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“Excuse me.”
“I’m not excusin’ ye until ye hear me out, Ina.”
She adjusted her glasses. “I have to get home.”
“Ye have to hear me out.”
She tilted her head back and looked up at me. I expected to see anger in her green eyes, but all I saw was hurt, making me feel worse than I already did. I had upset her when I shouted at her.
“Ye misunderstood what I said,” I explained. “When I said only me friends call me Date, what I meant was … fuck, I don’t know what I meant. All I know is I don’t like hearin’ ye call me Date. I prefer when you say Dante. Everyone else calls me Date … I don’t want you to.”
“That’s fine, I understand. I won’t call ye Date again.”
“Ina. Please. I’m sorry, okay?”
“Save it, Dante.” She straightened. “Ye acted like an arsehole. How ye treated me just now was no better than how that man treated you. He took it, but I refuse to. Now, please move. I won’t ask you again.”
Thoroughly chastised, I stepped to the side, and she stormed out of the reception before I could blink. I hadn’t expected that lick of fire from her. Granted, I had only known her for a few days, but she seemed timid and shy to everyone else. That bit of fire that bubbled to the top was new … it made me wonder how much more there was to my little country girl.
“So that is Miss O’Shea,” Nico commented as he moved to my side, watching her march away toward the bus stop. “Ryder told me about her. Oh, that pencil skirt hugs her right.”
I tensed. “Don’t.”
He raised an eyebrow and said, “Interesting.”
“What’s fuckin’ interestin’?”
“That you don’t tolerate another man checking out the new girl or talking up her assets. I just find it interesting.”
“Find it interestin’ somewhere else. Otherwise, the next person’s face that I slam me fist into is yours. I’m not dealin’ with hurricane Bronagh if that happens. That’s a storm I don’t know how to weather.”
“My guy”—Nico laughed, unbothered by my threat—“me either.”
“Get blondie’s credit card and piss off, Slater.”
I glanced at him and saw he was tapping away on his phone.
“What’re ye doin’ now?”
“Making a reminder to buy Bronagh a pencil skirt suit like the one Ina was wearing. It totally does it for me.”
He ducked out of the room when I raised my fist, laughing as he went. I dropped my arm, then looked towards my father and noted his intense stare before he turned and left me alone in the reception. Great, if I didn’t already feel like a piece of dirt, that disappointed look my father shot my way sealed the deal.
Ina was right. I was an arsehole.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Ina
* * *
I knew it was too good to be true.
The thought ran through my head as I washed up after dinner. It’d been a few hours since I’d gotten home from work, a few hours since Dante battered the snot out of a man and shouted at me loud enough for the whole world to hear. Whenever I thought about it, tears stung the back of my eyes. I shook it off when simmering anger set in. Before I left Carlow, I vowed to never let a man shout at me like I was nothing again, and I was sticking to that. Finn had done it too many times to count, and I was worth more than being someone’s verbal punching bag because they had a stick up their arse.
I heard a knock on my front door that made me freeze.
I had left my hearing aid in because my gut told me that Dante would come by to try to speak to me. I told myself to take my aid out and be oblivious to him and any sounds he made, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t explain why, but I wanted Dante to stop by and try to apologise to me. I knew he was a good man, and I wanted him to prove that by doing the right thing and saying sorry to me. He had said it in the garage, but that was an impulsive apology. I wanted a real apology now that he had time to marinate on what he had done.
That didn’t mean I was going to make it easy on him, though.
“Ina.” He knocked again. “Can ye ’ear me? D’ye ’ave yer ’earin’ aid in, ’oney?”
He was slurring his words. At first, I didn’t move a muscle because flashes of my father being drunk and hurting me came to the front of my mind. Fear kept me rooted to the spot until I reminded myself that Dante was not Daddy. He would never put his hands on me to harm me. I knew he wouldn’t. He was a good man, not a coward.
