for you? I think you’ll find I can.”

She huffed. “Can’t you do regular stuff? Like complain to the governors? Or get them fired?”

“Would you like to be consulted in how I do my business?” I asked silkily.

Nessa froze then shot me a look. “You’re joking?”

“You’re critiquing my methods. I don’t appreciate it.”

“Criticism is good for the soul. Especially when it’s constructive.”

“You just graduated. I thought I could avoid more talk of grades until Bump is in kindergarten.”

She wrinkled her nose at me, but the knife was returned to the chopping board and she stepped closer.

“You’d really let me give you advice?”

Because I could see she was intrigued, I hid a smile. “It depends.”

“On what?”

“On if I consider it satisfying enough.”

That had her pondering my words. “What if no one annoys me⁠—”

“Speaking of, you only told me that he propositioned you. You didn’t tell me Forrester was trying to blackmail you so that you’d get valedictorian.”

Heat sparked in her eyes. “I knew you were messing with Forrester. Stop lying to me, Eoghan. It’s starting to hurt my feelings.”

“My protecting you is hurting your feelings?” I grumbled.

“Yes! I don’t need you to protect my feelings.”

“Just your honor.”

“Exactly.”

“You told me I could deal with him after you graduated.”

“I didn’t mean the second he’d handed me the damn diploma, Eoghan.” Her eyes narrowed. “If that’s how we’re going to play it, then I need to get creative with my phrasing.”

I smirked. “Loopholes are everywhere.”

“Aren’t they?” Inessa hummed. “Okay, so, whatever you did to him you considered satisfying, right?”

“I did. In my shoes, what would you have done?”

She paused, hesitated. “You really want me to answer that?”

“You’re the one who wants creative input on my methods.”

Seriously, everyone was a critic.

She pursed her lips, apparently attempting to judge if I was being serious or not, then she murmured, “I’d have kicked him in the balls then taken a hammer to the windscreen of that Porsche of his.

“He thinks he’s the bee’s knees because he has a fifteen-year-old German model car.” She sniffed. “Prick.”

“That’s it?” I scoffed. “Inessa, are you holding out on me?”

Red blossomed on her cheeks. “No.”

“Now who’s lying?” I retorted, but curiosity had me straightening on the stool. “Tell me what you’d really have done.”

Her nails started tapping against the counter, and as she looked at me, she sucked her bottom lip between her teeth.

That convinced me, more than anything, that she was hiding something from me.

“He’s having an affair with his secretary.

“I’d have paid someone to take photos then would have given them to his wife.” She blew out a breath. “I know I’m a horrible person.”

It was close to a wail, which merely lengthened when I got off the stool and padded out of the kitchen.

“Eoghan! Where the hell are you going?” she sputtered, but I heard her feet padding behind me.

When I went to my office, I retrieved a folder from my desk, aware that she was following me because she was complaining, “Eoghan, if you didn’t want to know then you shouldn’t have damn well asked me!”

I turned around and handed her the folder to shut her up.

She blinked down at it then muttered, “What is it?”

“Mrs. Forrester will have gotten a delivery at the same time as you received your diploma.” I shot her a smile. “I liked the symmetry.”

Her brow furrowed as she opened the packet, then when she saw what she was looking at, she chuckled. “You got photos taken?”

“I did.”

A cackle escaped her as she leafed through the file, tilting it as she squinted at some parts then wrinkled her nose at others.

“Divorce is in the cards for the dean,” she said with glee. “I hope she skins him alive for alimony.”

My cock twitched at the bloodthirsty nature of her comment. “I’d prefer to keep you out of these things, Nessa.”

“Why?” She arched a brow at me again. “This is my problem you’re fixing. Why shouldn’t I get involved?”

“I promised you⁠—”

“You promised me when I was eighteen, newly wed to a stranger, finding my path in a world of enemies. Am I that same woman?”

I eyed her bulging stomach. “No.”

“Am I finding my way amid enemies?”

“They’re family now.”

“Exactly. I badly needed that promise from you before, Eoghan. But I don’t need it now. Promises change.”

“Vows don’t.”

She smirked. “No, they don’t. For richer or poorer…”

“In sickness and in health.”

“Til death do us part,” we said together, smiling.

“Those vows don’t change, but others do,” she reiterated. “If you’re going to fix things for me, I want to be involved.”

“It’s dangerous.”

“I won’t do it. But I can help plan.”

“Why would you want to?”

Her jaw worked a second as she stared down at the folder before she placed it carefully on the desk. “Forrester deserved this. I busted my ass to get the best grades in class, and I deserved to be this year’s valedictorian.” She sucked in a breath. “He tainted that. All my hard work, he besmirched it. However, Professor Warren didn’t deserve to lose her dog.”

“She made you cry.”

“You’ve made me cry. Should I steal your dog too?”

“You can have Charlie.”

She snorted.

My scowl darkened as guilt hit me. “Not intentionally.”

“Not intentionally?”

“I didn’t intend on making you cry.”

She shrugged.

“You almost quit because of her,” I pointed out, still uncomfortable with her remark.

“I was a stupid girl,” she retorted.

“Not stupid,” I snapped.

“Stupid,” she snapped back. “I’d been coddled. Being an O’Donnelly had gone to my head, but in a classroom, my surname meant nothing.”

I pshawed, “Of course it meant something.”

“It didn’t.”

“It did.”

“Not where grades are concerned,” she spat. Then, her eyes turned to slits. “You didn’t mess with my grades, Eoghan. So help me God, if you did, I’ll⁠—”

“I had no need to tamper with your grades.”

She pursed her lips. “You tried to?”

“Yes, until I saw you were getting As on your own.”

“What would you have done if I wasn’t?”

“Convinced your teachers you were.”

“You’re unbelievable,” she breathed. “You know I wanted to do this on my own.”

“And I let you. For the most part. You’re mine, Inessa. I wasn’t about to throw you into that shark pool and watch you get eaten alive.”

She studied me. “You promise you didn’t mess with my grades?”

“You already asked me that.”

“And I’m asking again. I just need to know, Eoghan. I-I can take it if you did.”

More guilt hit me because I’d never intended on making her question herself or her work.

Straightening, I stepped over to her and pressed my hands gently to her shoulders as I stared into her eyes. “I did not alter, in any way, shape, or form, your grades.

“I didn’t hurt your professors to encourage them to be nice to you.

“I didn’t do anything, especially over the last three years, that would make you question whether you earned that diploma. I promise, Inessa.”

A shaky sigh rattled from her. “Okay,” she said slowly. “Okay.”

“You’re a smart woman, and you didn’t need me to get involved.”

“You got involved with Warren.”

“She made you cry,” I repeated. “Unnecessarily. You give some people a podium, they think they’re God.”

“I’m standing next to an egomaniac. So I know you’d know.”

I grimaced. “I’m not an egomaniac. I just like everything in its place.”

“The place of your choosing,” she grumbled.

She peered up at me through beautiful crystalline eyes, her doll-like complexion hadn’t faded even with pregnancy, but there were, to my utter joy, laugh lines that were making an appearance at the corners of her mouth.

Inessa was happy.

I made sure that she was.

It was my duty, as well as my honor, to make sure she was.

“What else did you do to Forrester?”

I could have hedged my bets but I didn’t want her doubting herself.

If she looked at me with sorrow again, I didn’t know what I’d do.

“Sliced off his finger and fed it to Charlie,” I admitted easily.

Her nose crinkled. “Please tell me that’s a joke.”

“I don’t joke about amputation.”

Her mouth twisted. “That’s gross.”

“You shouldn’t have asked,” I chided.

“Why did you do that?”

“It was symbolic.”

Her gaze turned pensive. “Symbolic?”

“Pointer finger, on his dominant hand…”

“It’ll be awkward for him to write,” she breathed, understanding dawning.

“It will.” I smiled.

“I don’t trust that smile.”

“You’d be wise not to.”

She huffed. “Do you think… will Charlie be sick?”

“He eats his own shit, Inessa. This is practically cordon bleu cuisine for him.”

“Oh, Christ, if he chokes on a finger bone, it’s not coming out of my pocket when we have to go to the vet.”

I grinned. “I’ll gladly pay the vet bill.”

“Good.” Her mouth twisted again. “It’s not like you to take pleasure in the things you do.”

“Anything that involves you, I take pleasure in.”

Her expression froze. “I-I… I’m not sure what I did to deserve you, Eoghan. Even if you’re a sadist and a weirdo who feeds fingers to pets.”

“You loved me. You accepted me. You earned my undying loyalty. That means you get undying protection,” I told her calmly, fluffing the blonde locks that danced around her shoulders.

“Whether I like it or not,” she grouched, but she stepped into me, her arms sliding around my waist.

“Exactly,” I informed her with no small amount of satisfaction.

She heaved a sigh as she tucked herself into my embrace. “What are you going to do for Bump?”

I was grateful she couldn’t see my expression. “Everything.”

FOUR

EOGHAN

A WEEK LATER

She stretched when Charlie finally stopped pulling and decided to piss against the statue in the small park opposite our building, twisting her waist slightly as if her back were aching.

Half my focus on her, I checked our surroundings, squinting around the high-rises in search of sights glinting in the light.

“Want a massage when we get in?” I asked her quietly.

“A nice one or a torture one?”

I hid my smirk. “Deep tissue isn’t torture.”

“It is,” she grumbled.

“That’s the only way to get the kinks out.”

Her nose curled. “I’d prefer a nice one. With a happy ending?”

“You always get a happy ending,” I pointed out.

Her smile lit up her eyes. “I’m living the fairytale life, aren’t I?”

When I snorted out a laugh, she stepped away from Charlie’s public urinal and slipped her hand into mine.

“See any snipers?”

“No. You’re safe.”

Nessa hummed and said, “I always am when I’m with you.”

For some reason, her words rankled and had me thinking about this morning. About the nightmare that had woken me up.

I didn’t know where the words came from, but I blurted out, “You know if I was a danger to you, I’d leave, don’t you?”

She tensed. “What?”

Not letting me answer, she grabbed the lapels of my coat and tugged on them until I was no longer scanning the buildings but looking down at her again. “Say that with your eyes looking into mine.”

I didn’t bother blinking, just said, “I won’t be like my father, Inessa. I won’t be the albatross around your neck.”

Her brow puckered. “Who said you would be? You’re nothing like your father.”

“Why? Because I let you out of the house?” I mocked.

“You let me go to school, Eoghan. Even though, every time I left the penthouse, I know it killed you to let me go. You did it anyway.”

I glanced back at the skyscrapers, not just because I had to keep scanning the perimeter, but because I didn’t want her to read my expression.

But she still tugged on my lapels.

“Are you going to stop me from starting up my business?”

“No,” I ground out. “Ma worked though. You forget that.”

She sniffed. “I didn’t forget that. My work is different. It involves going into people’s homes.

“Are you going to stop me from fulfilling my dreams?”

Every word was like her hacking away at me with an ice pick.

I gritted my teeth and told her, “No.”

“Will it kill you to know that I’m going into places you can’t scope out beforehand?”

“Yes,” I bit off. “Look, what’s the point of this conversation?”

“You’re the one who brought this up; I was talking about orgasms and massages.” She glowered at me. “I want you to damn well realize that you’re not a monster, Eoghan.

“You’re my husband, dammit. You’re the father of my baby. You know I wouldn’t have gotten pregnant if I didn’t love you and trust you.” Her hand slipped up to cup my cheek. “You can’t ever leave me, baby. I need you.”

This time, her words were worse than an ice pick.

Although, that was probably preferable to this morning’s episode.

I blew out a pain-soaked breath and rasped, “I’m getting worse, Inessa.”

“I know you are, sweetheart. We’re going through more bottles of bleach than the morgue. You disinfect anything that stands still for more than ten seconds, and our bed looks like you made it with a ruler.” She slipped her fingers around the back of my neck, encouraging me to look down at her. “But we all have our quirks.”

“Quirks?” I huffed. “Are you being serious? I must be hell to live with.”

After I’d jumped out of bed and had started scrubbing the bathroom floor until my fingers bled, I’d come to the realization that I was not in a good headspace.

And that wasn’t something she should have to endure.

Nessa shrugged. “I’m used to you now.”

I had to laugh. “Is that supposed to be reassuring?”

“No, reassuring is that I don’t dose your breakfast smoothie with cyanide. I know where to get it.”

Her serious tone had me arching a brow. “You don’t.”

“I do. Remember those photography classes I took?”

I blinked. “Yeah?”

“Liquid cyanide helps reduce black and white negatives that have been overexposed.”

“You handled cyanide in class?” I asked dubiously.

“No. Not exactly. But it’s used for that. I’m sure I could buy it.”

I rolled my eyes. “There are a lot easier ways to kill me.”

“Well, aren’t you lucky that I haven’t put my mind to it?” she asked with a huff. “Anyway, I only agreed to have Bump if you were around. You can’t renege on our deal, O’Donnelly.”

Bump had been a mutual decision, one we’d planned for, but she was right.

I’d be reneging on our deal if I left her for her own sake.

Her hand tipped my chin down again. “What’s going on with you, hmm? I need you to stop thinking about leaving me, Eoghan. I can’t handle that.”

“I don’t want to leave you, Inessa. Leaving you would be like slicing my wrists. Do I look suicidal?”

She eyed me carefully. “Sometimes I wonder if you are. You never told me what happened in Russia.”

My mouth tightened. “Stopped a war, didn’t it?”

“I know that,” she whispered softly. “But what did it do to you?”

I angled my head away. “I don’t want to talk about this.”

“We need to get MI6 to leave you alone. Don’t they know they’re hurting you?”

“I’m an asset,” I said flatly.

“We need you to get astigmatism. Snipers don’t wear glasses, do they?”

I had to laugh. Looking into her eyes, I breathed, “Never change, Inessa. Please?”

She batted her lashes at me. “I’ll try my best not to.”

Tracing a finger along her cheek, I murmured, “What I do, I do in your best interests.”

“Who made you God and let you decide what my best interests are?” she whispered. “You leaving me is not in my best interests.”

“You’d have plenty of money.”

“I don’t want money. I want you.”

Her words were staunch, but her expression, how she growled them, how she stepped into me, all of it rammed home the truth in her statement.

I felt her truth.

“I love you.”

“And I love you,” she muttered. “Now you’ve pissed me off, I want a nice massage. Not a deep tissue one. Can you handle that?”

Wryly, I smiled. “I can handle that.”

FIVE

EOGHAN

“Bump’s in the way,” she grumbled as she tried to lie flat out on the bed and kept failing.

“Use that pregnancy pillow you bought.”

“To do what with?”

“Make a donut shape and rest your belly in the hole.”

Her brow puckered. “That’d work but would you be able to fuck me like that?”

Her blunt question had me smirking. “Anywhere, anyhow, I can fuck you.”

“Cocky.”

“Something is.”

She sniffed but hauled the pillow into a donut shape. As she did, I helped her down, asking, “That comfortable?”

“No, but it’ll be okay.” She grinned up at me. “Wait, it won’t be okay. I think I deserve a seventh honeymoon.”

“A seventh honeymoon this year? Greedy.”

Her eyes twinkled. “Only for you.”

My lips quirked up as I watched her grab more pillows to adjust her position.

As she wiggled around, I took great pleasure in taking note of the jiggle and asked, “You can’t fly anymore, can you?”

She groaned. “No. My blood pressure was high last time. The doctor said flying wouldn’t be wise right now.”

Bump and I had an arrangement she was in the dark about.

Her higher than normal blood pressure had been one of the reasons I’d used to stop her looking for storefronts over on Madison Avenue.

I wanted her nearby.

Close at hand.

I didn’t think she’d agree to having a store in this building, but I could try to convince her to be on this block.

Bump apparently agreed because he’d facilitated my plan.

She’d been told to rest up the week before graduation, and I hadn’t complained.

Neither had she in the end.

I’d kept her plenty busy.

“I’ll think of somewhere to take you.”

“Not camping, Eoghan,” she said around a groan.

“I learned my lesson the first time,” I said with a laugh.

“It has to have running water.” She paused. “And a toilet.”

“There was running water.”

She glowered at me. “I don’t mean a stream.”

“There was also a toilet with the yurt.”

“Five minutes away. I want one ten steps from the bed.”

“Any other demands, brat?” I had to smile. “How about two-thousand-thread count sheets?”

“Sure. Why not four-thousand?”

“Do they exist?”

“I’m certain you’ll find them for me if they do.”

“Anything else?”

“If I think of anything, I’ll tell you,” she mumbled, wafting a regal hand.

Swatting her asscheek, I told her, “What are you going to do when Bump’s no longer in there and I can chase you around the apartment again?”

“Orgasm without backache?” she jibed, making me laugh.

“You’re going to get used to my being amenable,” I groused.

“Ha! Amenable? You’re about as amenable as trying to get honey out of a jar.”

Though my brow furrowed at her description, I decided, “I’m going to take that as a compliment.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“Honey tastes good,” I pointed out.

“Honey is a pain in the ass to get off a spoon.”

I reached for the oil on the nightstand and, without warming it, spurted the bottle onto the curve of her lower back.

When she yelped, I told her, “I’m maple syrup.”

She scoffed. “Honey beats maple syrup.”

“I don’t agree,” I countered as I started to smooth my hands up and down the length of her spine.

Shivering a little, Nessa wriggled again, clearly getting into the rub down, and I started to massage the soreness out of her lower back.

I knew it’d be a boy. All the kids my brothers had spawned thus far were boys, and it was the father’s genes that triggered the sex, but I was okay with having a son.

As long as that son had blond hair and green eyes.

As long as that son didn’t become like me—a murderer.

Ignoring my hard-on, I went to work on her back and thighs, sloping down her long, lean legs to reach her feet.

When I dug into her instep, I didn’t have to look at her pussy to know she was creaming.

The deep, guttural groan she released hit my dick, and I gritted my teeth to hold off because the last thing she needed was me shortselling her a well-deserved massage.

The noises she made, however, took their toll.

“Stop with all the moans,” I grumbled after a good five minutes of aural torture.

She released a breathless gasp, but she whispered, “You need to do this every day, and it’ll put me in a good mood.”

Lips twitching, I said, “As you get bigger, I can do that.”

“Every day?” She twisted her head to the side to look at me. “You’re unreal, do you know that, Mr. O’Donnelly?”

“I sleep with an angel in my bed. It makes me holy.”

She snickered but gently laid her head back down, sighing as I tried to work any soreness out of her major muscle groups without going so far that she’d complain about being tortured.

“You should have gotten into massage therapy,” she teased me.

“Yeah, I can just see Da approving of that career route when I was in high school.”

I heard the smile in her voice as she mumbled, “You could have massaged him out of his bad mood.”

“See, that’s where I’d fail at the masseur shit.

“I like to rub you. That’s it. No one else. Sure as fuck not my da.”

A hiccupping laugh escaped her, and a couple seconds later, she whispered, “I wish he got to meet Bump.”

Five years without him and it was still an open wound.

I didn’t like talking about him.

I knew it wasn’t healthy, but nothing about my life really was.

I figured I’d suppress everything until I had a heart attack. Or an ulcer. Or maybe even a hernia.

Preferably an ulcer.

Clearing my throat, I murmured, “I’m glad he doesn’t get to meet Bump.”

“You are? Why?”

“Because he wouldn’t read the room.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that I don’t want Bump doing what I do for a living.”

“Me neither. Unless it’s what he wants.”

“Does anyone want to be a sniper?”

Inessa sniffed. “You wanted to be a soldier, didn’t you? First? Before that?”

“True.”

“Was it a vocation?”

“No. I wanted to get away from Da and the mob. See how that turned out,” I said with a grimace, rolling my eyes. “Anyway, stop talking about this. I just worked all the kinks out of your shoulders and they’re back again.”

Only when she was as limp as overcooked spaghetti did I start to tease her.

That was the only kind of tension I allowed in our bed.

With every swipe down her ass, I made sure my fingers dug into the edges of her pussy, tugging her labia apart with the gesture.

She fidgeted each time, and I took advantage of the view by watching her slickness increase with my touch.

“I think my butt’s relaxed now,” she whispered after a good couple minutes of doing that.

“Yeah?” I asked, ignoring her to trail my hands up her sides and to tickle the plumped out curves of her tits. Palpating the skin there, I waited until she started squirming to ask, “You ready to turn over?”

She hummed, and I hooked my hands around her shoulders and gently toppled her over so that she was flat on her back.

Already Bump was making that uncomfortable too, so I didn’t let her head fall back against the mattress and quickly propped her up with the pregnancy cushion.

When she was leaning against it, I edged back and sighed with delight at the sight before me.

“You’re supposed to think I’m fat and gross,” she said dazedly.

“Fat and gross?” I arched a brow. “That’s what you see when you look in the mirror?”

She shrugged, but I noticed her eyes didn’t stay on mine.

With a shake of my head, I told her, “I see the body that’s giving life to my family. I see new curves and newer erogenous zones.

“I see tits I want to fuck, a pussy I want to live in, and an ass and hips that let me haul you about the bed.”

“You do?” she asked shyly, and honestly, she was so rarely shy that it took me a second to recognize it.

When I’d married her, she’d been young. Naive. Kept that way by her father, sheltered and cosseted but not with love. Not out of love, either. She’d been a prisoner if anything.

When she came to me, she’d been bruised, and I’d realized that Antoni Vasov had beaten her to get her down the aisle.

Ever since that moment, when she exploded into my life, I’d been reeling.

That didn’t change.

Didn’t stop.

Love was a weakness, I’d come to learn, but I embraced it.

A man like me didn’t do anything by halves, and that was why I cherished her.

And because of that, she blossomed.

Every year, she grew stronger.

More sure of herself.

More comfortable in her own skin.

With college, she’d grown even more confident, more mature and more self-aware because of her education.

That my kid was the reason her self-esteem wobbled agitated me like nothing else could.

I leaned down and pressed a kiss to Bump and told her, “I do. That’s exactly what I see.”

She bit her lip and wiggled. The move spread her legs and I took advantage of that to reach down and to slide my fingers through her folds.

Slick from her juices and the oil, I touched her clit.

Her eyes on mine, darkening and narrowing as she chased her pleasure, I smiled as I thrust two digits inside then rubbed her clit with the edge of my thumb. My spare hand went to her left arm first.

Rubbing the bicep, I pinched it gently as I moved down the expanse of the muscle, treating her forearm to the same.

I massaged her shoulder, then the side of her throat which held a few bites from last night, and I cupped one of her tits.

They were heavy, the nipples changing. I knew there’d come a point where she wouldn’t be able to stand my mouth around them because they’d be too sensitive, so I was careful not to pinch too roughly.

I didn’t mind making her squirm, didn’t mind tanning her ass red, but I wasn’t going to cause her pain in a part of her body that was changing as she carried our baby.

A soft whimper escaped her as I rubbed a hand over Bump, and she arched her ass back, hips rocking as she whispered, “Eoghan? Are you hard?”

“You have eyes, Inessa. What do you think?”

Her smile was wicked. “It was more rhetorical than a question.”

“Rhetorical or not, I repeat, what do you think?”

“I think I want to see it.”

With a smirk, I moved from between her legs and straddled her thigh instead. “Your hands aren’t as busy as mine.”

Biting her lip all the while, she reached for me, but as she snagged the zipper, I scissored my fingers and flicked her clit faster.

She sobbed and her back arched, heels digging into the bed.

“Eoghan!” she cried out, and I swore that was the only way I loved hearing my name.

Broken around her moans.

“What, baby?” I taunted, watching as her legs spread wider, outer thighs flattening against the bed.

“I need you.”

“What do you need?” I asked as I thrust into her faster, angled my hand backward into a clawing position as I rubbed the front wall of her pussy.

“Y-You.”

“You got me,” I said, aware I was being relentless.

“N-No,” she cried. “Your cock. I need your cock.”

“You can have it. Where do you want it?” I smirked at her dazed eyes.

“In… in my pussy.”

Her fingers scrabbled at my fly again, inadvertently encouraging me to speed up the pace of my own.

I could feel her cunt begin to flutter around the digits, and I watched when, with a choked cry escaping her, she gasped, her eyes flaring wide, her lips parting as I took her to the edge.

I held her there. Held, held, held. Kept her suspended in her pleasure until finally, she hit her crescendo and let loose a guttural groan that I felt in my fucking marrow.

Growling at the sight, the clinging walls of her pussy tormented me and, gently, I brought her back down. Slowly. Slowly.

She gave one last moan as I caressed her clit before I pulled out and raised my fingers to my mouth.

She watched as I sucked one inside and wrinkled her nose as she mumbled, “Are you supposed to lick oil?”

“It’s body safe.”

“That doesn’t mean mouth safe.”

I grinned. “It’ll take more than that to poison me.”

“What? Cyanide?”

My grin deepened. “Exactly.”

She yawned but kept her legs spread, and she pulled a move that I didn’t anticipate.

The yawn was a bluff.

Her legs hooked around my hips, and her heels dug into my ass, drawing me forward.

Only good reflexes had me catching my weight on my hands which I placed on either side of her shoulders.

“There, that’s better,” she purred, her arms slipping around my waist as she hauled me closer.

I reached down and nipped the tip of her nose with my teeth. “Cheater.”

“I learned from the best,” she said sleepily. “I want to nap with your cock inside me.”

“That sounds like fun for you but not for me.”

Her snort had me hiding a laugh. “After we both come again. In that order.”

“Orgasm then nap?”

“Sounds like bliss to me.”

“I might have work.”

“You always have work,” she said with a sniff.

She had a point.

“You’d be better at whatever mobstery thing is on the day’s agenda if you had a nap with me, your beautiful, pregnant wife.”

My lips curved as I pressed them to hers. “I can hear violins.”

“I’m a virtuoso.”

“That you are. Do you think my dick will get so hard that it pushes through my zipper?”

“No, that’ll break it.”

“What? The zipper?”

“No, your dick,” she grumbled.

“Let me up then,” I teased, amused when she did so with a discontented huff.

Before I could do so much as reach between us, her hands were there. The zipper sailed down, and her fingers delved inside.

I sighed as she held me in her firm grip and grunted when she jacked me off a couple times before she moved her thumb over the tip, rubbing the pre-cum into the smooth flesh.

When she wriggled again, I watched as she brought my cock toward her slit and sighed once more as I gently thrust into her.

A groan escaped her as I slid all the way home, and her legs came back up to curve around my waist.

As she hauled me into her, she mumbled, “You don’t have to treat me like I’m made of glass.”

“Not glass. Crystal.”

“Same difference.”

“Diamonds then.”

“Diamonds don’t break,” she said breathlessly as she started to rock beneath me. Her hands moved toward my shoulders, and her nails dug into me there as she rasped, “Eoghan, for God’s sake, continues.”

I had no idea why French, for Inessa, meant business, but I wasn’t about to complain.

Dropping my hips low, I ground into her, feeling the ripple of internal muscles as her clit benefited from the move.

“Harder. Plus vite, Eoghan. Mon dieu,” she whimpered as I started to speed up.

Her nails biting into my shoulders, heels digging into my butt, and the incessant ripple of her pussy around my cock were all the encouragement I needed.

The French was just the icing on the fucking cake.

I gave her what she craved, not holding back. I didn’t treat her like glass toward the end, but at first I did. I had no idea why, but she was tighter and she didn’t get as wet until I got her off. I didn’t think she realized that, but I did.

I noticed where she didn’t.

She was mine.

I looked after what belonged to me.

Gritting my teeth, I began to piston my hips. Moving harder, faster, giving her what she needed as I dropped my head and took her lips in a kiss that had her gasping.

Tongue thrusting against hers at the speed of my dick tunneling in and out of her cunt, I stole her breath as I united us both together.

She might be slower to warm up, but once she was there, the heat was a fire that didn’t burn out quickly.

Her pussy began milking my cock, literally dragging the cum out of it, and with short, breathy gasps, I felt her slow devolution into orgasm.

I moved my hands, dragging them down her thighs, encouraging them to spread wider. Letting her feel the bite of the tips in her butt as I pulled her into me, thrusting deeper. Corkscrewing her, as it were, on my cock.

With a scream, she imploded after less than a minute, and as her cunt clamped down, I exploded into her.

It felt like it lasted a lifetime, and maybe it goddamn did. For all I knew, time worked differently when you hit this state of inertia.

But the sheer delirium stayed with me for endless moments as I twisted around so she didn’t take my full weight, encouraging her to follow me.

One hand moved behind her knee, hooked so that my dick would stay inside her for the start of our nap.

Still panting, she followed, and I groaned as the shift in position had my dick being cosseted by different muscles.

Sighing as she settled on me, Bump nudging into my side, her hand fluttering as it found a resting place on my chest, she mumbled, “Merci, mon amour.”

My lips twitched, and before I could ask her why she always talked French at these moments, I felt the softening of her body, the faint slackening of her muscles, and heard the gentle murmurs of her breathing.

On our wedding day, we’d given each other a blood vow. The scars on our palms were still there because, every anniversary, we repeated the vow.

As she drifted to sleep, I tucked our hands together, lining up the scars.

Knowing that she was not only sated but safe, content and comfortable with it, I let my eyelids fall.

My own breathing leveled out, and I could feel the serenity that I only experienced when she was in my arms and I finally slept too.

SIX

EOGHAN

When Aidan slapped me upside the head, he only got the drop on me because they tag-teamed me.

The bastards.

Simultaneously, Conor threw a remote at me, Declan tossed me a beer, and Brennan hollered, “Dipshit.”

I caught the remote, grabbed the beer, and turned to Brennan. That was when I realized Aidan was behind me and he didn’t just slap me, he grabbed my ear and tugged.

Hard.

“You inherited Ma’s fingers,” I groused as I went to kick his leg out from under him then…

Shit. I scowled at the others. “You fucking pussies. You know I can’t risk him falling.”

Conor laughed. “That was my idea.”

Aidan’s knee replacement surgery meant he didn’t live with constant pain anymore, and while his limp wasn’t as pronounced and he didn’t need to use a cane, it was still a weakness we didn’t exploit, just in case.

“Limp-dicked jackass,” I growled at Conor.

“Limp-dicked? I don’t think so.” Conor smirked. “Anyway, you deserved the smack. What the fuck kind of bullshit was all that, ‘I’ll leave you if it’s good for you?’”

My eyes flared wide at his mocking tone. “You’re still listening in on our conversations?”

“Not always,” Conor defended. “This time it was accidental.”

“Accidental?” I squinted at him. “You just accidentally activated some malware on my phone? Did it trip into my cell?”

Conor sniffed. “Savvie confessed to Aidan and he asked me to check in with you.”

“Confessed?” I shook my head. “If you guys play dress up as priest and nun, I’m going to be sick.”

Aidan snorted. “She felt bad.” His grin was cocky. “She knows I like it when she’s bad.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Finn groaned. “I don’t need to hear about this again. You fuckers are lucky. You just get the cliff notes.”

Declan laughed. “Never envisioned you as a ‘kiss and tell’ kind of guy, Aidan.”

Our elder brother just smirked harder. “I never had much to kiss and tell about before.”

“My heart weeps for you,” Conor drawled.

Aidan’s grin didn’t die any, but in his eyes, I knew Conor’s words resonated.

We knew what he’d been through now, and what he’d done to survive. It still knocked the air out of us.

Brennan cleared his throat. “What’s with wanting to know how to dress Inessa, Eoghan? You going funny on us?”

Though I didn’t like being questioned, my lips quirked. “Funny? I think we bypassed that a long time ago.”

“Yeah, we did, and you’re going into the land of the cuckoos.”

“Fashion is art,” Declan rumbled. “Nothing wrong with appreciating the arts.”

Aidan pshawed, “Declan, you might get a hard-on whenever you see a Titian painting, but we ordinary mortals don’t.

“Eoghan isn’t getting into fashion design for the perks—it’s a control thing.” His measured gaze settled on mine. “Isn’t it?”

My jaw clenched. “I want her to be comfortable.” Not appreciating my defensive stance, I grated out, “I’m surprised you’re not more pissed about Savannah’s side gig.”

Aidan just shrugged. “Savannah does what she wants in her spare time.”

Before I could growl with irritation, Brennan questioned, “You’re not controlling what she can and can’t wear like a Neanderthal? I mean, I’m a Neanderthal too so I can’t judge⁠—”

I shot him a pointed look. “No, you fucking can’t.”

Having overheard way too many conversations between a giggling Inessa and Camille over the years, I knew the shit they were into.

“The doctor’s visits must be killing you,” Conor remarked, taking a deep sip of what appeared to be⁠—

Jesus H. Christ.

Was that orange juice with absinthe?

I didn’t bother shuddering at the sight.

“The visits are harder than I’d like,” was all I’d admit to.

“Even with your woman doctor?” Brennan questioned, arching a brow at me.

“Yes,” I hissed. “Look, is this an intervention or can I leave at any time?”

“Intervention,” Aidan scoffed. “Does this look like we’re on Maury?”

“Who the fuck is Maury?” Brennan demanded.

Aidan folded his arms over his chest. “Help me out, Declan.”

Sheepishly, Dec retorted, “Watching fuckups fuck up things even fucking more is cathartic when you’ve been shot, are in a hospital bed, and Netflix ain’t available.”

“It’s a talk show,” Aidan explained to Brennan who still looked confused.

“Oh.” Brennan gave a mock shudder. “I’d never watch that crap.”

My lips curved. “If Camille wanted to, you would.” Under my breath, I muttered, “Whipped.”

Brennan chuckled. “And you’re not? Mister ‘I wanna be my wife’s personal shopper?’”

“For a reason.”

“What reason?” Aidan asked, clapping me on the back.

“Because I want to.”

“That’s not a reason. Anyway, what was with the whole ‘I’ll give you up if it’s in your best interests’ BS? You know if you give her up, she’ll go and play house with some other bastard, don’t you? Beautiful woman like her⁠—”

I couldn’t help it. I saw red. It bloomed before my eyes, taking over everything else until the only option left to me was to react.

Aidan didn’t stand a chance.

His knee be fucking damned.

My fist slammed into his nose and he went down like a house of cards.

It was only when I saw that he was unconscious that I took a shaky breath.

“Nobody mention Inessa fucking another guy,” Conor mock-whispered. “He’ll go Hulk on us if we do.”

I whipped around to glower at him. “Shut up, Kid.”

He hitched a shoulder. “Aidan’s right, you know?” His gaze flickered over to the eldest who was blacked out on the floor. “Have you been working out?”

“Always,” I snapped. “He isn’t right.”

“He is,” Brennan dismissed. “Plenty of eligible bachelors out there who’ll let her wear whatever the fuck she wants and who’ll raise your kid if you’re so insistent on being noble.”

I heard the taunt in his voice.

The silent ‘bring it.’

I stepped forward, fists balled, but Declan and Finn surged in. Each grabbed my arms and held me in place.

Finn, ever the voice of reason in this fucking family, murmured, “Eoghan, you need to calm down. We’re here to make sure you don’t fuck up the best thing that’s ever happened to you.”

“Like you’ve never done that,” I hissed.

His gaze was sad as he caught mine. “I’m trying to spare you from that, baby brother. Don’t push her away. You’ll regret it once it’s too late.”

A spasm worked through me as I thought of her with another guy.

Some other bastard raising Bump.

Someone getting into bed with her who wasn’t me.

Someone knocking back her breakfast smoothies and downing burned pancakes because that was all she could cook which was vaguely edible.

The nascent flickers of fury bore fruit and surged into a fiery explosion that had me struggling against my brothers’ hold.

“Let me fucking go,” I spat at them.

“What are you going to do? Knock us all out?” Conor questioned.

“This is the exact fucking reason I should leave her,” I snarled. “I’m a fucking animal⁠—”

“And she has your leash,” Brennan rumbled, stepping closer, heading into the danger zone. “If anyone can keep you in line, it’s her. Don’t pull away from the only woman who can bring you fucking peace, deartháir.”

I ground my teeth together. “I’m not good for her.”

“Are any of us good for our women? Do you see us leaving them?” Finn asked gruffly. “Sometimes, in this goddamn life, you have to cling onto the things that bring you joy; otherwise, you’ll just molder away in the dark until you’re a shadow. Do you want that?

“Selfish as it might be, the way to repay that is to be thankful for the light they bring. You worship them, Eoghan. That’s how you right the balance.

“We all know you love Inessa. We all know you’d do anything for her. This is one thing you have to overcome for her. Whether or not you’re bad for her, she doesn’t agree. She wants you, you prick.

“Talking about leaving her could trigger a premature birth. Is that what you want? Is that what she deserves?”

I could feel the wrenching in my chest as my heart tore in two. “She deserves the best.”

“So be the best. Her best. She doesn’t just love you; she likes you,” Brennan grated out, stepping even closer to me. His hand moved to scrub over the top of my head. “You’re not the only one who’s heard our wives talking about their marriages.

“She likes you, Eoghan. You might be a fucking freak, but clearly she is too if she hasn’t left you by now. So be goddamn grateful and stop shoving it in her face.”

The rage was still there, but I dampened it down.

They were right.

I knew they were.

But this anger inside of me was only getting worse.

“You should have faith in yourself,” Brennan rasped, his fingers squeezing my shoulder now.

“Faith?” I scoffed. “I’m a fucking murderer⁠—”

“Ain’t we all, bro?” Declan bit off. “Pull your head out of your ass.”

“You’d hurt yourself before you’d hurt her,” Conor said smoothly, his voice far calmer than anyone else, but that wasn’t why his words resonated.

“I would,” I admitted.

“So stop with the self-sacrificing, stop with the bullshit. You’re not like us, Eoghan. You’re fighting for a different cause.”

“Geopolitical mindfucks,” I dismissed.

“Regardless, you’re more than just a thug. You’ve earned some peace, baby brother,” Brennan told me softly. “Live it and love it.”

SEVEN

EOGHAN

I was in a bad mood when I made it home.

When Inessa wasn’t there, my mood darkened even more so.

While the housekeeper had cleaned the place that morning, I grabbed the steamer and sterilized my bathroom and Inessa’s.

When that was done, I rearranged my books on the shelves in my office from alphabetical order into order by size. When that didn’t work, I put them back into alphabetical.

In the time it took me to accomplish those tasks, Inessa returned with a massive cake.

As she stepped through the elevator doors, humming happily, I eyed the cake box and her then drawled, “Is there a party going on that I wasn’t invited to?”

She jolted in surprise. “What are you doing here?”

“Did I move out?”

Sniffing at my sarcasm, she hugged the box. “This is all mine.”

I smiled to myself. “Red velvet?”

“Maybe.” Nose in the air, she snootily stormed down the hallway and into the kitchen. When I followed her, she called out, “It’s all for me.”

“I heard you the first time.”

Her words indicated she thought I’d be somewhere else.

Interesting.

Eyes narrowed, I watched her make a cup of green tea, then, with a sigh, she settled at the counter, hooked her feet around the stool’s legs, then opened up the box.

“You can’t eat all that by yourself.”

“Is that a challenge?”

Her arched brow dared me to argue.

Fuck, this was why she was perfect for me.

We argued.

A lot.

I loved it.

“It could have been a challenge if you’d bought two, and then I’d have to spank you for carrying both here.”

“Ah, the spankings, yes. We need to address this. You, Mr. O’Donnelly, are a pussy tease.”

Rearing back at that, I gaped at her. “I am not,” was my hotly contested reply.

“You are. You keep saying you’ll spank me, but you never do. Why is that, do you think?” she queried as she picked up a piece of cake that was pre-sliced and started to eat it.

The moan that whispered along the sound waves had my dick hardening.

“Pussy teases do not get their other halves off twice a day.”

“You keep saying you’ll spank me, then you back off.” Her eyes popped open as she swallowed.

She should have swallowed my dick.

“Bump’s in the way,” I snapped, annoyed when she took another bite of cake.

“You could bend me over the counter,” she replied after a couple seconds.

“Where would be the advantage to that?”

“What do you mean?”

“Half the fun of a spanking is that you get to wiggle against my boner and that I can finger fuck you over my lap.”

Her eyes flared with interest for a second before she retorted, “Then you should stop with the teasing.”

“It’s not a tease. It’s supposed to be a threat.”

She chuckled at that. “Okay,” she told me, like I was a moron.

Grunting, I stepped deeper into the kitchen and snagged her green tea. As I took a sip, I murmured, “Where did you think I’d be?”

“What?” She frowned at the sight of her cup in my hand. “There’s a full teapot.”

“I want yours.”

“Brat.”

Her grin made a swift appearance when I told her, “Takes one to know one.”

“I didn’t think you’d be anywhere.”

“Bullshit. Did you set up that intervention?”

She sniffed. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

“Why would you do that? I was only trying to look out for you.”

“Don’t make out like I hurt your feelings, Eoghan,” she told me. “You weren’t the one left hurting after that conversation last week.”

That was where she was wrong.

“What did you do?”

“I told Savvie that you’d bought me some dresses. When I showed her, I could tell she’d seen them before, and let’s face it, Savvie does not find her outfits in the maternity section.

“I wormed your little ploy out of her, and after everything with the dean, I wanted to make sure you were okay.

“If she talked about it with Aidan, I knew he’d end up calling in Conor. I just never imagined you’d start talking about leaving me a few days later!”

“So, instead of just discussing this with me, you decided to get them involved?”

“Yes, because I knew you wouldn’t see reason.”

“I knocked Aidan out, Inessa,” I told her, voice toneless.

She shrugged. “I’m sure he deserved it.”

“He told me that if I left, you’d shack up with another man.”

“So you hit him?”

“Yes. That’s how on edge I am.”

Inessa scoffed, “Shut up. On edge. You might be with them, but you’re not with me.”

“I won’t be like my father.”

“Then don’t be like him,” she screamed at me, her voice all the louder because of how quiet she’d been before. “Don’t beat your children up. Don’t torment them into being mobsters. Don’t cheat on me and have a child with another woman! It’s that simple.” She sucked in a breath. “I’m sorry for shouting but you’ve pissed me off.” Her hand slammed down against the counter. “In fact, no, I’m not fucking sorry.

“I put up with you steam cleaning everything that stays in the same place for longer than a minute, and I’ve watched you reorganize our kitchen cabinets twice this month, and do I say anything? No. I’m a good wife. A great one. You’re lucky to have me.

“You do not get to say shit like you’re leaving me because of the things that I put up with without argument, do you hear me?”

“Inessa, the baby⁠—”

“Fuck. You. Eoghan. Don’t bring up Bump when you’re the reason I’m mad in the first place. Don’t you dare get on your high horse when I draft your brothers in to make you see goddamn sense.

“You will not hurt me. You will put me on a pedestal, and sometimes, I’ll want to get down, and if you don’t let me, don’t worry—I’m not your goddamn mother. I will jump and I will do whatever I want because what you’re not taking into account when you’re so fucking terrified about turning into your dad is that I’m. Not. Lena.

“I’m not my mother either.

“You think I’d let you treat me that way? No. You think I’d let you treat Bump like our fathers treated us? NO. N. O. I wouldn’t.

“So, when you talk about leaving me, health aside, pregnancy aside, it disrespects me. You’re thinking I’m that same old eighteen-year-old girl you married again, but I’m not. Do you hear me?”

Her words bit into me like bullets.

And that was what I needed.

Bullets.

That was my love language.

That was what I knew.

What I understood.

“I hear you.”

By contrast to her anger, my softly voiced reply was almost silent.

Her eyes narrowed upon me and, with a defiance that made me hide my smile, she picked up a piece of cake and took a massive bite.

As I watched her chew, she continued staring me down, then she proved again why this was the woman I’d chosen to love.

She delved into the box, selected the smallest piece, and said, “Here. You can have this slice.”

So, I did.

I sat on the stool at her side and ate my cake, drank her tea, and we stopped talking about stupid shit and talked instead about the things that mattered.

Us.

EIGHT

EOGHAN

A week later, my lips curved as she grabbed the takeout carton and began to ladle borscht into the tureen in front of her.

She wore a dress that Savvie had helped me pick out—and my brothers be damned, I didn’t give a fuck what they thought about my sudden interest in fashion.

The dress was navy so it offset her bright blonde hair, and it had a high halter neckline that gifted me a deep view of her cleavage while granting her a tidier silhouette.

Behind the counter, hidden from me, was a swinging A-line skirt that was perfect for easy access.

“I can feel you judging me, so you can go into the living room and leave me alone,” she grumbled, misinterpreting my appreciative stare for a judgmental one.

This cat and mouse game between the sisters bewildered me, but who was I to judge when I’d knocked my brother out the other week?

“Won’t you feel me judging you in there?” I teased, amused enough that I rounded the counter and slipped an arm around her waist.

If my fingers inched higher to cup one of her tits, that was between her and me.

She certainly didn’t complain. Maybe even wriggled into me a little in a silent ‘hello.’

“I will, but I won’t have to look at you as you do it.”

“Camille has to know that you and Victoria cheat.”

She huffed. “This isn’t cheating. I’m in the kitchen, aren’t I? I’m presenting our feast⁠—”

“That someone else made.”

Her lips twitched. “That’s a bourgeois way of looking at it.”

Snickering, I commented, “It is, is it?”

“It is. Take your heathen ways over to the living room where I can’t see them.”

“So, this is you being a communist, is it?” Eying the takeout containers, I chuckled. “More like a capitalist.”

“What Cammie doesn’t know, doesn’t hurt her.”

I rolled my eyes. “Why you have to one-up each other, I’ll never know.”

“It’s a friendly competition. Just because you and your brothers like to beat the shit out of each other doesn’t mean we have to do the same thing.”

“I’d make you stop if you did. It was bad enough when you were coming home with bruises after self-defense classes with Brennan⁠—”

“You wouldn’t stop me,” she scoffed.

“I almost stopped you taking those classes. Why the hell didn’t you ask me? I’d have taught you.”

“Are you pouting?” She huffed. “I’d never have learned anything if you were my teacher.

“The first time I ended up on the mat on my back, that would have been it. Lesson over.”

She had a point.

Not that I told her that.

I wrinkled my nose and said, “Your safety is important to me.”

“You prefer me to have guards. You don’t like that I might have to defend myself.”

“The point of guards is to make sure you don’t have to defend yourself.”

“Guards can be bought. Aren’t you glad that if I get kidnapped, I can break my kidnapper’s nose?”

Just the suggestion had me hiding a grimace because she’d almost been kidnapped before, and I couldn’t even think about that without wanting to kill someone.

“I think you just spoke my worst nightmare out loud.”

When her eyes clashed with mine, I saw them soften at my words. “Oh, Eoghan.”

The spoon clattered against the dish, and she reached up and cupped my cheek. “I’m so lucky that you love me so much.”

I considered it less like luck and more like a curse, but I could see how it was beneficial to her and how it might seem romantic.

To me, it was inevitable.

Like my heart pumping oxygen around my body.

It simply was.

“I love you too, you know?” she told me softly, her gaze warm and gentle.

A part of me wanted to use that to my advantage, get her to cancel the dinner we’d planned with Brennan and Camille, but I wasn’t that much of a jerk.

I had plans, but they could wait until later on.

Brennan and I agreed to eat, watch one game of whatever was in season, and then we went our separate ways.

Not because we didn’t get along, but because we both had better ways to spend our Friday night than with each other.

The best part of my brother-in-law also being my brother was that we didn’t have to suffer fools lightly.

The sisters might want to hang out, but both of us preferred to be in our wives than watching football with another guy.

“I do know you love me,” I replied. “That’s why you put up with me.”

Her scowl made an instant appearance.

Just as I’d known it would.

She wagged her finger. “Stop saying things like that.”

“Like what?” I asked, all innocence.

“I don’t put up with you,” she grumbled and went on to ‘berate’ me for another ten minutes about why my idiosyncrasies were cute.

When the buzzer sounded, I was almost disappointed. I liked hearing her defend me, especially when she wagged her finger at me.

I knew Bump would be on the receiving end of that wagging finger over the years, but as for myself, I was tempted to stick it in my mouth and nip it.

What could I say?

I liked corrupting her.

Brennan and Camille came upstairs after a couple minutes. Camille hugged me; Brennan punched me in the shoulder so I hit him in the gut.

“Brennan!” Cammie said, her shock clear even as Brennan sputtered.

“He winded me!”

“I’m not about to be your referee.”

I smirked at him. “Someone’s on the sofa tonight.”

“Yeah, you keep on thinking that,” he told me as he grabbed me in a noogie.

When I twisted him over and let him fall straight to the ground, I left him seeing birdies twittering overhead, whistling as I returned to the kitchen where Inessa’s ‘feast’ was set up on the table in there.

I managed to catch the tailwind of Cammie’s, “Oh my God, Inessa, you surpassed yourself!”

“More purple soup,” Brennan wheezed as he approached me, holding his stomach as he hobbled past.

“Yeah,” I said with a grimace.

The one thing the Russians and the Irish agreed on were potatoes.

For whatever reason, Inessa never did anything with potatoes and gravy.

Sometimes I wondered if she did it on purpose.

Knowing her, she probably did.

“I don’t think Cammie even likes beets,” Brennan rumbled as I passed him a beer.

“Pretty sure Inessa doesn’t either.”

“I don’t,” my wife called over from the table, her brow arched. “But it’s tradition.”

I rolled my eyes. “Tradition. Remember that when I make you eat Colcannon. She doesn’t like it.”

Brennan frowned. “How can you not like mashed tatties with cabbage, butter, and bacon?”

My mouth watered at just the thought. “I’d prefer that to borscht,” I agreed.

“You eat that stuff with Aoife. Cammie and I make Russian food. Bump will know what Russian food is, Eoghan,” she warned.

“The Irish in him is more aggressive than the Russian,” Brennan pointed out. “You should be eating all the good Irish food to calm the beast.”

Inessa snorted. “You keep on thinking that, Brennan.”

Cammie cleared her throat. “He has a point, Inessa.”

She gaped at her sister. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“I had terrible morning sickness until I started eating Irish food.” Cammie gave her a wry smile. “That eased my symptoms.”

“You have to be shitting me!”

Cammie chuckled. “I’m actually not.”

“This is a hoax. This is like that time you told me if I sucked Eoghan off, it would make the morning sickness stop.”

“That’s actually proven—” Cammie started.

“I appreciated that scientific study,” I concurred with a smirk.

“I’ll just bet you did,” Brennan joked, knocking his beer bottle into mine as we grinned at each other.

“That wasn’t a hoax either. It can help. I’m surprised you still have morning sickness actually.” Cammie studied Inessa’s belly. “Shouldn’t the symptoms be easing now?”

“They do, apart from when I’m nervous.”

“Were you nervous this morning?”

Inessa glowered at me. “Yes.”

“Why?” Cammie frowned then reached over and tugged her into a hug. “Is everything okay?”

Nessa grimaced. “I mean, sure, everything’s fine now.” She shot me another glower, which prompted me to realize her big ‘takeout con’ had been why she was nervous.

Jesus H. Christ.

“Okay, less of the hugging. I want to get that borscht out of the way so I can order pizza later.”

Brennan cheered, “Hear, hear.”

Cammie laughed as she took a seat, slipping beside Inessa who poured her a glass of wine.

As Brennan and I joined her, Inessa finally sat down after she retrieved some juice from the fridge, but just as she was about to serve the purple slop, her cell buzzed.

Not just once, but five or six times.

I arched a brow, not totally unhappy about the delay in being fed slop. “Who’s that?”

She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. It can wait.”

Only, there were ten more buzzes.

Her cheeks pinkened. “Sorry, everyone. Mama would be horrified if I checked my phone⁠—”

“Mama isn’t here,” Cammie said softly, patting her hand gently.

Nessa squirmed then reached for her phone. When she frowned as she read her screen, I asked, “What is it?”

She licked her lips then shot me a look. “Dean Forrester’s been found hanging in his office.”

NINE

EOGHAN

“I don’t feel guilty,” I told her as I watched her wiping her face with some concoction that made her skin gleam.

“Did I ask you if you did?” she countered stiffly, not looking at me, not even through the mirror’s reflection.

That didn’t stop me from studying her or from taking note of her lack of expression.

With a sigh, I stepped away, giving her some time to herself as I quickly changed into workout clothes.

There was only one good point about tonight’s farce, and that was that we hadn’t had to eat the food she’d ‘made.’

Once I was changed, I left the bedroom and I headed to the gym.

Switching on the TV, I watched the geopolitical situation unfolding in Asia and dove into the latest bad news from the stock market as I went on a ten-mile run.

By the time I’d finished, I’d half-expected her to have wandered into the gym.

We tended to discuss a lot of things in here. Those discussions usually morphed into my bending her over the closest piece of equipment and resolving things that way.

I went through the free weight flow I’d already completed this morning, then when that was done and there was still no sign of her, I returned to the bedroom and saw she wasn’t there.

Narrowing my eyes, I retreated to the hall and tested each spare bedroom to see if she’d moved into one of them.

That, of course, was when I heard the TV blaring on our home cinema.

Relieved she wasn’t hiding from me, I cleaned up and had a shower then joined her in there.

One thing about marriage I’d learned? Never leave shit to fester overnight.

Like gangrene, it only spread and made everything worse.

Walking into the theater room, I found her with her legs tucked under her, a big blanket around her shoulders, a tub of popcorn on her lap, and one of her favorite movies on the screen.

The sight of Love Actually had me rolling my eyes.

I’d seen this over a dozen times, and I knew why it was on—because she wanted to punish me.

With a grunt, I slouched over to the fridge that stocked all manner of drinks and snacks, pulled out two beers—one to gulp down, the other to savor—then retreated to her armchair.

Without my having to say a word, she’d gotten up, her attention on the screen, and the second I’d taken a seat, she dropped onto my lap.

I tugged another blanket over us both, placed my hand on top of her feet which were always cold, then snagged one of the bottles of beer and took a very long sip.

She’d clearly been waiting on me because we were pretty much at the beginning still.

My eidetic memory was a torment in this situation as I could recount the entirety of the script back to front without too much effort, and if I dared to fall asleep, I knew she’d wake me up each and every time.

My woman, in her own way, was cruel as hell.

When we got to the part where Alan Rickman gave Emma Thompson the Joni Mitchell CD, I was prepared for her tears.

She buried her face in my neck and sniffled through ‘Both Sides Now.’

“I’d have your balls if you cheated on me with your PA,” she sobbed against my neck.

“Would you pickle them?”

She tensed. “Ew.”

My lips twitched. Not because I was heartless, but because she said that verbatim every time.

“Why would I cheat on you with my PA? I don’t even have a PA.”

“The PA isn’t the point.”

“I have enough trouble with you. I’m not going to add to it.”

She gasped and pulled back. “Eoghan!”

“What? It’s true. Inessa,” I said flatly, “you consume every moment of my waking life. A good chunk of my sleeping one too.

“If I had to worry about another woman, I’d have a heart attack from the stress!” As she groused under her breath, I told her, “What? It’s the truth.

“Plus, there’s the fact that I don’t want another woman.”

“That’s because we haven’t been married as long as Harry and Karen.”

“Inessa, our marriage isn’t like Harry and Karen’s,” I pointed out.

“Why isn’t it? We said the same vows, didn’t we?”

“Harry is an executive in some penny-ante office. I’m a sniper. I kill people for a living. If I didn’t love you, honey, I’d just shoot you.”

“Is that supposed to be reassuring?”

I grinned at her snark. “Yes.”

“Well, it isn’t,” she grumbled darkly. “What you’re saying is that you’ll never cheat, you’ll just shoot me when you want to be with someone else?”

“If I were another man, sure, that would be the solution. But I’m not another man.

“You’re my everything, Inessa. You’re the reason I get up, and you’re the reason I try to sleep.

“You’re the reason I care about politics, and the reason I obey when I’m sent on jobs, because your safety is paramount to me.”

She swallowed. “What about Bump?”

“Bump will be another obsession that gives me heartburn. The only thing that will end my obsession with you is death.”

“When you shoot me?”

I scoffed, “When I die. Not you.”

“You mean that?” she asked with another sniffle.

“I do.”

She sucked in a breath then whispered, “Dean Forrester probably told his wife he wouldn’t cheat on her with his PA too.”

“Forrester was a schmuck.”

“You can be a schmuck too.”

“Yeah, but I’m on a different level.”

A snort escaped her but she tilted her head back to the movie and recommenced watching it. Her arms moved around my neck though, and she hugged me, which told me her snit from before was over.

“I love you, Inessa,” I whispered against her temple as she watched Hugh Grant make an ass out of himself on a school stage.

“I love you too, Eoghan,” she whispered back.

And I knew I was forgiven.

For the most part.

TEN

EOGHAN

From behind this morning’s newspaper, I watched Inessa in her favorite coffee shop.

She didn’t know I was here, but I saw her chatting with the women who’d messaged her the other night.

Each one, according to her, had been ‘approached’ by the dean to be valedictorian.

I felt not a single ounce of guilt about the man’s suicide, but I was definitely pissed about how many women were here.

Men really were the worst.

Being an arrogant asswipe was one thing, but abusers of power were another.

It made me realize I should have chopped off his whole hand and not just his finger.

Disappointed by the wasted opportunity—Charlie, who was staying with Cammie this weekend, was undoubtedly disappointed too—I monitored the situation, making sure that Inessa wasn’t getting upset.

We had a doctor’s appointment this afternoon and then I was taking her on our next honeymoon.

The last before Bump came along.

Well, the last one I knew about.

Her desire for honeymoons crept up when I pissed her off.

Unfortunately, I did that a lot.

Case in point, after her coffee morning was over and she got up to leave.

With my phone resting on the table, I had it pivoted in such a way that I could watch her through the camera without having to peer over the newspaper.

From the viewpoint, I watched as she didn’t head over to the exit, like I’d expected, but instead, moved over to me.

Hooking the top half of the newspaper with the wooden handle of her umbrella—we’d had some unexpected rainstorms—she dragged it down and demanded, “Are you spying on me, Eoghan?”

I shot her a charming smile. “Just keeping abreast of the situation.”

The smile didn’t work.

Her eyes narrowed as she peered at my phone where she saw my setup. “It looks like spying.”

“I don’t spy.”

“Isn’t that what MI6 does?”

“Yes, but I’m not a full-time⁠—”

“James Bond.”

I blinked. “What?”

“You’re not a full-time James Bond,” she stated.

My top lip curled. “I’m more dangerous than James Bond.”

Her nails tapped against the table as she bumped her hip against it. “I’m going to reschedule the doctor’s appointment.”

“What? Why?” I demanded, sitting up.

“Wherever you’re taking me, we’re going earlier.”

“The appointment’s important.”

“It can wait until Monday,” she breathed as her pupils dilated. “James Bond.”

Surprised because she normally hated that I was an asset of theirs, I had to assume my spying on her didn’t piss her off…

Today, it turned her on?

Bump was clearly working on Team Dad again.

Reaching out, she tried to snag me around the back of the neck with the umbrella handle.

Recognizing that look she shot me, that breathlessness in her voice, I decided to own it, especially if my following her around didn’t trigger an argument.

Faster than the blink of an eye, I smirked at her as I snatched the umbrella from her grasp, flicked it around, then pressed it behind her back so I could draw her deeper into my hold.

She gasped as she unexpectedly found herself plunked onto my lap.

Her hands went around my neck as I tilted her forward, and she released another gasp when she felt my hard-on digging into her hip as I slipped my arms around her waist.

Blinking up at me, she rasped, “I like your moves, Mr. O’Donnelly.”

“They’re all for you, Mrs. O’Donnelly.”

Heat blossomed into being in her eyes. “How far away is the place you’re taking me?”

“An hour’s drive away.”

She wriggled on my lap. “That’s too far.”

Leaning forward to nip her chin with my teeth, I growled against the flesh. “The club?”

She nodded quickly. “Yes.”

Carefully helping her onto her feet, I dumped a twenty on the table for my espresso, grabbed Inessa’s hand, and shuffled her out of the coffee shop.

Because she wasn’t wearing crazy-high heels, it was easier than usual, and when we made it outside, I hailed my driver.

I didn’t like having a car, but I couldn’t deal with cabs.

Not being able to control how often they were cleaned was a nightmare, so this was my solution if I wasn’t sure what my wife was doing.

It wasn’t that I didn’t trust her.

I didn’t trust everyone else.

Plus, I liked watching her.

She was fascinating and more entertaining than anything movie producers could develop.

As I helped her into the car, I directed, “Take us to Elemental.”

Oisin nodded then merged us into traffic.

Knowing he couldn’t see her in the rearview mirror, but well aware that Inessa didn’t, I kept the privacy shield down as I encouraged her to spread her legs.

My fingers moved up her inner thigh and toward her pussy.

She shuddered as I traced that line, and when I delved between them, she accommodated the move by spreading them.

Tracing tiny circles, each caress had the softest of gasps escaping her parted lips.

When I reached her panties, she made a fist with her hand, leaned her arm against the door, then pressed it to her mouth. Her eyes closed, I watched as she rocked forward then gently pivoted back.

Facing the traffic, my attention on the road ahead, I delved beneath the fabric of her panties and found her wet cunt.

Jesus, she was soaked.

After all these years, that didn’t come as much of a shock, but it didn’t stop my dick from aching or from wanting to drag her onto my lap so I could fuck her.

Still, this slow burn torment would be my reward.

I didn’t often fulfill Inessa’s exhibitionism, mostly because I was a possessive man, but whenever I did, she turned to putty in my arms.

Our impromptu visit to the club was going to ruin one of my surprises but that was okay. She deserved to be spoiled. I’d just wanted to gift her with this after Bump was born.

As I found her clit, she turned her moan into a spluttering cough that had Oisin flashing a glance into the mirror.

I didn’t catch his eye so he returned to staring at the road ahead.

In the flurry of movement, she widened her legs further, tipping one onto my lap.

I slid a finger along the folds, letting it fill her.

Her pussy clamped down and I watched as her fist gleamed white from the pressure she placed on it.

With every stroke, I felt her move nearer and nearer to an orgasm.

My dick responded in turn, wanting in her, not understanding that patience was a virtue with my wife.

As I circled her clit with a delicacy I wasn’t really known for, her sharp gasp wasn’t entirely unexpected.

“Inessa? Are you okay?” I demanded.

She gulped and shot me a dazed glance. “Yeah, just Victoria… she surprised me.”

“With what?” I questioned, aware that Oisin had shot a glance at me again.

All the while, I teased her clit until she detonated.

Her pupils flared as her lips wobbled when she tried to contain her release. “Nothing bad,” she told me shakily.

“It doesn’t sound like it’s nothing bad,” I half-mocked.

Her mouth turned down at the corners as she glowered at me.

“It’s nothing,” she repeated firmly, her eyelashes fluttering as I slipped a second finger into her cunt.

Hips rocking forward again, this time, her hand curved around my wrist.

She held it prisoner as she calmed down then rasped softly, voice low enough that Oisin wouldn’t hear, “I’ll get you back for that.”

I smirked. “I’m sure you will.”

She huffed, knowing that the threat was empty as much as I did.

I teased her for the rest of the journey now I’d taken off some of the edge. Whatever had happened in the coffee shop to get her so hot wasn’t something I was going to complain about, but I was definitely curious.

When we made it to the club, I gently retracted my fingers, and as Oisin climbed out to open the door for her, I made a show of cleaning the digits.

When she stood, Oisin had to help keep her upright because she nearly stumbled.

I darted out, gave her my support, and though I didn’t like that Oisin had touched her, I gave him a grateful nod.

“Leave the car here,” I told him. “You can clock out for the day.”

He shrugged. “Okay, Eoghan.”

“I’ll be back on Monday.”

“See you then. Have a great weekend, Mrs. O’Donnelly.”

Inessa shot him a shaky smile. “Thanks, Oisin.”

As I left him to deal with the valet, I helped her over to the door.

“What got you so hot?” I breathed in her ear as I pulled it open.

She bit her lip.

“Nothing.”

I snorted. “Liar.”

Her lips pursed. “One of the girls came back from the restroom and they were talking about you.”

Damn.

Caught out by a college graduate.

Shocking.

“Talking about me?”

She huffed again, grousing, “How hot you were.”

I almost laughed, but I wasn’t a fool.

I’d been spared an argument because of her jealousy.

I liked knowing that she was as crazy for me as I was for her.

And crazy was definitely the word.

Guiding her inside and along the path to the club, we were granted several greetings from members of staff.

Half nightclub, half sex club, we hadn’t shut Elemental down when we snagged it from the Italian mafia.

We’d made the membership rules stricter and had created a separate, private entrance that meant people didn’t have to walk through the nightclub to reach that section like they had before.

As we made our way there, Inessa dislodged her arm from my grasp so she could grab my hand.

With our fingers tangling, we entered that half of the club.

Split into three, each one for a particular type of pervert, we normally headed toward the bar area because, while there were beds, my OCD had too much of a hold on me to take her there.

Even if there were plastic sheets.

As I shuddered with revulsion at the thought, I wasn’t surprised when Inessa started to move over to the bar. I tugged her to a halt and guided her toward the back of the building where there was a long hallway.

“Where are we going?” she questioned, and I heard the curiosity warring with arousal in her voice.

“You’ll see,” I informed her quietly, leading her down the corridor which took us around the club. The music was more bearable for me here.

“This is new,” Inessa pointed out.

“It is,” I agreed, taking her to the end of the hall to the final door.

I placed my finger to the lock, humming when it opened once it recognized my print, and I murmured, “I was going to save this until after Bump was born, but… as always, you keep me on my toes.”

Her laughter was giddy as she danced in, her gaze darting around the ‘room.’

It was much like a bedroom, but when I pushed a button on a remote in a bracket beside the door, one I quickly pocketed, the floor to ceiling opaque glass defrosted, revealing the bar area.

Her head whipped around as she gaped at me, her hand fluttering as she raised it to cover her throat.

Recognizing that for what it meant, I prowled toward her, edging her closer to the glass where a bunch of men were drinking shots as a scantily clad server kept their glasses full.

“It’s smart glass,” I told her softly.

“Can they see in?”

“If you want them to.”

A moan escaped her, and I felt her shiver firsthand when I walked into her and she leaned against me for support.

“What does that mean?” she whispered.

“It means that, right now, they can’t see us but you can see them.

“It means that with the flick of a button, they can see inside and they can watch.”

She shot me a glance because she knew me as well as I knew her.

“We’ll wear masks,” I explained, and I knew she was aware of how large a concession that was from me.

I guarded her zealously.

Her orgasms were mine, her pleasure mine.

Inessa was mine.

Period.

She bit her lip. “Special occasions?”

That she presented me with that offer told me what I already knew—I had the best wife in the world.

I smiled at her and gave her a kiss, confirming, “On special occasions.”

Nessa twisted around to look at me, and as she did, her hands went to the hem of her blouse and she whipped it over her head.

Her fingers went to her skirt, and she let that drop to the ground as well.

Her bra and panties quickly joined them.

Within a minute, she was naked.

Her nipples were taut with need, a fine quiver danced along her limbs, and when she backed up so that she was pressing into the glass, I eyed the state of her and rasped, “Do you want me to fuck you, baby girl?”

Her mouth quivered. “Y-Yes, please, Eoghan.”

“Show me how wet you are.”

Eyes darkening, she reached between her legs and slid her fingers along the line of her core.

The move had her shoulders knocking back into the glass as she arched her spine.

When she raised her hand to show me, I murmured, “Keep on touching that clit. Don’t stop until I tell you to.”

Licking her lips, she did as bade, all while she watched me undress.

I grabbed my tie, unknotting it and letting it fall to the floor. Then, after I dropped my jacket, I unfastened my shirt and let that fall as well.

My hands went to my buckle, and as I dragged the leather belt out of the loops, she groaned as she continued circling her clit.

“C-Can I come?”

“I think if you did, that would be greedy of you.”

She pouted but knew well enough not to argue.

“Move your fingers faster though,” I directed as I unfastened my pants, pulling my cock through the fly.

She groaned at the sight of the pre-cum weeping from my dick. “You’re being mean.”

“Mean? After I made this place for you?”

She turned into a brat when she didn’t get her own way.

Fuck, I loved that she did.

I grabbed my cock, jacked it once, then said, “Turn around.”

Sucking in a breath that was loaded with excitement, she did as I asked again.

Her fingers stilled as she looked at the crowd which, for this time of the day, was surprisingly busy.

Because of how her brain worked, I knew that watching the crowd got her hotter than directly touching her clit would.

I let the sight fuck with her head and stepped over to her, keeping my movements silent.

When my hands landed on her hips, she jolted in surprise then moaned when I cupped Bump, explaining, “This place was supposed to be my ‘thank you’ for Bump.”

“It’s an amazing gift. Better than a tower of diapers.”

I snorted. “Yeah, well, I know you better than our sisters.”

She released a hiccupping laugh as I rubbed my fingers over the tautening curve of her belly, and I used my grip on her to encourage her hips backward.

When she was positioned how I wanted her, her palms flat to the glass, I grabbed my cock and slid it through her juices.

Every nudge of her clit had her arching onto tiptoe and gasping with the motion until, taking her aback by thrusting in hard and fast, she released a soft scream.

Behind the bar, the men stilled.

“Surprise,” I breathed into her ear as I loomed over her.

“They can hear us?” she moaned.

“They can.”

Gripping her hips again, I started to thrust into her, rocking back and forth fast enough to make her butt bounce every time I rammed home.

Her moans grew exponentially louder, until I knew they were a part of the show.

The men behind the bar elbowed each other, sniggering when she started to cry out.

Their sniggers, for whatever reason, had her pussy clamping down, and when I reached around to stroke her clit, she cried out again, the orgasm hitting her on the raw.

It went on longer than usual, and I gritted my teeth through it, her pussy making it torture to fight as it clung to my dick, but I powered through, knowing that the next one would make her detonate.

A cry escaped her as I took her through that orgasm, keeping pace, rubbing her clit with one hand, and then, I whispered in her ear, “Do you want them to see you coming around my cock?”

She gasped.

“Do you want them to see your face as you climax?”

Her lips wobbled as a keening cry exploded from her.

As her pussy fluttered, I whispered, “I have the remote in my pocket.” I let go of her hip then grabbed the remote and pressed it to the glass. “Five,” I muttered, my pace increasing as I felt my own climax approach.

“Four.”

She wailed again.

“Three.”

Her body started trembling.

“Two.”

Before I could say, “One,” she screamed out her pleasure, but her fingers clapped over mine to stop me from pushing a button on the remote.

The way she exploded around me had me gritting my teeth as I pummeled her cunt with cum.

“FUCK!” I growled, but it was nearly silent in contrast to her ongoing cries.

The server had jolted in surprise and shot a nervous glance behind her at the noises Nessa made, and because my wife was weird like that, she cried out again, cosseting me with another final orgasm.

As I thrust a couple more times into her, enjoying how her pussy milked my dick, her knees gave out and she almost crumbled to the floor. But I kept her upright, supported her as I stopped rubbing her clit and started, instead, to rub the taut curve of her stomach.

Her breathing started to soften, and feeling her begin to relax, I carefully helped her upright and hauled her into my arms so I could carry her over to the bed.

Gently placing her on the mattress, I ‘unmade’ it as she mumbled, utterly exhausted, “I recognize these sheets.”

“They’re the same as in our apartment.”

She rolled over onto the bed then scurried beneath the comforter.

I toed out of my shoes then dropped my pants to the floor and dragged them off before I joined her, enjoying how she immediately curved into me.

I’d never imagined I’d like that about going to bed, especially as I needed my space, but an inch was too much distance from Inessa.

We had to be skin to skin.

She flopped onto me, her face burrowing into my throat as she whispered, “I really thought you were going to let them see us.”

I smiled up at the ceiling. “I knew you would.”

I grabbed her leg and hooked it higher around my waist then united our hands together, making sure our scars lined up once more.

“You wouldn’t though, would you?”

I didn’t answer, just pressed a kiss to her forehead and tried to tell myself that it’d be bad for business to go and kill those barflies who’d heard her moans. “Get some sleep.”

ELEVEN

EOGHAN

“This place is crazy.” She shot me a look. “It’s near the other family estates, isn’t it? We approached via a different route to surprise me?”

I nodded, answering both questions with that one gesture. “What do you think?”

She pouted. “I thought we were going to a hotel, not a real estate viewing.”

Shooting her a glance, I taunted, “I like to keep you on your toes.”

It was later that same day. I’d had some of our personal effects moved into our room in Elemental, so we’d showered and changed there before heading to upstate New York.

“What’s it for?” she queried, her bewilderment clear.

Snorting, I retorted, “To live in?”

“Thought you liked the city,” she stated as she peered behind one of the doors that led to an en-suite.

“I hate the city.” She cast me a sharp look. “That doesn’t mean it isn’t useful to be there, but this is close by. Plus, it’s near to the rest of the family.”

“Not Victoria,” she pointed out.

“No,” I concurred. “But I’m not suggesting we move out of the penthouse. Just that we use this place too.”

She hummed. “You bought it already, didn’t you?”

I arched a brow. “Your lack of trust hurts me.”

“Ha. Lack of trust, my butt.”

Eyes twinkling, I said wryly, “Sorry to disappoint, but no. I haven’t bought it.”

Her brows lifted. “Are you feeling sick or something?”

I laughed. “Not as far as I know.” Stepping over to me, she pressed a hand to my forehead which prompted me to roll my eyes. “I’m not sick, Nessa.”

“Just checking.” She stared up at me. “Do you think you’ll sleep better here?”

When she cupped my chin, I tilted my head into her hold. “Conor told me this place was on the market last week.

“At first, I wasn’t interested but he sent me the details. I’ve never wanted to live in the country, but it…”

“But it might help,” she tacked on.

I nodded.

“Conor seems to think it would.”

“Apparently,” I drawled. “It might not. I just… I wanted to run it by you first.”

She studied me, her eyes drifting over my face, searching for only God knew what. I didn’t know whether she found it but she murmured, “It’s worth a shot, wouldn’t you say?”

“Only if you want it.”

“I could imagine Bump running around the gardens here.”

“Me too.”

“How would you deal with not being high up?”

God, I loved that she knew me so well.

“There are no strategic vantage points around this area.”

“No places for a shooter to set up?”

“I mean, where there’s a will there’s a way, but not without causing attention and gaining an audience.”

“Would that put you at ease?”

“I’m never at ease,” I admitted.

“I know, sweetheart,” she said on a sigh, her fingers moving higher, tracing my cheekbones and the lines of strain that spread from my eyes and along to my forehead.

“Could you be happy here? Because, more than anything, that’s what matters to me. Happiness isn’t something…” I blew out a breath. “I haven’t earned the right to happiness, but you have. If you can be happy here, then this is where we’ll split our time.”

Her eyes softened, which made it all the more jarring when she asked, “Is this a tactic so I don’t open a storefront in Manhattan?”

I blinked. But I shot her a grin. “That would be a very sneaky move, wouldn’t it?”

She chuckled. “It would.”

“Well, in this instance, I’m not maneuvering.” I pressed a kiss to her temple. “That day when we were in the park and I told you I’d leave you if I worsened, then, after the intervention… it got me to thinking. I make you happy.”

“You do,” she confirmed.

I ignored the relief that buzzed through me at her easy admission to say, “So, I thought, rather than staying somewhere that potentially makes me worse, why not try a change of scenery? I mentioned it to Conor, and well, here we are.

“If you want it, Conor said he and Star will go over the place. Make it safer than a bank vault⁠—”

“Very cozy,” she drawled, nose crinkling.

“There are trees we can grow to make sure we have privacy—” They’d have to be conifers to make sure snipers couldn’t nest in them. “—and that visibility is poor even from above, and…”

She didn’t let me finish, just reached up onto tiptoe and pressed her lips to mine to still me.

Bump got in the way, which I figured was a metaphor for what was going to come, but I didn’t mind.

Bump was Inessa’s. Mine too, but mostly, I hoped, Inessa’s.

She’d always be the best of him.

As her lips drifted, leaving soft, tender pecks to dart across my mouth, she whispered, “Whatever you need, we’ll make it happen.”

“That isn’t fair to you,” I rumbled, reaching down to cup her butt and haul her into me.

With Bump, that wasn’t close enough, and she yelped when I hauled her higher so that her knees were on either side of my hips.

“I knew it was a smart move to wear pants today,” she joked a little breathlessly.

“I hate when you wear pants,” I groused.

“You just like easy access.”

“Always.” I arched a brow. “Do I look like a moron?”

She grinned. “I won’t answer that.”

I just snorted.

Her grin slowly faded as she peered directly into my eyes this time, no height difference making it awkward. “I mean it, Eoghan.”

“Sometimes, I’m scared for you.”

The admission was torn from me.

Ripped from my soul.

“Why?” she asked quietly, her gaze judgment-free and gentle as she studied me. “Your mission is to keep me safe, not to hurt me, love. I don’t see why you’d ever think you were a danger to me.”

“I think it’s just the PTSD.” I rocked my head. “I’d die before I let anything happen to you, but sometimes, my mind just wanders.”

“To where?”

“Dark and miserable places that I never want you to know about.”

Places where she suffered for my deeds.

She reached up and threaded her fingers through my hair. “Maybe it’s time you went back to church, Eoghan.”

I blew out a breath because that had all stopped when Da died.

The O’Donnellys and the Catholic Church had broken ties, and while I knew confession was good for me, I’d never tried to go back to the old ways because my faith had long since died a death.

You couldn’t kill as often as I did and not have a fractured soul.

Faith wasn’t glue.

It couldn’t put those pieces back together again.

I didn’t particularly want it to, but I knew where she was coming from.

“Hear me out,” she told me, “you can’t go see a therapist, but you can go to confession.

“All the priests need is a good donation to the roof fund and that’s it, you can get things off your chest without fear of incriminating yourself.”

Then, she threw down the big guns.

“If you won’t do it for yourself, do it for Bump and me. We need you, baby. We need you.”

Those words slipped under my reserves and tore into me.

I cleared my throat. “I’ll go this week.”

“You won’t have to see Father Doyle,” she teased gently.

“There is a God,” I mumbled.

Doyle had died a year after his beloved St. Patrick’s church had been destroyed.

Rather than talk about that old bastard, or about confession and the various sins that’d probably take me six months to atone for once I finally spilled all my secrets to a priest, I asked, “Do you like this house?”

“It’s big, isn’t it?”

I shrugged. “O’Donnellys only do big.”

A cackle escaped her. “Don’t I know it.”

My lips twitched. “Minx.”

She beamed a smile at me. “There will only be three of us rolling around this massive place.”

“Not for long. You know what the family’s like. They’ll come and bring their kids and there’ll be sleepovers and all kinds of shit so the cousins can bond.” I grunted. “It’s going to be hell.”

“Poor baby,” she mocked, but I knew she was laughing at me. “I’ll buy extra Lysol for those days.”

“And Clorox. Plenty of Clorox.” I heaved a sigh. “If you don’t like this place, then⁠—”

“Why did you show me this house? Not another one?”

“Because it came on the market.”

“Is that the only reason?”

“Thought you’d like the indoor pool.” I shrugged again. “And there’s a nook in the yard.”

“What kind of nook?”

“It’s some kind of new age meditation hut or some bullshit. It has a roof so I figured we could fuck out there.”

She snickered. “I love how you’re finding new places for us to make love.”

“Bump will change things.”

“He will,” she murmured. “Is that bad?”

“He’s yours. Nothing you do could be bad.”

A shaky breath soughed from her before she pressed her lips to mine.

As I sank into the kiss, I recognized that, every day, I came to know her better.

Every day, I learned something else about her.

But that didn’t mean parts of her wouldn’t remain an enigma to me.

I knew I’d spend the rest of my life trying to figure her out, and that was a challenge I looked forward to.

She was, did she but know it, my gift.

After years of selling my soul to the Armed Forces, then to my father, she was my sanctuary.

“You’re too good to me.”

Her words jarred me from my thoughts.

“Not possible.” I pulled back before she could argue and asked, “This house? Nay or yay?”

“Where’s the realtor?

“Waiting in her car outside. I told her I didn’t want her hovering.”

“And she listened?”

“I can be persuasive,” I drawled.

She hummed. “Yes, you can be what you choose to be.” A gleam appeared in her eyes. “How do you feel about testing out the nook?”

“Try before we buy?” I asked, quirking a brow at her.

She grinned. “Exactly.”

TWELVE

INESSA

The day Bump came, I was pretty sure he knew that if he didn’t take it easy on me, it would kill his papa.

That sounded crazy, but it was true nonetheless.

All the nurses kept on saying how quickly the birth was progressing for a first child and how easy it was. How Bump seemed ready to arrive before even we were.

The only hiccups were between Eoghan and me, not during labor.

We argued when I refused an epidural, and Eoghan almost stepped out of the room when I told him it was my body and my choice.

The second he made to leave, I burst into tears, and he gritted his teeth, returning to my side with a grimace.

Not another word was said about me not having an epidural, but his hand tightened, clamping around mine every time a contraction hit, and he let me abuse his fingers as I screamed through the pain.

With no epidural, it hurt, no word of a lie. I felt like I was being torn in two—which, I guessed, a part of me kind of was.

But it was worth it when Bump was laid in my arms.

When I felt his solid weight against my chest.

He’d been a late baby—I’d had to deal with going six days over my due date—but like his father, when he arrived, he did so in style.

“I can’t believe you wanted me to have a caesarean,” I grumbled as I stared at the pink and white head with the crinkled features staring up at me.

Right now, Bump had a face only his mama would love, but that was fine.

He was all mine.

Well, ours.

But Eoghan had said it himself—Bump was the best parts of me.

“Why would you want to be in pain?” he demanded, even as he was staring down at our kid as if he were the inventor of bleach, my husband’s favorite product in the world.

He had his hands behind his back as he leaned over, peering into the bundle like he was curious, but not that curious where he wanted to touch.

For a man who wasn’t squeamish but whose quirks were severe, I knew all the gunk around Bump had to be discomforting. A part of me just wanted him to get over it, even as another part was grateful that I got to have Bump all to myself for a while.

“I didn’t want to be in pain but I didn’t want to miss out on anything.”

He glared at me. “What were you going to miss out on? A nurse sticking his head between your legs?”

My lips twitched. “Still pissed about that, huh?”

He sniffed. “I asked for a woman nurse.”

I tucked my face against Bump to hide my smile. “I’m surprised you didn’t try to do it yourself.”

“I would have if I could.”

“You’re telling me you don’t know how to help a woman during labor?”

“Of course, but I’m not the best, and that’s all you and Bump will ever get.”

It felt like an orange had lodged itself in my throat.

He always said the most amazing things as nonchalantly as if he were telling me the time.

“Maybe you’d be the best for us,” I said softly.

“If I fucked up, I’d never forgive myself.”

“That’s why I didn’t want an epidural,” I blurted out as I gently rocked my baby. A baby that felt like he’d never get here. “There are potential side effects, and I wasn’t about to risk anything.”

Whether my husband liked to admit it or not, whether he thought he could walk away for my benefit or not—yes, all these months later, I was still smarting over that—Eoghan needed me.

I mean, I needed him too, so it was a fair exchange, but without me, and now Bump, Eoghan would fade away. The work would take a hold of his soul and would eat him up from the inside out.

I wished like hell he could get out of it, away from the job, but I knew that wasn’t a possibility. Not for a long while.

So I had to be around.

I had to be healthy; I had to stay safe.

If I didn’t, he’d make the walking dead look vivacious. I loved him too much to consign him to a fate like that.

“I’d prefer for you not to be in pain.”

“Women have been doing it without pain relief for millennia.”

“They were also wiping their asses with leaves. Do you want to regress that far too?”

I huffed at him, well aware he was smirking at me even as he was still studying Bump.

After a couple of minutes of us just looking at our baby, I whispered, “I want to name him⁠—”

“Feliks.”

His interruption had my eyes widening, not just with surprise but happiness too. “That’s a Russian name!” I knew it was because of the intonation on the ‘-ks.’

His lips didn’t curve; his stoic and serious expression didn’t break. “He’s the best parts of you, isn’t he? Those parts are Russian too.”

My throat closed. “Thank you, Eoghan.”

I’d been so sure he’d want to go with an Irish name.

Peeping a glance at him, I whispered, “Feliks Padraig O’Donnelly.”

His lips curved. “You just want Padraig to wet the baby’s head.”

Knowing that it was highly likely our family had already consumed vodka and whiskey and were smoking cigars in the waiting room, I just grinned. “I think that’s happening as we speak.”

“Feliks Padraig O’Donnelly.” He nodded. “I like it.”

Feeling a little weepy, I asked softly, “I know he’s kind of gross right now, but would you like to hold him?”

“I might break him.”

“You’re not the Hulk. Anyway, you’re his dad. He needs to know what you smell like.”

He stared at me uneasily. “Do I smell bad?”

“No.” I snorted. “You smell like Eoghan.”

Clean. So clean. Beyond clean even after four hours in a labor ward.

I wasn’t sure how he did it, but he was as pristine now as he’d been when he’d stormed in here, shouting orders like he was a general arranging his troops.

I had to figure the family had made a massive donation to the hospital for them to agree to be bossed around by my husband.

What could I say?

Money talked.

“I might drop him.”

“You bench press more than I weigh. I think you can handle seven pounds.”

“What if he doesn’t like me?”

“He’ll cry and Mama will make it all better.” I smiled up at him, aware there were stars in my eyes from looking at Feliks.

My stoic husband appeared terrified.

He’d gone to warzones, had killed more people in real life than most did in a video game, and yet, Feliks scared him.

Swallowing, Eoghan reached down and placed his hands on the swaddle.

Delving beneath Feliks’ neck as he supported his head, fingers curling around it to better brace him, he lifted him up.

For a second, I held my breath.

For a second, I just watched as my husband stared at our baby.

If I hadn’t frozen, I’d never have seen the faintest tremble of his lips as Feliks opened his eyes to stare dazedly at his daddy.

And if I hadn’t frozen, I’d never have fallen head over heels in love with my husband all over again.

Why?

Because, when my OCD-stricken, germaphobe of a spouse bowed his head and pressed his lips to the blood-smeared, gunk-covered forehead of our newborn, that was me—a goner.

If you’d like to read the story of how Eoghan and Inessa met, you might enjoy FILTHY RICH: www.books2read.com/FilthyRich

Continue reading to grab another free book and to read the first couple chapters of the first book in the series: FILTHY!

THE CROSSOVER READING ORDER WITH THE SINNERS & VALENTINIS

FILTHY

FILTHY SINNER

NYX

LINK

FILTHY RICH

SIN

STEEL

FILTHY DARK

CRUZ

MAVERICK

FILTHY SEX

HAWK

FILTHY HOT

STORM

THE DON

THE LADY

FILTHY SECRET

REX

RACHEL

FILTHY KING

FILTHY DISCIPLE

THE CONSIGLIERE

THE ORACLE

LODESTAR

SILENCED

END GAME

FILTHY RICHER

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Secrets & Lies is now free!

Meg’s love life was missing a spark until she discovered her need to be dominated. When her fiancé shared the same kink, she thought all her birthdays had come at once, and then she came to learn their relationship was one big fat lie.

Gabe has loved Meg for years, watching her from afar, and always wishing he’d been the one to date her first and not his brother. When he has the chance to have Meg in his bed—even better, tied to it—it’s an opportunity he can’t refuse.

With disastrous consequences.

Can Gabe make Meg realize she’s the one woman he’s always wanted? But once secrets and lies have wormed their way into a relationship, is it impossible to establish the firm base of trust needed between lovers, and more importantly, between sub and Sir…?

This story features orgasm control in a BDSM setting.

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FILTHY

ONE

FINN

Obsessive habits weren’t alien to me.

They were as much a part of me as my coal-dark hair and my diamond-blue eyes. Ingrained as they were, it didn’t mean they weren’t irritating as fuck.

As I rifled through the folder on the table in front of me, staring down at the life of one pesky tenant, I wanted to toss it in the trash. I truly did.

I wanted not to be interested in her.

Wanted my focus to return to the matter at hand—business.

But there was something about her.

Something. . .

Irish.

I was a sucker for my own people. When I was a kid, I’d only dated other Irish girls in my class, and though I’d become less discerning about nationality and had grown more interested in tits and ass, I’d thought that desire had died down.

But Aoife Keegan was undeniably, indefatigably Irish.

From her fucking name—I didn’t know people still named their kids in Gaelic over here—to her red goddamn hair and milky-white skin.

To many, she wouldn’t be sexy. Too pale, too curvy, too rounded and wholesome. But to me? It was like God had formed a creature that was born to be my downfall.

I could feel the beast inside me roaring to life as I stared at the photos of her. It wanted out. It wanted her.

Fuck.

“I told you not to get those briefs.”

My eyes flared wide in surprise at my brother, Aidan O'Donnelly’s remark. “What?” I snapped.

“I told you not to get those briefs,” he repeated, unoffended. Which was a miracle. Had I been speaking to Aidan Sr., I’d probably have lost a finger, but Aidan Jr. was one of my best friends, as well as a confidant and fellow businessman.

When I said business, it wasn’t the kind Valley girls dreamed their future husbands would be involved in. No Manhattan socialite, though we were wealthy as fuck, would want us on their arm if they truly knew what games we were involved in.

My business was forged, unashamedly, in blood, sweat, and tears.

Preferably not my own, although I had taken a few hits for the Family over the years.

“My briefs aren’t irritating me,” I carried on, blowing out a breath.

“No? You look like you’ve got something up your ass crack.” Aidan cocked a brow at me, but his smirk told me he knew exactly what the fuck was wrong.

I flipped him the bird—the finger that I’d have lost by showing cheek to his father—and he just grinned at me as he leaned over my glass desk and scooped up one of the pictures.

That beast I mentioned earlier?

It roared to life again when his eyes drifted over Aoife’s curvy form.

“She’s like your kryptonite,” he breathed, tilting his head to the side. “Fuck me, Finn.”

“I’d rather not,” I told him dryly. “Now her? Yeah. I’d fuck her anytime.”

He wafted a dismissive hand at my teasing. “I knew from that look in your eye, there was a woman involved. I just didn’t know it would be a looker like this.”

I snatched the photo from him. “Mine.”

My growl had him snickering. “The Old Country ain’t where I get my women from, Finn. Simmer down.”

Throat tightening, I grated out, “What the fuck am I going to do?”

“Screw her?” he suggested.

“I can’t.”

He snorted. “You can.”

“How the fuck am I supposed to get her in my bed when I’m about to bribe her into selling off her commercial lot?”

Aidan shrugged. “Do the bribing after.”

That had me blowing out a breath. “You’re a bastard, you know that, right?”

Piously, he murmured, “My parents were well and truly married before I came along. I have the wedding and birth certificates to prove it.” He grinned. “Anyway, you’re only just figuring that out?”

I shot him a scowl. “You’re remarkably cheerful today.”

“Is that a question or a statement?”

“Both?” The word sounded far too Irish for my own taste. My mother had come from Ireland, Tipperary to be precise—yeah, like the song. I was American born and bred, my accent that of someone who’d been raised in Hell’s Kitchen but, and I hated it, my mother’s accent would make an appearance every now and then.

‘Both’ came out sounding almost like ‘boat.’

Aidan, knowing me as well as he did, smirked again—the fucker. “I got laid.”

Grunting, I told him, “That doesn’t usually make you cheerful.”

“It does. I just never see you first thing after I wake up. Da hasn’t managed to piss me off today.”

Aidan was the heir to the Five Points—an Irish gang who operated out of Hell’s Kitchen. It wasn’t like being the heir to a candy company or a title. It came with responsibilities that no one really appreciated.

We were tied into the life, though. Had been since the day we were born.

There was no use in whining over it, and Aidan wasn’t. But if I had to deal with his father on a daily basis? I’d have been whining to the morgue and back.

Aidan Sr. was the shrewdest man I knew. What the man could do with our clout defied belief. Even if I thought he was a sociopath, he had my respect, and in truth, my love and loyalty.

Bastard or no, he’d taken me in when I was fourteen and had made me one of his family. I’d gone from being his kids’ friend, the son of one of his runners, to suddenly being welcome in the main house.

All because Aidan Sr.—though I was sure he was certifiable—believed in family.

I shot Aidan Jr. a look. “Was it that blonde over on Canal Street?”

He rubbed his chin. “Yeah.”

Snorting, I told him, “Hope you wore a rubber. I swear that woman has so many men going in and out of her door, it should be on double-action hinges.”

He scowled at me. “Are you trying to piss me off?”

“Why? Didn’t wear a jimmy?” I grinned at him, my mood soaring in the face of his irritation. “Better get to the clinic before it drops off.”

Though he flipped me the bird as easily as I’d done to him—I was his brother, after all—he grumbled, “What are you going to do about little Aoife?”

I squinted at him. “She’s not little.”

That seemed to restore his humor. “I know. Just how you like them.” He shook his head. “You and Conor, I swear. What do you do with them? Drown yourself in their tits?”

Heaving a sigh, I informed him, “My predilection for large tits is none of your business.”

“And whether or not I wore a jimmy last night is none of yours.”

“If it turns green and looks like a moldy corn on the cob, who you gonna call?”

“Ghostbusters?” he tried.

I shook my head, then pointed a finger at him and back at myself. “No. Me.”

Grunting, he got to his feet and pressed his fists to the desk. “We need that building, Finn.”

“The business development plan was mine, Aid. I know we need it. Don’t worry, I won’t do anything stupid.”

He snorted. “Your kind of stupid could go one of two ways.”

That had me narrowing my eyes at him, but he held up his hands in surrender.

“Fuck her out of your system quickly, and then get started on the deal,” he advised. “Best way.”

It probably was the best way, but⁠—

He sighed. “That fucking honor of yours.”

I had to laugh. Only in the O'Donnelly family would my thoughts be considered honorable.

“If I’m fucking someone over, I want them to know it,” was all I said.

“That makes no sense.”

“Makes for epic sex, though,” I jibed, and he shot me a grin.

“Angry sex is always good.” He rubbed his chin, then he reached over again and flipped through the photos. “Who’s the old guy to her?”

“To her? Not sure. Sugar daddy?” The thought alone made the beast inside rage. I cleared my throat to get rid of the rasp there. “To us? He’s our meal ticket.”

Aidan’s eyes widened. “He is?”

I nodded. “Just leave it to me.”

“I was always going to, deartháir.” He tilted his chin at me, honoring me with the Gaelic word for brother. “Be careful out there.”

“You, too, brother.”

Aidan winked at me and, with a far too cheerful whistle for someone whose dick might soon be ‘ribbed for her pleasure’ without the need for a condom, walked out of my office leaving me to brood.

The instant his back was to me, I stared at the photos again. Flipping through them, I glowered at the innocent face staring back at me through the photo paper—if only she knew.

Hers was a building in Hell’s Kitchen. Five Points Territory. One of many on my hit list.

Back in the 70s, Aidan Sr., following in his father’s footsteps, had bought up a shit-ton of property, pre-gentrification, and it was my job to either sell off the portfolio, reconstruct, or ‘improve’ the current aesthetics of the buildings the Points owned.

This particular one was something I’d taken a personal interest in.

See, I was technically a legitimate businessman.

This office?

I had views of the Hudson. I could see the Empire State Building, and in the evening, I had an epic view of the sunset setting over Manhattan. This office building, also Points’ property, was worth a cool hundred million, and I was, again technically, the CEO of it.

On paper?

I looked seamless.

The businessman who sported hundred thousand dollar watches and had a house in the Hamptons. No one save the Points and my CPA knew where the money came from. I liked that because, fuck, I had no intention of switching this pad for a lock-up in Riker’s Island.

Still, this project cut close to home, and the reasoning was fucking pathetic.

I’d never admit it to any of the O'Donnellys. The bastards were like family to me, and if I admitted to this, they’d never let me hear the end of it.

Extortion?

I usually doled that out to someone else’s to do list. Someone with a far lower paygrade than me, someone expendable. But the minute I’d heard of the troublesome tenant who was refusing to sell her lot to us? After not one, not two, not even three attempts with higher prices?

Five outright refusals?

The challenge to convince her otherwise had overtaken me.

See, I liked stubborn in women.

I liked fucking it out of them.

Throw in the fact the woman’s name was Aoife? It had been enough to get me sending someone out to follow her.

If she’d been fifty with as many chins as she had grandchildren, she’d have been safe from me.

But she wasn’t.

She was, as Aidan had correctly stated, my kryptonite. All milky flesh with gleaming auburn hair that I wanted to tie around my clenched fist. Her soft features with those delicate green eyes that sparkled when she smiled and were like wet grass when she was mad, acted like a punch to my gut.

Now?

My interest hadn’t just been piqued.

It had fucking imploded.

Yeah, I was thinking with my cock, but what man, at the end of the day, didn’t?

I’d just have to be careful. Just have to make sure I put pressure on the right places, make sure she’d bend and not break, and the old bastard in the pictures was my key to just that.

See, every third Tuesday of the month, Aoife Keegan had a habit of traipsing across Manhattan to the Upper East Side. There, at three PM on the dot, she’d enter a discreet little boutique hotel and wouldn’t leave until nine PM that night.

Five minutes after she arrived and left, the same man would leave, too.

At first, when Jimmy O’Leary had told me that Senator Alan Davidson was at the hotel, I hadn’t thought anything of it.

Why would I?

Senators trawled for donations in fancy hotels every fucking day of the week. It was the true luxury of politics. Sure, they made it look real good for the press. Posing in derelict neighborhoods and shaking hands with people who did the fucking work . . . all while they lived it up large with women half their age in two thousand dollar a night suites.

My mouth firmed at that.

Was Aoife selling herself to the Senator?

The thought pissed me off.

I couldn’t see why she’d do such a thing. Not when I’d looked into her finances, had seen just how secure she was. But maybe that was why. Maybe the Senator was funneling money to her.

The only problem was that the lot Aoife owned—did I mention it was owned outright? Yeah, that was enough to chafe my suspicions, too, considering she was only twenty-fucking-five years old—was a teashop in a small building in a questionable area of HK.

I mean, come on. I loved Hell’s Kitchen. It was home. But fuck. Where she was? What kind of Senator would put his fancy piece in that?

My jaw clenched as I studied the Senator’s and Aoife’s smiling faces as they left the hotel. Separately, of course. But whatever they’d been doing together, it sure put a Cheshire Cat grin on their chops–that was for fucking sure. Jimmy being a dumbass, hadn’t put the two together, had just remarked on the ‘coincidence,’ but I was no fool.

How did I know they were together in the hotel?

Jimmy had been trailing Aoife for four months—told you I was obsessive—and every third Tuesday, come rain or shine, this little routine had jumped out, and when Jimmy had picked up on the fact Davidson had been there each and every time, I’d gotten my hands dirty, bribed one of the hotel maids myself—and fuck, that had been hard. Turned out that place made even the maids sign NDA agreements, but everyone had a price—and I’d found out that my little obsession shared a suite with the old prick.

My fingers curled into fists as I stared at her. Butter wouldn’t fucking melt. She was the epitome of innocence. Like a redheaded angel. Could she really be lifting her skirts for that old fucker? Just so she could own a teashop?

Something didn’t make sense, and fuck, if that didn’t intrigue me all the more.

Aoife Keegan had snared one of the biggest, nastiest sharks in Manhattan.

She just didn’t know it yet.

TWO

AOIFE

“We need more scones for tomorrow. I keep telling you four dozen isn’t enough.”

Lifting a hand at my waitress and friend, Jenny, I mumbled, “I know, I know.”

“If you know, then why the hell don’t you listen?” Jenny complained, making me grin.

“Because I’m the one who has to make them? Making half that again is just . . .” I sighed.

I loved my job.

I did.

I adored baking—my butt and hips attested to that fact—and making a career out of my passion was something every twenty-something hoped for. Especially in one of the most expensive cities in the world. But sheesh. There was only so much one person could do, and this was still, essentially, a one-woman-band.

With the threat of Acuig Corp looming over me, I didn’t feel safe hiring extra staff. I’d held them off for close to six months now. Six months of them trying to tempt me to leave, to sell up. They’d raised their prices to ten percent above market value, whereas with everyone else in the building, they’d just offered what the apartments were truly worth. Considering this place wasn’t the nicest in the block, that wasn’t much.

Most people hadn’t held out because, hell, why wouldn’t they want to live elsewhere?

Those who were landlords hadn’t felt any issue in tossing their tenants out on the street. The tenants grumbled, but when did they ever have any rights, anyway?

For myself, this was where my mom and I had worked to⁠—

I brought that thought to a shuddering halt.

Mom was dead now.

I had to remember that. This was on me, not her.

My throat thickened with tears as I turned to Jenny and murmured, “I’ll try better tomorrow.”

The words had her frowning at me. “Babe, you know I’m not the boss here, right?”

Lips curving, I whispered, “I know. But you’re so scary.”

She snickered then peered down at herself. “Yeah, I bet I’d make grown men cry.”

Maybe for a taste of her. . . .

Jenny was everything I wasn’t.

She was slender, didn’t dip her hand into the cookie jar at will—the woman had more willpower than I did hips, and my hips seemed to go on forever—and her face looked like it belonged on the cover of a fashion magazine. Even her hair was enough to inspire envy. It was black and straight as a ruler.

Mine?

Bright red and curly like a bitch. I had to straighten it out every morning if I didn’t want to look like little orphan Annie.

I’d once read that curly-haired women straightened their hair for special events, and that straight-haired women curled theirs in turn, but I called bullshit.

Curly-haired women lived with their straightening irons surgically attached to their hands.

At least, I did.

My rat’s nest was like a ginger afro. Maybe Beyoncé could make that work, but I sure as hell didn’t have the bone structure.

“I think grown men would cry,” I told her dryly, “if you asked them to.”

She pshawed, but there was a twinkle in her eye that I understood. . . . She agreed with me, knew it was true, but wasn’t going to admit it. With anyone else, she might have. She had an ego–that was for damn sure. But with me? I think she figured I was zero competition, so she felt no need to rub salt in the wound, too.

I plunked my elbows on the counter and stared around my domain as she bustled off and started clearing the tables. It was her last duty of the day, and my feet were aching so damn bad that I didn’t even have it in me to care.

This owning your own business shit?

It wasn’t easy.

Not saying I didn’t love it, but it was hard.

I slept like four hours a night, and when I wasn’t in bed, I was here. All the time.

Baking, cooking, serving, and smiling. Always smiling. Even if I was so sleep-deprived I could sob.

Jenny’s actually a life saver.

My mom used to be front of house before. . . .

I sucked down a breath.

I had to get used to thinking about it.

She wasn’t here anymore, but just avoiding all thoughts of her period wasn’t working for me. It was like I was purposely forgetting her, and, well, fuck that.

She’d always wanted to have a teashop. It had been her one true dream. Back in Ireland, when she was a little girl, her grandmother had owned one in Limerick. Mom had caught the bug and had wanted to have one here in the States. But not only was it too fucking expensive for a woman on her own, it was also impossible with my feckless father at her side.

I didn’t want to think about him either, though.

Why?

Because the feckless father who’d pretty much ruined my mother’s life, wasn’t the only father in my life. My biological dad hadn’t exactly cared about her happiness, but once he’d come to know about me, he’d tried. That was more than could be said for the man who’d lived with me throughout my early childhood.

“You look gloomy.”

Jenny’s statement had me blinking in surprise. She had a ton of dishes piled in her arms, and I’d have worried for the expensive china if I hadn’t known she was an old pro at this shit. Just as I was.

We could probably earn a Guinness World Record on how many dishes we could take back and forth to the kitchen of Ellie’s Tea Rooms. I swear, I had guns because of all that hefting. My biceps were probably the firmest part of my body.

More’s the pity.

I’d have preferred an ass you could bounce dimes off of, but, when it boiled down to it, there was no way in this universe I could live without cake.

Just wasn’t going to happen.

My big butt wasn’t going anywhere until scientists could make zero calorie eclairs and pies.

“I’m not glum.”

“No? Then why are your eyes sad?”

Were they? I pursed my lips as I let the ‘sad eyes’ drift around the tea room. I wish I could say it was all forged on my own hard work, but it wasn’t. Not really.

“I was just thinking about Mom.”

“Oh, honey,” Jenny said sadly, and she carefully placed all the dishes on the counter, so she could round it and curve her arm around my waist. “It was only seven months ago. Of course, you were thinking of her.”

“I just—” I blew out a breath. “I don’t know if I’m doing what she’d want.”

“You can’t live for her choices, sweetness. You have to do what you think is right for you.”

I gnawed at my bottom lip again. “I-I know, but she was always there for me. A guiding light. With Fiona gone and her, too? I don’t really know what I’m doing with myself.”

This business wasn’t something that made me want to get up on a morning. It was my mom’s dream, her goal. Every decision I made, I tried to remember how she’d longed for a place like this, but it wasn’t my passion. It was hers, and I was trying to keep that dream alive while fretting over the fact my heart wasn’t in it.

“I think you’re doing a damn fine job. You have a very successful teashop. Your cakes are raved about. Have you visited our TripAdvisor page recently? Or our Yelp?” She squeaked. “I swear, you’re making this place a tourist hotspot. I don’t think Fiona or Michelle could be more proud of you if they tried.”

The baking shit, yeah, that was all on me, but the other stuff? The finances?

I’d caved in.

I’d caved where my mom had always refused in the past.

With the accident had come a lot of medical bills that I just hadn’t been able to afford. Without her help, I’d had to take on extra staff, and out of nowhere, my expenses had added up.

Mom had been so proud of this place, so ferociously gleeful that we’d done it by ourselves, and yet, here I was, financially free for the first time in my life, and I still felt like I was drowning because my freedom went entirely against her wishes.

“Is this to do with Acuig? I know they’re still pestering you.”

Jenny’s statement had me wincing. Acuig were the bottom feeders who wanted to snap up this building, demolish it, and then replace it with a skyscraper. Don’t get me wrong, the building was foul, but a lot of people lived here, and the minute it morphed into some exclusive condo, no one from around here would be able to afford to live in it.

It would become yuppy central.

I’d rejected all their offers to buy my tea room even though I didn’t want the damn thing, not really. Mostly I wanted to keep mom’s goals alive and kicking, but also, it pissed me off the way Acuig were changing Hell’s Kitchen. Ratcheting up prices, making it unaffordable for the everyday man and woman—the people I’d grown up with—and bringing a shit-ton of banker-wankers and 1%ers to the area.

So, maybe I’d watched Erin Brockovich a time or two as a kid and had a social conscience . . . Wasn’t the worst thing to possess, right?

“Aoife?” Jenny stated, making me look over at her. “Is Acuig pressuring you?”

I winced, realizing I hadn’t answered—Jenny was my friend, but she also worked here and relied on the paycheck. It wasn’t fair of me to keep her hanging like that. “They upped the sales price. I guess that isn’t helping,” I admitted, frowning down at my hands.

Unlike Jenny who had her nails manicured, mine were cut neatly and plain. I had no rings on my fingers, and wore no watch or bracelets because my wrists were usually deep in flour or sugar bags.

I spent most of my life right where I wanted it—behind the shopfront. That had slowly morphed where I was doing double the work to compensate for Mom’s loss.

Was it any wonder I was feeling a little out of my league?

I was coping without Fiona, grieving Mom, working without her, too, and then practically living in the kitchens here. I didn’t exactly have that much of a life. I had nothing cheerful on the horizon, either.

Well, nothing except for next Tuesday, and that wasn’t enough to turn my frown upside down.

The money was a temptation. I didn’t need to sell up and start working on my own goals, but that just loaded me down with more guilt and made me feel like a really shitty daughter.

Jenny squeezed me in a gentle hug. But as I turned to speak to her, the bell above the door rang as it opened. We both jerked in surprise—each of us apparently thinking the other had locked up when neither of us had—and turned to face the entrance.

On the brink of telling the client we were closed for the day, my mouth opened then shut.

Standing there, amid the frilly, lacy curtains, was the most masculine man I’d ever seen in my life.

And I meant that.

It was like a thousand aftershave models had morphed into one handsome creature that had just walked through my door.

At my side, I could feel Jenny’s ‘hot guy radar’ flare to life, and for once, I couldn’t damn well blame her.

This guy was . . . well, he was enough to make me choke on my words and splutter to a halt.

The tea room was all girly femininity. It was sophisticated enough to appeal to businesswomen with its mauve, taupe, and cream-toned hues, and the ethereal watercolors that decorated the walls. But the tablecloths were lacy, and the china dishes and cake stands we used were the height of Edwardian elegance.

Moms brought their little girls here for their birthday, and high-powered executives spilled dirt on their lovers with their girlfriends over scones and clotted cream—breaking their diets as they discussed the boyfriends who had broken their hearts.

The man, whoever the hell he was, was dressed to impress in a navy suit with the finest pinstripe. It was close to a silver fleck, and I could see, even from this distance, that it was hand tailored. I’d seen custom tailoring before, and only a trained eye could get a suit cut so perfectly to this man’s form.

With wide shoulders that looked like they could take the weight of the world, a long, lean frame that was enhanced by strong muscles evident through the close fit of his pants and jacket, then the silkiness of his shirt which revealed delineated abs when his bright gold and scarlet tie flapped as he moved, the guy was hot.

With a capital H.

“How can we help, sir?” Jenny purred, and despite my own awe, I had to dip my chin to hide my smile.

Even if I wanted to throw my hat into this particular man’s game, there was no way he’d choose me over Jenny. Fuck, I’d screw her, and I wasn’t even a lesbian. Not even a teensy bit bi. I’d gone shopping with her enough to have seen her ass, and I promise you, it’s biteable.

So, nope. I didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of this Adonis seeing me when Jenny was in the room.

Yet. . . .

When I’d controlled my smile, I looked over at the man, and his focus was on me.

My breath stuttered to a halt.

Why wasn’t his gaze glued to Jenny?

Why weren’t those ice-white blue eyes fixated on my best friend’s tits, which Jenny helpfully plumped up as she preened at my side?

For a second, I was so close to breaking out into a coughing fit, it was humiliating. Then, more humiliation struck in a quieter manner, but it was nevertheless rotten—I turned pink.

Now, you might think you know what a blush is. You might think you’ve even experienced it yourself a time or two. But I was a redhead. My skin made fresh milk look yellow, and even my fucking freckles were pale. Everything about me was like I’d been dunked into white wax.

But as the heat crawled over me, taking over my skin as the man looked at me without pause, I knew things had rarely been this dire.

See, with Jenny as a best friend, I was used to the attention going her way. I could hide in the background, hide in her shadow. I liked it there. I was comfortable there. Sometimes, on double dates, she’d drag me along, and even the guy supposed to be dating me would be gaping at Jenny. As pathetic as it was, I was so used to it, it didn’t bother me.

But now?

I just wasn’t used to being in the spotlight.

Especially not a man like this one’s spotlight.

When you’re a teenager, practicing with your mom’s blush for the first time, you always look like a tomato that’s been left out in the sun, right?

I was redder than that.

I could feel it. I could fucking feel the heat turning me tomato red.

When Jenny cleared her throat, I thanked God when it broke the man’s attention. He shot her a look, but it wasn’t admiring. It wasn’t even impressed.

If anything, it was irritated.

Okay, so now both Jenny and I were stunned.

Fuck that, we were floored.

Literally.

Our mouths were doing a pretty good fish impression as the man turned back to look at me.

Shit, was this some kind of joke?

Was it April 1st and I’d just gotten the dates mixed up again?

“Ms. Keegan?”

Oh fuck. His voice.

Oh. My. God.

That voice.

It was. . . .

I had to swallow.

Did men even talk like that?

It was low and husky and raspy and made me think of sex, not just mediocre sex, but the best sex. Toe-curling, nails-breaking-in-the-sheets sex. Sex so fucking good you couldn’t walk the next day. Sex so hot that it made my current core temperature look polar in comparison. Sex that I’d never been lucky to have before, so I pined for it in the worst way.

Jenny nudged me in the side when I just carried on gaping at the man. “Y-Yes. That’s me.” I cleared my throat, feeling nervous and stupid and flustered as I wiped my hands on my apron.

Sweet Jesus.

Was this man really looking for me while I was wearing a goddamn pinafore?

Even as practical as they were, I wanted to beg the patron saint of pinnies to remove it from me. To do something, anything, to make sure that this man didn’t see me in the red gingham check that I always wore to cover up stains.

And then I felt it.

Jenny’s hand.

Tugging at the knot.

I wanted to kiss her. Seriously. I wanted to give her a fucking raise! As I moved away from the counter and her side, the apron dropped to the floor as I headed for the man whose hand was now held out, ready for me to shake in greeting.

There are those moments in your life when you know you’ll never forget them. They can be happy or sad, annoying or exhilarating. This was one of them.

As I slipped my hand into his, I felt the electric shocks down to my core. Meeting his gaze wasn’t hard because I was stunned, and I needed to know if he’d felt that, too.

From the way those eyelids were shielding his icy-blue eyes, I figured he was just as surprised.

It was like a satisfied puma was watching me. One that was happy there was plump prey prancing around in front of him.

Shit.

Did I just describe myself as ‘plump prey?’

And like that, my house of cards came tumbling down because what the hell would this man want with me?

I was seeing things.

God, I was so stupid sometimes.

I cleared my throat for, like, the fourth damn time, and asked, “I’m Ms. Keegan. You are?”

His smile, when it appeared, was as charming as the rest of him. His teeth were white, but not creepy, reality-TV-star white. They were straight except for one of his canines, which tilted in slightly. In his perfect face, it was one flaw that I almost clung to. Because with that wide brow, the hair so dark it looked like black silk that was cut closely to his head with a faint peak at his forehead, the strong nose, and even stronger jaw, I needed something imperfect to focus on.

Then, I sucked down a breath and remembered what Fiona had told me once upon a time. When I’d been nervous about asking Jamie Winters to homecoming, she’d advised me in her soft Irish lilt, “Lass, that boy takes a dump just like you do. He uses the bathroom twice a day and undoubtedly leaves a puddle on the floor for his ma to clean up. I bet he’s puked a time or two as well. Had diarrhea and the good Lord only knows what else. Just you think that the next time you see that boy and want to ask him out.”

Yeah. It was gross, but fuck, it had worked. Her advice had worked so well I hadn’t asked anyone out because I could only think of them using the damn toilet!

Still, looking at this Adonis, there was no imagining that.

Surely, gods didn’t use the bathroom.

Did they?

“The name’s Finn. Finn O’Grady.”

My eyes flared at the name.

No.

It couldn’t be.

Finn O’Grady?

No. It wasn’t a rare name, but it was a strong one. One that suited him, one that had always suited him.

I frowned up at him wondering, yet again, if this was a joke of some sort, but as he looked at me, really looked at me, I saw no recognition. Saw nothing on his features that revealed any ounce of awareness that I’d known him for years.

Well, okay, not known. But I’d known his mother. Our mothers had been best friends. And as I looked, I saw the same almond-shaped eyes Fiona had, the stubborn jaw, and that unmistakable butt-indent on his chin.

At the reminder of just how forgettable I was, my heart sank, and hurt whistled through me.

Then, I realized I was still holding his hand, and as he squeezed, the flush returned and I almost died of mortification.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

I'm a romance novelaholic and I won't touch a book unless I know there's a happy ending. This addiction is what made me craft stories that suit my voracious need for raunchy romance. I love twists and unexpected turns, and my novels all contain sexy guys, dark humor, and hot AF love scenes.

I write MF, menage, and reverse harem (also known as why choose romance,) in both contemporary and paranormal. Some of my stories are darker than others, but I can promise you one thing, you will always get the happy ending your heart needs!