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“You’re not leaving me.” There’s a clawing desperation in my voice that I don’t recognize and don’t want to claim.
But I’m not begging. I’m stating a fucking fact. She tries to leave me, then I will tie her up to keep her if I have to.
We’re both breathing hard. Adrenaline and lust and hate and need and every moment we’ve ever shared, every secret, every sin, coursing between us like a river that might drown us both.
“You’re not leaving me.” I don’t even realize I’ve repeated the words until something goes agonizingly tender in her fire-gold gaze.
“Come with me then,” she whispers.
And just like that, I’m powerless. Just like that, she’s snared me. Same way she did on that rooftop. Same way she’s done it a thousand times since then.
Four hours later we are on a private plane heading for Toronto.
Chapter 19
Valentina
This plane ride is about a million times more comfortable than my flight into Dublin. The crappy thing is that I’m too numb to appreciate it. Now that the shock of Papà’s death has had time to filter through me, I just feel hollow. I’m not sad. At least, not right now. I can’t say I’ll be able to maintain that numbness once I see Mamma. I have a feeling that her grief will be the catalyst to my own.
At least I’m not alone, though I would have come on my own if I had to. But Darragh’s here with me. I still can’t quite believe it. I thought he’d scoff at my request to come with me to Toronto, laugh in my fucking face, then lock me away and burn my passport.
But instead, he’s arranged everything. He lounges on the creamy leather seat across from mine, one elbow on the armrest, his chin atop his hand as he glares grimly at the window. And I really mean at it, not out it. Because I don’t think he registers anything beyond the flat darkness of the glass. Not even his own reflection in it.
My bag sits between my feet on the floor. Darragh chucked the ring into it back in the parking garage. But he hasn’t mentioned it once since then.
And neither have I.
I’m so tired.
I should try to get some sleep.
But instead, I speak, because I can’t continue looking at the brutal, regal outlines of Darragh’s profile, marred by the scratches I’ve left. I can’t continue sitting here while he keeps his gaze glued to the window instead of me.
“So what happens when we land? I’ll go straight to my house?”
Weird how I say “my house.” Weird how I don’t say “home.”
“No.”
“No?” I bristle. “We’re not flying back to Toronto just so you can hide me away somewhere or hold me prisoner.”
“That isn’t what I said.” Finally, he looks at me. Only I find I’m not prepared for it. Not prepared for the way his eyes can pin me. Strip me bare. “We’re going to be landing in the middle of the night Toronto-time. I doubt your mammy will be in a state to receive you. And we don’t even know if she’s left Montréal yet or not.”
“OK. All of that is true. But even if she’s still in Montréal, I can go to the house and-”
“You’ll be sleeping at my place.”
I sit up straighter.
“Your place?” I don’t even know where Darragh lives. Besides the cottage beside ours, I’ve never seen any of his properties. “Where is it?”
“Them,” he corrects. “You can take your pick on where we stay. I’ve got houses in Rosedale and Forest Hill. Plus the condo in Yorkville.”
“Not the condo,” I tell him immediately. Even though I’m sure any condo Darragh owns will be spacious and luxurious, I can’t stomach the thought of sleeping in a box in the sky tonight. Not when Papà is in a box of his own now.
Keep it together.
“We’ll go to the Forest Hill house,” he says. “That’s where I usually live.” A faint smile touches his lips. “You look surprised by that statement.”