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I make a break for the bathroom to vomit, but Darragh grabs me.
“No, you don’t!” he shouts like I’m going to jump out the window.
I slip from his hold, but he’s close on my heels as I dart into the bathroom.
“Get out!” I yell and drop to the floor, hurling into the toilet.
Now that I’m out of Cormac’s clutches and not fighting for survival, I find my voice, my strength, even if it’s a sliver.
“Christ.” Darragh stands over me, cursing under his breath.
Next, the water is running, and he hands me a cup.
“Drink this, Stasia.”
I gulp it down, and then try to melt against the wall so he’ll leave me alone.
“You don’t have to take care of me,” I utter.
“I’m taking care of the mess my brother made.”
Mess. That’s me. I’d like to argue, but I’m wearing a prison jumpsuit with my stomach hanging out.
I stand and start to shake. The more I talk, the angrier he seems.
Gripping the vanity, so I don’t fall, I feel hands on my waist. The contact shocks me from not being touched in so long, but dread pools in my stomach.
“Don’t touch me,” I say through clenched teeth.
“I know I look like Cormac, but I’m not him,” Darragh murmurs, then stomps into the main room.
I wobble to the doorway to see him opening drawers while cursing and slamming them because Cormac’s stuff is filthy and torn.
“I… I keep my clothes in that nightstand.” I think back to the moment when I emptied my expensive white and saddle brown suitcase and left Astoria with nothing. “I don’t have a suitcase.”
Darragh walks to the closet with confidence and purpose. His long legs in sharply pressed trousers of an expensive suit spark another wave of arousal.
I’ve heard pregnancy makes a woman ravenous for sex. Those feelings never came.
Thank goodness, because I didn’t want Cormac to touch me ever again.
Darragh grabs the leather duffle bag Cormac refused to sell.
“I bought him this,” he remarks with a bitter giggle.
My hormones wake up, watching Darragh deftly pack up my meager wardrobe out of the broken nightstand.
“Let me.” I reach inside and our arms tangle.
He’s so warm, and his hands feel so strong, but he snaps them back. With his eyes boring into mine, a flicker in my chest startles me.
“I… I can wear this.” I yank out an XXL dress Cormac bought me from a street vendor.
It’s ugly as sin, and the fabric itches, so I don’t wear it often.
Sliding into oversized sweats and a giant, stained T-shirt is too humiliating.
“Can you… Can you just give me a few hundred dollars?” I ask Darragh softly. “I’ll figure out a way to pay you back.”
