Page 44 of Niall

“Such as?”

“Marie—”

He cut me off. “Marie—you were infatuated with her fecking breasts and the way she dropped to her knees any time you were around. It was lust, you stupid feck. You were twenty-one.”

I ran a hand through my hair. “I thought it was more.”

“You grew up. Or, at least, I thought you did.”

“I fucked things up with Joy.”

Finn snorted. “Joy was a fecking adrenaline junkie. She liked being with you because of the danger you represented. Once she realized how boring you were, it was she who had an affair and walked. Jaysus.”

He was right about that one.

“I thought Tamara might be the one.”

Finn rubbed his eyes, laughing. “Are you on drugs? Tamara wanted your money. You figured that out. Fast, thank God.”

“I haven’t felt anything for anyone in a long time. I use them for sex when I get tired of my own hand, and that’s it.”

He dropped his head into his hands. “Fecking TMI, Niall. TMI.” He looked up. “Are you honest with them?”

“Always.”

He was quiet for a moment. “I met Una when she was eighteen. She left me with a lasting impression I could never shake. I tried to be with others, but my heart was never with them. It was always with her. For a long time, I thought there was something wrong with me too, but when I found her again, I knew that I had been waiting for her. My heart had belonged to her all that time.” He blew out a deep breath. “Maybe you’ve just been waiting for Anna.”

I stared at him, some of my doubts beginning to fall away.

He stood. “Stop blaming yourself for things you didn’t cause. You aren’t broken, Niall. Those women meant nothing. They weren’t the right ones for you. There was nothing to them—no substance.”

“Except I have a pattern. I pick the wrong ones.”

“Then Anna is perfect. She picked you.”

That stopped me.

“She is real,” he insisted. “She has substance. A good heart. A loving heart. She wants nothing from you but your love. Why are you refusing to give her something you have in abundance?”

“I don’t know if I love her.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, give me strength. You wanted to kill Roman for offering her a new start. Beat the crap out of me for buying her some clothes. You threatened Rodney. A seventy-four-year-old man with a wife of fifty-plus years and grandkids, for looking at her too much. Who has cataracts, by the way, so he can barely see. One suggestion of getting her a place of her own, and you shut it down. What the feck do you call it if you don’t love her?”

I had no good answer.

“Let me ask you a question.”

I nodded.

“If she were in an accident and you could rescue her, would you?”

“Of course,” I snapped.

“If she were in the same accident with your mum, and you could only save one, which would it be?” he asked, watching me carefully.

I opened my mouth, but no words came out. I blinked, my heart thudding, my chest tight.

“If you could save them both but give up your own life, would you?”