She was still too young for him.
“I wish...” Hugh couldn’t finish. He knew he was about to break both their hearts. Hugh saw the moment Rowan realized he wouldn’t take her hand—his rejection. Her hand fell to her side. God, the pain in his chest was debilitating.
“If my wishes were wants granted, I’d be yours, and you’d be mine, Hugh.”
She’d said that—out loud and in front of her sisters. In front of her grandmother, the doctor, and a nurse. Courageous. An action Hugh could not claim at that moment. He felt his face burn with shame. Regret. He spun on his heel and yanked the door open. Before the click sounded at his back, he heard Rowan speak once more.
“Goodbye, Hugh.”
He ignored the alarmed looks on his sons’ faces as he burst out of Rowan’s room. He couldn’t leave the hospital fast enough. The last look he’d seen on Rowan’s face would forever be etched in his memory. Disappointment. Defeat.
Hugh knew he was doing the right thing. Why, then, did he feel like the dumbest man in the world?
In twenty years, hell, even in ten years, Rowan would thank him for not allowing her to be shackled to an old man. Hugh had also proven that relationships and marriage weren’t for him. He knew his ex-wife was a horrible woman, the opposite of everything Rowan Byrne encompassed, but the truth was, he’d still failed. He hadn’t made Helen happy. Ever. There was a possibility he couldn’t make any woman happy.
There had been women over the years that he’d liked well enough. Women who wanted more than casual sex. He’d never been tempted. Not one time.
Hugh shook his head as he stepped through the hospital’s automatic doors. He’d never been tempted, but that was before Rowan, and she deserved better than an angry older man dimming the very qualities that drew him to her.
3
Raven, River, and Rowan took a moment away from Nan’s wedding reception to catch their breath and rest their feet next to the giant metal wolf sculpture a local Dublin metalsmith and their good friend, Josh Ryan, created for the O Building’s lobby. The four-story building where she, her sisters, and their husbands and Hugh lived—stood next to Triskelion Territory Designs, the sisters’ business. The O’Faolain Wolves, as they were known in Oklahoma where both families had grown up, had managed to create a complicated family dynamic with the Byrne sisters that crossed pretty much every personal and professional boundary.
Case in point, the two blended families lived together, ate together, shopped together, went on dates together, did business together, made babies together, and had sex…well, not Rowan and Hugh. Since this was a private, mental conversation, Rowan would admit that she and Hugh had watched each other masturbate. Once.Okay, damn it.Rowan would not sink to the low level of lying to herself. Twice.
Unfortunately, Hugh managed to snuff out each minuscule particle of feelings from the encounters, pretending he wantednothing to do with her—the youngest Byrne sister and his family by marriage.
The second ‘show and don’t tell’ encounter between them happened in Scotland three months ago. It was the awful night that her sister River had received a photo album of her husband, fiancé at the time, cheating on her. It had been sent from that pathetic excuse of molecules, Samuel Delton. Rowan took a deep breath, thankful yet again that he was now deceased. The world was a better place without that horrible man breathing the same air.
Rowan, Hugh, and Patrick had flown immediately to Inverness from Dublin to comfort her sister. Hugh called Rowan on his way to the airport to let her know what had happened and that he was picking her up. River was not only upset by the pictures, but Delton had covered the album pages in a type of fiberglass powder that burned her skin and created a horrible rash.
Of course, Rowan had gone. Raven hadn’t been able to go. She’d been too close to giving birth. Rowan had told herself being in close proximity to Hugh wouldn’t be a problem for her. She was just as capable of pretending that they were not desperately attracted to one another as he was.
That evening, after she’d spent time comforting her sister, MacGregor had offered his room to her and Hugh. Thomas said there was a couch bed for Hugh. Between the emotional talk with River and pent-up feelings for Hugh, Rowan had felt like her skin was tight and sensitive to the point that a light touch might make her scream. She wanted relief from River’s tears and Hugh’s confusing interested indifference.
She had tried to talk to him once after their shower moment. It was the night River and Patrick had gotten back together. They’d been partying at Murphy’s bar with Josh Ryan and his girlfriend, Sadhbh, the younger sister of Saoirse Kennedy, Jo’sgood friend from college. Saoirse was also a close friend of the Byrne sisters and a Dublin real estate powerhouse. The evening had been a lot of fun until Hugh and Patrick walked in.
Hugh had gotten so jealous when Ciaran Murphy had hugged Rowan that Patrick had to physically restrain him. He’d gone home after the incident at Pat’s request. Rowan had gone back to their table while River spoke to Patrick. Twenty minutes later, she’d received a text from River that she was leaving with Pat. Rowan didn’t blame her sister for giving in. Even after he’d screwed up the relationship, it was clear that Hugh’s youngest son would move mountains to get her back…and it didn’t hurt his cause that he loved River desperately.
Rowan only lasted another hour at Murphy’s. Her anger over Hugh’s behavior had soured the pleasure she’d found earlier with her friends. He shouldn’t be allowed to get away with that. He shouldn’t be allowed to non-verbally mark his territory when he’d never once admitted out loud that he wanted her.
She’d taken one more shot of Slane before saying her goodbyes. Rowan remembered being thankful for the liquid courage when she’d stood outside Hugh’s door. After all, bearding a lion in his own den is not for the faint of heart or the sober.
The “conversation” that night had been a colossal letdown. He’d answered his door shirtless and in sweats that rode dangerously low on his hips. He’d looked so beautifully masculine it had almost shut down all cognitive thought. Hugh hadn’t even let her through the door. So, standing in the hallway, she’d point blank asked him why he wouldn’t acknowledge that he wanted her. Why he wouldn’t date her. Fuck her.
Rowan wasn’t super proud of her behavior.
“Why won’t you let another man have me if you don’t want me?”She could tell that question had rocked him.
And what had Rowan gotten for her trouble? What had she earned for putting her feelings out there? Hugh at his worst. Unemotional. Cordial. Stiff.
“I apologize for making things awkward between us. It wasn’t my intention. I’ll work at moving past,”and there, he clenched his fist that held the door open,“...this. You are way too young for me to ever consider a true relationship. New Year’s…it was a mistake that never should have happened.”
And then the motherfucker said,“Goodnight, Rowan.”And closed the door gently. In her face.
A mistake.Those words had crushed her. She’d played that conversation on repeat for weeks until she vowed to take a page out of River’s book.Fake it until you make it.Hugh would no longer control their narrative. She would say what she wanted, do what she wanted, and date whom she wanted. He didn’t get to make her feel like a mistake to be forgotten. Not anymore.
She’d made promises to herself that night, promises she hadn’t kept. Rowan never spoke her mind to Hugh again, pressed him for more, dated someone, or created her own story. She’d been so, angry at herself, and angry at him, she’d had felt like pushing Hugh that night.
