Page 62 of The Endless Want

But the truth is simpler. She asked to be here with me. Liam told me she mentioned smoothing things out. I don’t want things smoothed out. I want her gone. As far from me as she can get, for her sake and for mine. But she isn’t leaving.

She sees me then. Her spine straightens. Her eyes flicker with nerves she tries too hard to hide. And she starts walking toward me.

I turn away first.

Childish, maybe. Petty, definitely. But necessary. Because I’m one wrong breath away from grabbing her shoulders and demanding why she keeps putting herself in my orbit after I’ve given her every reason to stay out of it.

Instead, I move into the far corner of the floor, where I can watch the room and pretend I’m busy.

“Declan.” Her voice slides up behind me.

I don’t turn. “You’re supposed to be shadowing the operations lead for the night.”

“I can multitask.”

Her tone is clipped, but there’s something softer beneath it. A plea. An attempt. I don’t want to hear any of it. I don’t want to feel any of it. “You shouldn’t be here,” I say flatly. “There are other assignments.”

“This one is safer.”

“For who?” I ask. “Because already, you’ve become a distraction.”

I shouldn’t have said that. I know immediately that I shouldn’t have, but it’s too late. Her breath catches, barely audible over the music, and when I finally glance at her, she’s staring at me like I’ve personally insulted the core of who she is. “Let me talk to you alone,” she murmurs.

“No.”

One word. Hard enough to bruise.

Her jaw tightens. “We can’t keep doing this⁠—”

“We aren’t doing anything.”

That one hits harder. I can feel the air shift as she reels, as if I’ve cut whatever rope she’d been climbing. Her fingers curl around the clipboard she’s holding until the edges dig into her palm.

“Fine,” she whispers. “Have it your way.” She walks off. And I hate how my entire body follows her with its attention, the way a compass needle obeys iron. I hate how every step she takes pulls something in my chest tighter, harder, until the pressure feels dangerous.

I force myself to turn back toward the bar. I speak to two of my men. I check the cash till. I nod at the Italian liaison who’s pretending to enjoy his overpriced whiskey. I do everything I’m supposed to do. And still I feel her.

Half an hour passes like that. Me circling the room, pretending she’s not in it. Her trying at intervals to get within speaking distance before I move away again. It’s childish, pathetic, and unworthy of the man I used to be. But the alternative is letting her open her mouth and say something that will undo me.

My control is paper-thin. She doesn’t need to know how thin.

A waitress leans over to whisper something to the bartender. A table breaks into careless laughter. The room dips into that late-night rhythm where everyone seems looser and more indulgent.

Then Mira approaches me. She’s one of the few employees allowed to dance during certain hours—a soft seduction the Italians insisted on to ‘balance atmosphere with exclusivity.’ She moves with an easy, practiced confidence.

“You look like you’re two seconds away from exploding,” she says lightly.

“Doing my job,” I mutter.

She tilts her head. “Want a distraction? On the floor, I mean. You barely ever take part. Makes the girls nervous. They think you don’t like them.”

I’m about to dismiss her when my eyes land on Ailish.

She’s standing near the front entry, giving orders to two of the newer workers, posture stiff, shoulders rigid. But her eyes—those give her away. They track me like she can’t help it.

She’s pretending to be composed, but I know fear sits somewhere beneath her ribs still, a bruise not visible but just as real. And then something ugly grips me. All I know is that it tells me to hurt her before she hurts me again.

I turn back to Mira. “Fine,” I say. “A distraction.”