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“Fuck, he sure does,” Brennan agreed. “Thought Da was going to lose his shit when Seamus put him in his place.”
My lip quirked to the side. “Was definitely the best entertainment I’ve had in a long while at the Sunday roast.”
“You really hate it, don’t you?” Conor asked. “Being at home? Being around the folks?”
I shrugged. “I love them, but they don’t get me. They don’t have to either. I’m a grown man.”
“Yeah, but—”
Before he could say another word, the deep throb of some straight pipes rattled down the street.
“Fuck, I hate Harleys,” Brennan groused. “Why do they have to be so loud?”
“It’s a fallacy, actually,” Conor intoned, in know-it-all mode. “They say that if the pipes are loud, ongoing traffic will hear them, but the sound from the exhaust goes straight out of the back end. All it does is make them go deaf prematurely—”
“And piss pedestrians off,” Brennan grumbled.
As the bike approached, I tilted my head to the side, recognizing that it wasn’t a Sunday rider on the back of it.
“Biker,” Conor confirmed.
“No tags,” I murmured.
“Does there need to be? Nearest MC to us is the Sinners,” Brennan pointed out.
“He’s not wearing a cut.” I lifted my cellphone and as the biker drove by, I snapped a photo, full frontal and a real beauty, then immediately sent it to Conor, whose own cell buzzed as he received it.
When the guy got off the bike and swaggered over to the thin house where Caroline Dunbar lived, a house that in no way looked as though she was spending the ten grand I’d been sending her every month for a decade, my brows rose high. When I cast a glance at Brennan and Conor, saw they were equally as surprised, the three of us settled in for the long haul.
We were curious now as to what the fuck was going on and what exactly Dunbar had gotten herself into.
* * *
AELA
When I tooka seat at the Plaza, I peered around the fancy hotel, impressed despite myself.
I’d been able to afford to eat here for a long time, but I just never had. Now, I was here for a different reason.
Afternoon tea.
And I’d prefer to stick pins under my nails.
Still, the place was nice. A massive chandelier hung suspended over a gleaming antique central table that was loaded down with seasonal flowers. It sat atop a rich Turkish rug, which lined the perimeter of the room. The walls were like something from an Austen movie—that strange kind of gilded paneling—but what I loved the most was the overhead dome that let in the meager light from a crappy New York day.
It made the place like a greenhouse, which was fitting considering the name—The Palm Court. There was a stand with flowers on it above the shelving units of the bar, but more impressively, there were a huge pair of palms that dwarfed the servers flitting about.
Mostly I loved how the table I was seated at was mirrored, and it reflected the intricate metal lacework of the dome without me having to tip my head back to gape at it.
A little too rich for my blood, I’d never have selected this as the place where I’d like to meet Aoife and Inessa, but hey, this was their suggestion.
I’d never been a ‘brunch with the girls’ kind of woman, mostly because I’d always been on the move. It made it hard to make friends, especially ones you had a standing date with. Of course, there was the debacle with Caro, but seeing as she liked me for who I knew, and not what, I dismissed her entirely from my memory banks.
Still, when I’d received the text from Inessa this morning, I’d been grateful to be included. Surprised, but grateful nonetheless.
With Declan back at work, and the apartment all to myself, I was left in my makeshift studio, working. Not that I was complaining, because I was busy making the preliminary sketches for Seamus’s portrait.
I’d decided I’d give Lena his and Declan’s portraits together, and then gradually work my way through the brothers.
