Page 49

Kira

Ten years later…

I love the fall at the Green Mansion. Isla Green’s rose garden had expanded outward to an apple orchard.

A late frost had stunted the apples last year, but this year’s weather had been perfect, the trees in full bloom. The children were running around, picking the low-hanging fruit, while their fathers, Dairo and Eoghan, followed close behind with baskets to collect their finds.

“I can’t believe you’re pregnant again,” Rose laughed, her eyes falling down to my rounded belly. “How long are you going to let him get away with this?”

“This will be the last one,” I said, taking a seat on one of the Adirondack chairs at the fire pit, my hand on my rounded belly. “Two girls. Three boys. We’re done.”

Rose laughed, taking a seat. Her arm had been sprained in her last championship fight, and her face looked a little worse for wear.

Bruises covered her right and left eye, the fading blue and green going into her hairline.

Thankfully, she’d won, or Dairo would have gone into a rage and beaten her opponent to the ground.

Her opponent was barely able to stumble out of the octagon.

“I thought three was too much,” she said, shaking her head.

“Your youngest was an oops,” I laughed.

“It was a make-up sex baby,” she said, with a shake of her head, then she smiled, watching as her twins tried to climb their father to reach the highest apples.

There was a little girl following close behind. Almost twelve years old, she wore a plaid skirt, a long-sleeved button-down, tights, and ankle boots. Her hair was perfect, down to her chin, with a hairband that perfectly matched the skirt.

She followed with a basket in her hands, looking lost among the laughing and screaming. She tucked her hair behind her ear, looking around, unsure, and a little lonely.

She reached out and picked an apple, putting it away.

“They only have six more years,” Rose said. I knew exactly what she was talking about without her needing to say it.

“Another ten years,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “If one or both of them go to college.”

“Hmm,” Rose said with a small nod. “You think Cillian wants that?”

My eyes scanned the distant orchard as the scent of Isla’s roses drifted on the cool breeze, sending the warmth of the flames towards us.

Cillian was behind a tree with his youngest brother, Lorcan, who waddled, his trousers heavy with a diaper. Though he was attentively caring for his brother, his eyes kept drifting to the girl with the headband. Little Giovanna Durante, whom we had taken to calling Gia.

“She doesn’t seem very comfortable here, does she?” Rose mentioned.

I had noticed that as well. No matter how much we tried to reach out, Cosima was as contrary as ever. We asked for the girl to come and spend time with the children, hoping that some kind of bond would form, even if we did find a way out of the marriage pact.

If these children were friends, it would lessen the chance of the war resurfacing in the future.

The Italian Matriarch did not see things that way.

When she was forced to come out, she kept her regal distance, looking at us with the same bitter resentment that would not fade.

And still, Eoghan wanted to keep trying, if for no other reason than to be able to get his eyes on them, and know they were alive, healthy, and wanted for nothing.

His vows to Giovanni Morelli remained our little secret, along with the crypt at the Catholic church, where Morelli’s head was reunited with his body, surrounded by his favorite books.

The books were each in air-tight, heavily cared for containers which were checked several times a year for ideal humidity, so that his margin notes, and the philosophies he had written on the end pages would be preserved just in case his descendants ever cared to collect them.

There was even a small tomb for Algernon, his likeness on a statue on the lid, beside Morelli, in a place of honor.

I observed the Green children, who were lifelong friends and co-conspirators, at ease with roughhousing and screaming their lungs out.

They were a contrast to little Gia, who was sweet, regal, even as a tween. What kind of upbringing is she getting?

When she thought no one was looking, she reached up for an apple and put it to her lips. Then she turned her head, her silver-gray eyes sparkling as a small smile came to her lips.

“Well, look at that,” Rose said with a humorous smile on her lips. “I think you accidentally made a love match.”

When she looked away, Cillian turned his head, his eyes lingering over the little girl—his betrothed—until she walked away, back into the house on her own. Cillian began to walk toward her, until Lorcan grabbed his hand, trying to drag him back to the merrymaking.

“Oh dear,” I said, with a small laugh. “I see trouble ahead.”