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“Niall sent your invitations. Wished on the blarney stone or some such nonsense before he pressed send. Liam and I are taking their mum home. Whatever you said to Niall, it made him see sense.”

“What does sense look like on Niall Quinn?” Her free hand crept to her gran’s pearls. If he still planned to reject Grandpa’s bequest after tonight’s success, his principles had destroyed his good sense.

“This.” Kate gestured around her. “I gather you told him to stop being such an idiot and just organise an exhibition.”

“Whisht. I never called him an idiot.”

“You might not have said the word, but you got the message across.” Kate lowered her voice. “He’d started to doubt himself and think we were saying his work was wonderful because we love him. He needed a nudge. You gave it to him.”

“He’d hate us talking about him.” And while he might appreciate her prodding him, that didn’t change the past and the secrets they’d kept from each other, and might continue to keep from each other. Niall had them pegged as opposites—attracted—but not soulmates.

* * *

Niall closed the frontdoors on the final straggler and turned to rest his back against it.

“Don’t we leave by the same exit?” She joined him in the vestibule.

“There’s a back exit, but I had another idea.”I might only get one chance at this apology.

“I agreed to a drink.” She sounded wary, but willing, and the hopeless romantic in Niall chalked that up as a positive.

“My idea includes a drink.” He took her arm and steered her into the larger space. Snagging two chairs from a set of four nearby, he set them on opposite sides of the Huon table. “Please have a seat. I’ll be right back.”

Niall returned with a bottle of champagne and two flutes to find her stroking the curved back of her chair. Her delight in his furniture was satisfyingly honest. He needed her honesty—and her warmth—in his life.

She turned toward him. “They match,” she said, then gasped as he came closer. “French, handblown bowls and cut facets. Late nineteenth century. Where on earth did you get them?”

“An auction,” he said, although her reaction justified his lengthy search to find the rare glasses. “You seem to like matching sets.”

“I like you, Niall. Despite everything that’s happened, I like you.”

Likingwasn’t what he’d hoped for when he’d bought the glasses for her. “Please sit.” He eased out the cork, and the champagne burbled into the glasses.

“To Quinn, by design.” She toasted him. “It seems to be a larger enterprise than you originally envisaged.”

“Someone I respect told me not to be so thin-skinned—"

“I didn’t call you a fool, or an idiot or say you were thin-skinned.”

“You said I was afraid.” He grimaced. “I’ve done a bit of thinking in the last two weeks. You were right. I was also stubborn, bloody-minded, and content to drown in self-pity.” He’d thought the words would stick in his throat, but maybe the ancient Scots who said confession was good for the soul had a point. “It makes sense to use all my skills. I’d prefer the balance to be more furniture, less restoration and frames. After tonight, I might be able to make that happen.”

“Why didn’t you believe it could happen before tonight?” Her hand curled around the edge of the table.

Niall imagined her fingers trailing over his chest the way they had over each piece in this room. The simple eroticism of her action had started a slow hum, low in his body. The bond between them held, but she was strong enough not to forgive him.

“Maybe because it never has.”

She deserved chapter and verse of what had crawled up his backside and made him shut her out.

“And that’s a half-arsed answer,” he said.

* * *

Lucy considered himacross the width of the table. He’d made the kind of admissions few men in her experience were capable of, certainly not any of the men her mum had kept company with. Strengths could be weaknesses. A tired, determined man whose integrity caught him by the balls could at times be stubborn and bloody-minded.

“I want to apologise for pouncing on you the morning after I turned up uninvited. I treated you like the prize in some swinger’s raffle.”

He mumbled something barely audible. Had he said“fuckbuddy”?