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‘Don’t worry Cam, I’ll have Cinderella back around two.’
‘Good. Any issues, call me.’
Maeve pulled me into a kiss and smiled at me. ‘We’ll be fine, and thank you. I--‘
She cut herself off before biting her lip. Had she been about to tell me she loved me? We hadn’t admitted that to one another. Hell, I didn’t even know if she felt that way. Hope surged in my chest as I waited for her to finish.
‘I’ll be safe.’
Disappointment flushed me, but I banished it, telling myself it was too soon to be in love. There were still too many obstacles.
‘I’ll be waiting.’
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
MAEVE
Katie pulled me in past the bouncers, shouting over the loud music as we approached the bar.
‘I’m so glad they wouldn’t let the stiffs in with us. I can finally relax,’ she half yelled into my ear, leaning her elbows on the bar.
The bouncers were happy enough to let Katie in with me, but drew the line at Harold’s men. I didn’t know whether to be relieved or nervous.
Katie set a dazzling smile on the young bartender, making him blush beneath her gaze as he finished serving another customer. A flip of her hair, with her fingers trailing the ends down over the swell of her tits, had him falling over himself to serve us next, despite the bustling bar.
‘What are you having?’
‘Champagne?’
Katie nodded enthusiastically at my suggestion before turning back to her besotted bar-boy and leaning in close to his ear to place her order.
When was the last time I’d been clubbing? Sometime the previous year, maybe, with some girls from school? We met up every now and again to keep in touch, but with everyone starting their adult lives, we saw little of one another. I missed it. I’d always been close to Mac, but my relationship with my sister Esther had always been different. Closer in a different way, united as we were as women in a man’s world. A pang of longing gripped my stomach as I wondered where she was. She’d disappeared after a confrontation with our father and Harold. The confrontation that left my dad unconscious in a hospital bed even weeks later. I wished she would reach out. I hated that her leaving had forced me into a dangerous situation, but I needed her more than ever.
‘Come on,’ Katie said, tugging my arm and directing me to the VIP area, ‘My little admirer said he’d bring the drinks up to us in here. You can get us in, right?’
‘Yeah.’ One of the perks of my brother owning the place.
Soon enough we were seated at a table looking down over the writhing bodies on the dancefloor with a bottle of champagne and a tray of shots.
‘Are we expecting company? That’s a lot of shots.’ I raised a brow at Katie as she picked one shot up and handed another to me.
‘No, they are all for us. I need to party.’
I grimaced as we clinked the little glasses before pitching the burning drink into the back of our mouths, wincing as the fiery liquid ignited my oesophagus. With a shake of her head, Katie laughed before topping up our champagne. The music thumped behind us as we sipped at the sharp bubbly.
‘Are you going to stick around, then?’ Katie asked, leaning her chin on her hand as she watched me.
‘I want to. Cameron isn’t the man I thought he was. I know he does nasty shit for the organisation, but who in our world doesn’t? But beneath the outer shell, he’s pretty decent.’ I sighed as I took a large glug of my drink.
‘He is. He’s spent his whole life trying to protect me, and I see the way he looks at you. He’s already in too deep to let you go.’
‘You think?’ Physically, we’d gotten as close as humanly possible, but emotionally I still held off giving my all to Cam. It was going to end in heartbreak. ‘If the circumstances were different, I think we could be happy. But between your father and my brothers, it won’t happen. They won’t be happy until one of our families is wiped out.’
‘I wish it had been my dad who had been driven away,’ Katie said, downing another shot and passing one to me. I knocked it back with a hiss. ‘I miss my mum so much.’
‘Does she ever get in touch with you guys?’
‘She knew that the safest option was to disappear. We occasionally get postcards come through, but even that’s a risk. My dad would do anything to get his hands on her and make her pay for leaving him.’
