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Then again, if she didn’t do what she was supposed to, she’d be brought back by force and passed around like a whore among the entire clan. She’d spend her time under whatever bear wanted to put cubs in her belly and spend all her time pumping out numbers for the clan like some sort of breeding mill. She’d escaped that by agreeing to and do this for the Alpha, Sorley Maguire, her former father-in-law—but only after he and a few members of his higher ranks had given her a taste of what she had to look forward to if she failed.
Imprint or not, Olcan wasn’t a luxury she could afford if she wanted to live out her life in peace. As hard as it was to betray him, she had no choice. She’d have to put the warm fuzzy feelings aside and do what she was meant to do. She felt an empty pit in her belly as she accepted this unfortunate fact.
“Niamh?” she heard him call out as he knocked at the front door and then let himself in.
She took a deep breath and gathered her wits, rushing over to the mirror to check her face before waltzing into the living room to greet him with a smile. He was gorgeous as he beamed back at her. She could feel her heart break.
“Niamh? Are you okay?” he asked, looking concerned.
“Aye. Of course.”
“It’s just that, for a second, you looked . . . I don’t know,” he said, seeming to search for the right word.
“Dead inside,” her mind filled in, but she kept it to herself and instead feigned another smile. “Ready for dinner?”
“Yes. I’m starved. Are you ready?”
“Yes. Just let me grab my purse,” she replied, walking over to pick up her handbag and taking a moment to gather herself again before returning to take his hand and kiss him on the cheek.
“Great. Let’s go,” he told her.CHAPTER TENOlcan
SOMETHING WAS WRONG with her. That was obvious, but she didn’t seem to want to talk about it, and he wouldn’t insist, at least not yet. He’d give her a bit of time to sort it out for herself first, then get involved if he needed to take charge of it. Perhaps the best thing, for now, was to get her mind off of it. No sooner had he considered it than he dismissed it.
“When are James and Hannah back?” he asked, realizing this might be all that was on her mind.
“This weekend,” she replied.
“You haven’t talked about what you want to do when they come back,” he said.
“I’ve found a small place in Dorchester,” she told him.
“Dorchester? Are you mad?” he asked.
“No, I’m not mad. I don’t have the money you do, and I don’t yet have a job. I can afford it without one for a while, until I find something.”
He pondered this for a moment, not liking the idea of her working and certainly opposed to her living in some crime-filled neighborhood where he’d have to post guys to watch her twenty-four hours a day, with or without her knowledge.
“No way. That’s not a safe place for you,” he said.
“It will be fine, Olcan. Other people live there without dying.”
Olcan scowled, realizing there was a lot about him he hadn’t told her. Perhaps some of it was obvious without him saying it, but he felt compelled to say the words, in the process explaining why she couldn’t live there.
“Do you know who I am, Niamh?”
“What do you mean? I like to think I know you.”
“Do you know what I do for a living?”
“You’re the Alpha, at least for now, of the McNally Clan.”
“And who are we? Our clan? What is it you think we do to make money?”
She looked at him for a moment. He could tell she was hesitant to say the words, so he coaxed her a bit.
“It’s okay. You don’t have to sugarcoat anything with me. Tell me what you know about my family.”
“You’re Irish mafia, one of the most powerful in the city. You own pretty much everything in this town.”
“And?”
“And that’s it. I don’t know the particulars of what you do or how you do it. I don’t want to know.”
Olcan pulled her to him, sitting down on a chair and pulling her onto his lap. She sat there looking down at him with a somewhat weary expression that he couldn’t quite place. It wasn’t fear or disappointment. It was just that same look she’d had for a while now that he was having trouble grasping.
“What if you learn things about me that you can’t live with?”
“There is nothing I can learn about you that I will not accept, Olcan. I love you. We’re soul mates. I am yours, and you are mine.”
There was a certain fatigue in the words, more like she’d resigned herself to it than any notion that she was happy with it. Was it some lingering fidelity to her deceased husband that held her back? Did he want to know if she still pined for a man he couldn’t compete with, not into the grave?
