Page 3 of An Angel’s Share (The Greystone Family: Greystone Brothers #1)

Aoife

Ireland, Present Day

“It’s no good pulling at the dress, Aoife. It’s too tight. You should have planned for this and got a new one. I did tell you. How obvious do you want to make it?”

I sigh, take another drink of my water, and try to ignore my mother. She’s been picking at me since I landed back in Ireland from New York two months ago, my altered state causing her so much stress, she fainted at the airport gate.

It was just too much for her to have an unmarried thirty-year-old daughter. A pregnant, unmarried, thirty-year-old daughter. How could I bring so much shame on her?

I’ve endured every insult. My age is a thorn in her side. How could I be this old and still single? Why hadn’t I found a nice Irish boy in America? How had I managed to come home with a doctorate and a baby, but no husband?

At no point did it ever occur to her that I may not actually want a husband.

She never even asked me what I actually wanted at all.

It was, and has always ever been, about what she wanted for me and why had I not delivered on her one and only request—a husband.

Oh, no wait, two requests. A husband and a baby.

Well, she’s getting fifty percent of that in about four months. One out of two is not bad odds. She should be happy with that.

“I didn’t know I’d get so big so quickly, Mammy.” I’m stroking my growing stomach with love, grinning at her like a fool as I do.

“You’re five months pregnant, of course you’re going to get bigger.

Maggie’s daughter looked like a beached whale at three months.

” She makes an over-exaggerated hand gesture showing how big that was, and I stifle an eye roll at her theatrics.

“I suppose I should be grateful you’ve not reached those proportions just yet.

” She looks me over with a critical eye.

“You can’t even tell you're pregnant from the back.” Wow, a compliment.

I’m not a beached whale. “I’m just thankful Liam is looking past it all.

He always liked you, but that boy needs a medal to take you on.

” She just can’t help herself. Her head shakes in disgust at me.

What the hell? Have I entered the 1950s? Be thankful? I don’t think so. Take me on? Who are we kidding here?

I spin sharply around to face her, throwing her a dirty look. It just bounces off, don’t know why I bother. I go for sarcasm instead.

“Maybe the money Daddy is paying him will soften the blow. At least the fact I’m pregnant shows him I’m a good breeder. A prize heifer. Put me in the show ring with a red rosette and call me Daisy.”

“Don’t you dare speak of your father like that.

He has not paid him, he has only increased his salary due to the extra workload he will do when you go on maternity leave.

I know you’ll change your mind and not come back after you’ve had this baby.

Liam’s keen to get you pregnant again in no time with a real baby. ”

The edge in her voice pushes me over the brink. I was happy to go for sarcastic banter—it’s her norm—but now she’s edged into nasty.

I slam down the glass, spinning on my heels.

She baulks when she realises her mistake.

Too late. I point my index finger at her.

“One more word, Mammy, and I will pull out of this ridiculous farce. I don’t need a husband.

I have the means and ability to do this on my own.

If I wanted a husband, I would have got one.

They’re queuing up to take on an heiress.

Gold digging, for your information, is not solely a female pursuit, regardless of all the stereotypes. ”

Still glaring at her, I stomp across the room to refill my water. “And I will be taking my place at the head of this family business. I have not slogged my guts out for my degrees and doctorate to sit back and let those boys ruin Grams’s legacy. It’s already a shit show.”

“Aoife, language,” she says faintly. She’s going to pass out again. Good. She may be quiet for a few minutes. I wouldn’t revive her.

“I blame your father. He was too lenient. Always filling your head with business strategy. This whiskey company will be the death of my family. Your father’s health is suffering due to its issues.

” She’s flapping her hands at her face. “Then you come back from New York, pregnant by a sperm donor .” She raises the back of her hand to her forehead in an overly dramatic move.

“I had to look it up. Maggie and I had never heard of the term.”

Grasping a napkin now, she starts wafting it at her puce face.

“Why couldn’t you be normal? Nooo, you had to be smarter than all the boys.

Taller, more confident. Why couldn’t you have pretended like all of my friends' daughters. Made them think they were in charge. Bent over a bit so you never towered over them. No, you had to become a Dr. Dr Aoife O’Clery.

Why couldn’t you have been stupid?” She’s screeching as she catalogues my crimes against her, and her outdated ideas and ideals.

That’s it. Game time over.

“Go tell them I’m pulling out of your stupid deal.”

She faints.

Again.

Maggie, my godmother and Mammy’s best friend, runs into the room. She’d obviously been listening at the door and heard the thud.

“Aoife, she only wants what’s best for you,” she chastises me gently whilst pulling my mother into a sitting position and tapping at her face.

Mammy starts to come around, reaching up to check her elaborate hairstyle has managed to stay in place. It has. Huh, I’m impressed.

They’re hugging each other as if the end of the world is upon them. What a disaster for them both—a woman who has her own thoughts. A woman who will not take orders from idiotic men, even to make them feel better for ten minutes. They’re discussing me as if I’m not in the room.

“I knew she’d be trouble when she was born with that red hair,” Maggie tells my mother softly, rubbing at her back. “It’s not your fault, Mae. It’s the red hair gene. Your Da was the same.” They both nod sagely and look at each other, tears in their eyes.

I snort out a laugh, reminding them that I am actually in the room, and can hear them. Grinning like the devil has ridden into town and shouted my number, I shake my long red locks at them.

“Thank god for Paddy Healey. Granda Healey was a god in my eyes,” I state with my hands on my hips, legs splayed in a power pose. I probably look like an alien species to them. I’m supposed to cower and smile politely.

They both gulp at the similarities they clearly see.

Everyone else on my Mammy’s side of the family is short with dark hair and blue eyes.

Me? No chance, a total throwback. I take after Granda Healey, her father.

I’m tall at five foot ten inches, well over six feet in heels, which I love to wear, expressly to tower over small men.

It makes me laugh how they then try any means to make you feel smaller.

Flaming red hair with an amazing natural curl to it, brown eyes, and a fuck you attitude saw Paddy dead and gone in his early forties.

But his legend lives on. He’s still talked about on a weekly basis, both at home and in the surrounding villages.

And certainly any pubs in a fifty mile radius.

I’ve been compared to him wherever I’ve gone—in looks and, certainly on occasion, due to my antics.

My love of breaking the mould, taking a risk, has landed me in my current predicament. My mammy is not impressed this time.

“You can’t pull out. It’ll kill your father.

” I doubt that is true, but let her ramble on.

“He needs to know you’re settled. Why you wouldn’t get married instead of just this engagement, I just don’t understand.

” Maggie has revived her. Her mouth is moving yet again. Why does nothing nice come out of it?

“Being engaged is enough at this point,” I assert.

“I want to settle back into life here. Get this company back on the straight and narrow. I can’t do that if I’m being harassed over a bloody wedding.

” I’m tugging at my very tight dress. It’s getting a bit hot in here.

“It’s been bad enough for this event. I need time to sort things out as well as have this baby, and then I’ll think about getting married. ”

That is actually a bald-faced lie, but I can’t hit her or Daddy with too much. He’s ill, she’s a pain. To be honest, I couldn’t stand the fall out at present.

“But at least Daddy knows my intentions. He’s fine. You, however…” I scowl at her and Maggie, who have moved onto the settees, Maggie picking up two flutes of champagne, one after the other, and downing them like it’s water.

A knock at the door and the smiling round face of Maggie’s daughter Christy comes into view. Married to my eldest cousin, Patrick, she was in my class at school. My yardstick, according to my mammy.

Where I went to Trinity then on to Harvard for business, slogging my guts out on my degrees and doctorate, Christy stayed home, working in the offices for my family business here in Killclery.

I then had to commute backwards and forwards, up and down the east coast of America, when my idiotic cousin Patrick and his pals convinced my dad and his brothers to set up a New York office.

Meanwhile, Christy was still at home in Ireland. All fine so far.

Then she made her fatal error, in my view anyway. A mistake so huge it cost her her freedom. She fell in love with Patrick, married him, left work, and popped out two beautiful kids. Perfect life.

Now you can see why I’m the biggest disappointment to my mother. I could have had it all. Her utopia. And I didn’t need to leave the family home to get it. I didn’t even need to leave Ireland. “Look at how happy Christy is,” was trotted out hourly. I just rolled my eyes.

And don’t get me wrong, I am not criticising Christy. I do want it all. I just did not want a man to get in my way. Hence, my sperm donor.