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But two days later, Connor has stayed true to his word.
Not only has he not touched me, but he’s also barely spoken to me. Not on the flight back to London or afterward. We returned to the same hotel we had stayed at before, and Connor went back to his flat, and that was that.
Now, I’m getting ready for our betrothal ceremony, and I’m more nervous than I possibly thought I could be.
It’s not as if I haven’t done this before. But I think that’s part of it. As I get dressed in the sapphire blue gown I bought precisely for this occasion, twisting my hair up into a smooth, elegant chignon at the back of my head, I can’t stop thinking about the last time I did exactly this.
The dress was emerald green then, not sapphire blue. It matched the emeralds in the ring Liam gave me, just as my dress now, as it turns out, unintentionally matches the sapphires in the ring Connor picked out for me. It was a similar style with thin satin spaghetti straps, only this one has a boned v-neckline, deep enough to look seductive but still modest enough for the church, and a slit only up to my knee on one side.
I’m wearing pearls tonight, my mother's, the same ones I’ll likely wear on my wedding day. The drop earrings glisten in the bathroom light as I apply the rosy lipstick that makes my lips look just a touch fuller. I can’t help thinking how after Connor is done kissing me, they look rosy and full all on their own.
My heart aches, remembering how detached he was after what we did on the beach. It was the wildest, most passionately romantic moment of my life, and he’d treated it like a mistake. An error in judgment that got out of hand—and I can’t even be angry with him because he’d warned me only moments before it happened.
Tonight’s betrothal ceremony will be for my father, for its formality, but what Connor and I promised each other on the beach was just between us. No matter what he says or the unromantic content of those promises, thereissomething romantic in how it happened. I know I’m not a fool for thinking so.
Iwouldbe a fool, though, if I gave it more weight than it deserved.
Tonight will be different than the first time.Liam had been practically dragged by his scruff to the altar with me to ask me for my hand. I’d seen in his face from the moment he walked into St. Patrick’s—before that on the balcony, even—that he wanted no part of it or me.
Connor has chosen this. He’s chosenme. Tonight might be as much about business and contracts and obligation as my first engagement. Still, Connor will be there of his own free will.
That alone makes a difference.
I lift my chin, letting out a breath, and slip my feet into my Louboutin pumps. Once my shoes are on, I stride directly for the door before letting myself dwell on it any longer—and almost directly into a man standing right outside.
“Niall Flanagan!” I nearly explode with frustration, looking up at him. “What in the bloody hell are you doing outside my roomagain?”
I haven’t seen him, either, since that night that Connor had caught him leaving my hotel room in Dublin. He’d stayed far away from me on the plane back, and if he’d talked to my father or Connor since we came back to London, I haven’t seen or heard about it.
But he’s here now, dressed in dark jeans and a charcoal grey t-shirt, his black hair a mess as if he’s been running his hands through it constantly, and his face looks tense.
“I’m sorry, Saoirse,” he says in a rush, standing between me and the path to the elevator. “I had to see you before you went to the church.”
“Why?” I look at him in confusion. “What’s going on?”
I tense when his hands curl around my upper arms, moving me out of the light of the hallway into the shadows closer to the stairwell. “Niall—”
“Christ, you look beautiful.” His eyes rake over me as his hand does the same through his hair, something almost tortured in their blue depths. “More beautiful than I’ve ever seen you, even that night when Liam promised to marry you—”
“Niall,” I interrupt him urgently. “What is this about? I have to go—”
“You don’t have to do this.” His gaze pins me as surely as if his hands were holding me against the wall, that deep longing shining out of them, more vulnerable than I’ve ever seen him. “You can refuse Connor.”
“What—Niall, I came here to do exactly what I’m doing tonight—to get him to promise to marry me. There’s no reason for me to deny him—”
“Yes, because this marriage gives him the stronger claim to the seat at the head of the Kings, stronger even than being the eldest brother.” Niall’s hands grip my upper arms again, his muscled body moving closer to mine, and I feel my heart leap into my throat. “Saoirse, Liam isn’t going to back down. He isn’t going to give it to Connor. You can stop all of this if you refuse him—”
“I can’t.” I shake my head, my eyes wide. “It won’t stop Connor from going back, not now. All it would do is ruin my family. What future would I have without this? My whole life has been leading up to this moment, Niall—”
“I thought you would say that.” He shakes his head, his lips pressed tightly together. “Saoirse, you have a college degree. You have more intelligence and bravery and toughness and sheer fucking stubbornness than any woman I’ve ever known. You have a future without Connor, and surely you can see that, if only you—” Niall pauses, his eyes searching mine. “Do you love him? Is that it?”
I shake my head. “No, I—” I can’t bring myself to say out loud that I think I might be falling for Connor, even if I don’t love him yet. I can barely admit it in my own head. “I can’t betray my family, Niall. This is what I was taught my whole life was my duty, the only path I’ve ever had—”
Niall’s hands tighten on my arms, almost shaking me with their ferocity. “What if there was another path, Saoirse? What if—” His eyes are burning with something else now, a need and heat I recognize, and I wonder how I never truly saw it before. How I never saw, all these years, that he burned for me.
“There’s no other path,” I whisper. “I made my decision, Niall.”
