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I mean, seriously trashed.
Every poster and picture frame that had once adorned his bedroom walls were now littered around his floor.
His nightstand had been turned over, his mattress had been toppled onto its side, and everything that was once housed in his wardrobe was currently sprawled, well, everywhere.
“Time only matured him on the outside, huh?” a male voice said from behind me. “He’s still every inch the tantrum-throwing child he was six years ago.”
“Jesus!” I yelped, springing around. “You almost gave me a heart attack.”
“My sincerest apologies,” a dark-haired man chuckled, looking suave in a crisp white shirt and expensive-looking tailored suit pants. “Blond curls. Doe eyes. Skulking in Gibsie’s room. It can’t be little Claire Biggs my eyes are seeing?”
Nodding warily, I eyed the man standing in Gerard’s bedroom doorway. “How do you know my name?”
“I suppose you were only little when I moved out.” His smile deepened and it caused a wave of eerie familiarity to wash over me. “I can’t be too insulted that you don’t remember me.”
“Wait…” My breath caught in my throat and my eyes widened to saucers. “Mark?”
“The one and only.”
The one and only? He said that like it was a good thing. It wasn’t. Not for Lizzie, at least. Or Gerard. When he left town six years ago, everyone I knew had breathed a huge sigh of relief. Because he was trouble. Big trouble. “What are you doing back in Ballylaggin?”
“Am I not allowed to visit my family?”
Technically yes. But morally absolutely not. Instead of verbally answering, I offered him a shrug.
“I’m considering relocating my family,” he explained, flashing the gold band on his left hand at me. “Meera has never been to Ireland and our son is almost two. I’ve been given a job opportunity, so I flew back to scope out the property market before making any decisions.”
Ew. “Oh,” I managed to say instead, though it was a challenge because this boy—now man—had always made my skin crawl.
The strange thing was my reservations about Mark Allen had little to do with the rumors that had gone around town about his relationship with Caoimhe Young and everything to do with what a huge jerk he had been to Gerard when we were little.
From the moment he was injected into our lives, Mark had made it his mission to make Gerard miserable. He was more than just an asshole stepbrother. He was a bully and a mean one at that.
The fact that someone as sweet and amazing as Caoimhe went out with Mark in the first place was beyond my comprehension. Past tense and present. I didn’t understand the attraction when I was little, and I understood it even less now.
“Where’s Gerard?” My tone was less than polite, but showing any sort of kindness to this man was abhorrent to me. Especially since I’d spent the last several hours watching one of my oldest friends in the world break down because of his actions.
While I was fully prepared to die on my hill of fealty to Gerard Gibson when it came to his and Lizzie’s feud and was willing to defend Gerard’s good name to the bitter end, I was under no such obligation to the man standing in front of me.
Because, sure, the authorities might not have been able to pinpoint him to the crime the Young family was so insistent he committed against their daughter six years ago, but there was no smoke without fire, and Mark Allen was definitely guilty of something.
“Dad took Sadhbh out for dinner in town,” he replied in a breezy tone, not bothering to answer my question. “I figured I’d hang back for tonight.” He smiled again. “It was a long flight.”
Yeah, right.
All this proved was that Mark didn’t want to bump into the wrong people in town and be told what a scumbag he was.
“And Gerard?” I pushed, eyeing his mobile phone on the bedroom floor. “Where is he?” I gestured to the carnage around me. “What happened to his room?”
“You know Gibs,” he replied breezily. “Spat the dummy and stormed off hours ago.”
“Where did he go?” I bit out, enunciating my words clearly. What did you do?
“You tell me, Baby Biggs,” he replied with a chuckle. “You were always the one who could find his hiding places.”
_______________
“Hugh?” I called out from the landing when I heard the front door open and close later that night. “Is that you?”
