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Unease made the delicious roast beef settle heavily in my stomach. I hadn’t cared before. I’d had no reason to. But now, I had Aoife to protect, and I’d protect her with my life.
There was no way I was living in a world without her in it, which made me as dangerous as any of those motherfucking Colombians.
“You don’t!” Aoife’s amused but outraged squeak had Declan snickering, as she knocked me from my thoughts of how to contain the threat to our territory.
“I do.”
I wasn’t sure what he’d done or hadn’t done, but I focused my attention on him—Declan wasn’t exactly a happy-go-lucky kind of guy. Hadn’t been since he’d lost his childhood sweetheart twelve years ago. Trust Aoife to get him smiling again.
“What is it?” I inquired, my hand tightening on her knee as I asked to be included in the joke.
Aoife, wine glass in hand, tilted it at Declan. “He likes chain store donuts.”
Because her outrage had seemed more appropriate to something a little more worrisome than donuts, I had to laugh. Then, to Declan, I told him, “Wait until you try some of Aoife’s. She cooks like a dream.”
My fiancée’s cheeks bloomed at the compliment, and the happy sparkle in her eyes made my heart swell in my chest.
“Finn tells me you’re going to open a bakery?” Magdalena prompted, apparently deciding the two of us had made gooey eyes at one another for long enough.
I hadn’t told her that, and I frowned at her then a smug Aidan. Narrowing my eyes at the man who was like my father, I realized I’d been had.
He’d asked me about the woman in my life, knowing full well who she was.
He gave a carefree shrug, but the humor in his grin had me shaking my head.
“Yes,” Aoife replied, her excitement for her new venture evident. “I can’t wait. I’ve visited the store three times now, and I’m certain it’s the right place.”
“Where is it?”
“The old salon on Seventh,” I told Magdalena, answering for Aoife because I wanted her to know that I listened.
Aoife didn’t talk about her new venture all that much, not unless I asked her questions, and I made sure to—I wanted to know everything about this enchanting creature. I wasn’t sure if it was because she didn’t think I’d be interested, or if she was hesitant to discuss it because she didn’t understand what we were to one another.
It was one of the reasons I had asked her to marry me. I wanted the prevaricating out of the way. I wanted the doubt in her eyes to disappear. I wanted to knoweverythingabout her. Nothing was too small, no fact too irrelevant. I wanted her to feel secure around me because, more than anything, I hadn’t forgotten about the Senator.
I hadn’t forgotten that on Tuesday, she’d be heading to meet with him at that goddamn hotel on the Upper East Side and before then, I wanted to know why.
I’d leave her with her secrets before we married, but after? No way. I wanted total disclosure even if that meant offering the same to her.
There was some shit that was safe from her. There was no reason for her to ask about my past, still, anything else she could ask and within reason, if it wasn’t about the Points, I’d tell her the truth.
She shot a look at me when I spoke on her behalf, and I knew I was right—she was shocked that I’d listened. Surprised I’d taken enough interest in her, thus far, to remember that.
The woman was lacking in serious confidence, but I had thirty years to rectify that so I wasn’t worried.
“On the corner?” Aidan Jr. asked, frowning.
“Yes.” I shot my brother a warning look.
“That isn’t one of ours,” Aidan Sr. stated.
Aoife’s eyes flared with concern, and I squeezed her leg again. “Aoife isn’t a part of the business.”
Magdalena snorted. “No, but she will be now, won’t she?”
When her cheeks burned pink, I gaped at Aoife. She’d known Magdalena less than a few minutes before she’d been bustled into the kitchen with her, and she’d told her we were engaged?
“I asked, child, I asked,” Lena told me, waving her hand as I shot her, then Aoife, disbelieving glances.
