After making sure she was comfortable, Dean wandered toward the bar with a smirk on his face. Liam looked at Chiara, catching her expression of guilt.
“Did you tell Sam about us?” he hissed under his breath. Suddenly she seemed very busy preparing a simple drink order. “Chiara! She’s one of Astrid’s best friends.”
“She won’t say anything.” Her words didn’t quite match the worry on her face.
“She’s obviously already told Dean.” The smirk had now turned into a knowing grin coming at them.
“Liam Donnelly, as I live and breathe,” Dean said when he got to the bar.
“Dean Mercer,” Liam responded, reaching over to shake his hand. “What brings you to a bar this time of night? Did you leave the baby to fend for itself?”
“Got to learn to grow up at some point, right?” Dean and Sam had all but given up having a baby when they learned she was pregnant last year. Their baby girl was born three months ago with her dad firmly wrapped around her finger. “Kidding, Sam called a sitter. We were sent to scope out the landscape. Something about us being the best candidates for reconnaissance?”
Liam moaned, running his hand down his face.
“Don’t worry, I remember doing some legal paperwork for you about ten years ago, making me your attorney of record. I’m sworn to secrecy. The other one, however, I can’t help you with,” Dean added, pointing his thumb behind him toward Sam. “Take it from my experience. This kind of thing never stays quiet for long.”
Dean waited while Liam filled two pint glasses from the tap. Dean had become Parker's partner in the bar when Liam had sold him his third of the business ten years ago. It gave Parker the money to not only clear some bad debt the bar had racked up but also allowed for some much-needed expansion.
Liam had been fully prepared to be the only Donnelly without a stake in the family business until Ronan surprised him by splitting his share. It gave Parker and Dean an equal thirty-three percent stake, and each twin almost a seventeen percent ownership.
Dean had then worked a deal returning part of his shares over time, retaining only twenty percent. Parker now owned forty percent, with the rest equally owning twenty. The agreement between the four of them had been a true thing of beauty, with Liam doing most of the math and Dean composing the legalese.
Liam had always wondered if that deal had been the deciding factor for Dean to pull in all of his markers to get him in West Point later. Rumor had it Dean had even extorted a recommendation from his estranged father, a powerful Senator.
“Dean, my favorite buddy…”
Dean interrupted him with a laugh before he could get started on his argument about why it was in everyone’s best interest to keep this quiet.
“Chiara, you’re going to want to hear this,” Dean said, motioning to her. “Every argument Liam used to try to get out of trouble began with ‘Parker, my favorite brother.’ Let me just stop you now. You are both reasonably mature adults capable of making a quasi-disastrous decision on your own. Let me just ask a few questions, then I can see what I can do to enjoy the rest of my evening. Is everything you’re doing consensual?”
“What? When have I ever done anything nonconsensual to a woman?” Liam could feel the urge to throat punch Dean rising. He had never had his honor questioned. But Dean just waved him off.
“I’ll take that as a yes. Do you plan to continue seeing each other?” he asked.
“Yes,” Chi answered without hesitation, her arms folded across her chest.
“And no one will have their soul crushed when he leaves in two weeks?”
“No,” they answered simultaneously this time.
“Okay then. Good luck to you.” Taking the glasses, Dean gave a modified salute before sauntering back to Sam.
“Well, that was awkward,” Chiara said, watching him weave through the tables.
Liam just snorted, moving to fill the next table order for one of the servers. He wasn’t the one who decided it was a good idea to inform the lady’s gossip society. The shit was guaranteed to roll downhill until it exploded at their feet.
They both returned to filling orders, Liam trying to keep his distance from her while they were being watched.
Starting at one, Liam began sending the rest of the staff home until it was just the two of them left to lock up. By two, Chiara was waving goodnight to the last customers.
Working quickly through the closing chores, they finally made it to the back stairwell. Taking her hand, Liam silently pulled Chiara up behind him. He only had one more night before his brother’s family returned to the apartment, and he wasn’t about to waste a single moment.
ChapterFive
“You knowif you keep sneaking out, I’m going to develop a complex.”
Chiara stopped with her hand on the doorknob. She had tried to redress silently without waking him, but even in just her stocking feet, he must have heard her.
