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SAOIRSE
It’s clear that my father is very hesitant to leave me alone with Connor. If I’m being honest, I don’t love the idea either—but for probably very different reasons.
My father doesn’t want to lose what little upper hand he might have in the conversation, but I just want someone else there as a buffer. I’m still very aware of my reaction to Connor, of how differently this new version of him makes me feel. There’s an instinctive alarm inside of me, warning me that I need to be careful with him.
Reminding me that we’re about to be alone in a hotel room, with a bed only feet away—not that I think Connor ever needed a bed, so long as I was willing.
And I’m very afraid that I might be all too willing.
“If you don’t let me talk to her alone,” Connor says evenly, “I’ll leave now, and all these schemes you’ve come here to throw at me will be for nothing. It’s up to you, Graham.”
I look over at my father, who looks more irritated by the moment. “I’ll be fine,” I tell him, more bravely than I feel right now. “Part of this is me marrying him, right? I should be able to talk to my future husband alone.”
I’m hoping to get some reaction out of Connor with that—surely “future husband” will jolt something out of him, but he remains as impassive as ever. “Your choice,” he says carelessly to my father. “I’m happy to leave and put an end to this disappointing night.”
I can see my father’s jaw clench from here, but he finally nods. “Not long,” he says pointedly at Connor. “And I won’t be far. If Saoirse needs me, I’ll be in hearing distance.”
“Stay close enough to hear her scream if you want,” Connor says with a shrug, his eyes flicking to me with a look that makes me shiver. I know exactly what kind ofscreamhe’s talking about eliciting from me, and it’s not the horror movie kind. “But don’t listen outside the door like a housewife. I want a private conversation with my potential bride, and I expect you to respect that.”
The way he talks to my father startles me. I’ve never heard anyone speak to him like that, as if Connor doesn’t care what ramifications there might be from angering him because he’s so wholly outside of my father’s power. My father and I have always had a comfortable relationship. Still, something about how Connor stands up to him excites me as much as the rest of Connor’s roughened exterior.
I’ve never met a man so comfortable in his own skin, so secure with his place in the world. The Connor I knew before certainly wasn’t, and I feel that throb of guilt again.Who am I to take him away from all of this when it so clearly suits him?
My father gives me one more look that clearly saysdon’t fuck this up. Hestrides purposefully past Connor and out of the hotel room, his shoulders tensed with irritation.
The door closes firmly behind him, and I’m deeply aware all over again of being alone with Connor. I swallow hard, summoning every ounce of poise I’ve ever possessed as I turn towards him, my chin tilted up, and look him squarely in the eye.
“Ah, there’s the Saoirse I remember,” Connor says wryly. “None of that seductive tart nonsense. I’m really surprised your father went to such lengths, dressing you up like this and sending you into the lion’s den. He must be desperate.”
“No one made me do anything.” I press my lips tightly together. “I’m here of my own free will,Connor,” I say his name pointedly, wanting to remind him of who he really is, why we’re here.
“So you’re happy with this?” He gestures broadly around the room as if to include the general plot that my father and I—but mostly my father—concocted. “What do you really think of all of this, Saoirse?”
He’s dropped the English accent, his old Gaelic showing through, and though I was born in Boston, it sounds like coming home, like rich whiskey by a roaring fire, like a toffee dessert. It ripples over me, the sound of my name on his tongue like burnt spun sugar, and the reaction that I have to it once again sets off that alarm that warns me I’m in danger.
It would be far too easy to be caught up by this man, like I’m sure many women have been before.
“I think your brother is a fool,” I say calmly, looking up at him with my arms crossed beneath my chest. The motion pushes my breasts up a little in the ridiculously low-cut top, and I don’t fail to notice the way Connor’s gaze flicks to my chest.
“Is that so?”
“Yes.” I hold his gaze unflinchingly. “He could have married me as he was supposed to, solidified his place at the head of the Kings, and none of this would be happening to him. We’d be married by now, working on producing asuitableheir, not a half-Russian brat that no man at the table will bow to. But he broke his vow to me.”
“To you?” Connor raises his eyebrow. “Or to the Kings? Or both?”
I shrug. “Both, I suppose.”
“And what was his reasoning?”
“That he was in love. That by breaking one vow, he kept himself from breaking the ones he would have made to me on our wedding day, every day for the rest of our lives. He said it was theright thing to do.”
“And you don’t agree with that?” Connor is watching me carefully, but I can’t tell from his expression what it is that he wants me to say. If I’m being honest, a part of me doesn’t care.
I had to play a part to get him here, but if I’m going to spend my life in a marriage of convenience, it could at least be as my truest self. I want to tell Connor not what he wants to hear—whatever that is—but what I really think.
“I think I wanted your brother to be a man he couldn’t be,” I tell him flatly. “A man who valued his promises, his commitments, hisduty, to me and to his family and the men who trust him.”
“You don’t think ‘love’ is more important than that?”
