Page 12

ROISIN

The morning brings a hangover and the oppressing reminder of the fact that I’m thirty days away from being locked behind bars, a wanted criminal in my own organization.

It’s early; the clock on my phone points out that normally, I’d still be asleep at this time.

Too fucking early, definitely. The rest of the house probably isn’t awake yet, but the champagne still fizzing in my veins clearly had an impact.

I get up, brush my teeth and run a comb through my hair, then settle back into the comfortable bed.

The light on the walls is the dove-gray particular to the very beginnings of dawn, and I let myself soak it in while trying to sort through the racing thoughts in my head.

The despair hits me like a sucker punch.

No chance of seeing my mom again.

No chance of finding her.

No chance of falling in love or having a family or just fucking going to Ibiza for the weekend, or doing any of the other things that I’ve toyed with doing with my life after I found my mom.

Jail. Forever.

For a crime I didn’t do.

Stassi put me in one of the guest bedrooms, which I’m kind of grateful for.

I did have a room here, once, but I have no attachment to it.

The guest room is perfect, a soft blend of fabrics with cream tones that work well with the ancient stone walls.

It’s not even freezing in here, which I attribute to the prolific use of space heaters, and what I suspect might be a sub-floor heater under the luxurious rugs at my feet.

The bed linens are soft. They feel relatively new, and I know that they weren’t here when I last left the manor house. Granted, that was a good deal of years ago, but still.

They look nice. Soft. Neutral. Nothing to let anyone know about the fucking vicious past that these walls have witnessed.

I look down, surprised at the feeling of a tear slipping out of my eyes. I scrub my hand against my face, trying to stem the rest of them.

There’s nothing to cry about, Ro. You’ll figure it out. They won’t arrest you. Marco will help…

And then he’ll leave.

Again.

A soft knock on my door makes me suck in a breath quickly, tugging the sheets up to wipe away the rest of the tears. “Yes?” I call, annoyed at the thickness in my voice as I try to clear the last of the sadness from it.

“It’s me,” Marco rumbles .

Fuck.

I went to bed in the guest room last night alone, thinking that it would be less suspicious to try and find Marco and get him settled, but now I realize that I might have made a mistake. Liam is never going to buy that Marco and I sleep in separate rooms.

I just thought that since Marco wasn’t with me when I went to bed, it wouldn’t make sense for me to send someone to gather him. Normal couples would just wait until one of them wanted to go to bed.

Right?

“Roisin, open the door.”

God. Damn. It.

I hate how I respond almost immediately to his commanding voice. My muscles lurch forward, like a puppy, eager to follow his every command.

I’m on my feet before I even know what’s happening, and I approach the door so quickly, I pause for a second because I don’t want to make it seem like I’m hopping to his every command.

“Roisin—”

I pull the door open. “What?” I hiss.

Marco steps inside, the movement bringing him overwhelmingly close to me. The heat rolling off of his chest, the smell of his skin, momentarily overwhelms me. I step back, just trying to put space between us.

The door clicks softly behind him, closing on hinges that are absolutely new, because when I lived in this house every single hinge squeaked bloody fucking murder when you closed the door.

Which my father liked to punish me for. With his fucking fist.

The reminder of the darkness that haunts this house brings the crushing sorrow back.

Full force.

I spin, so that Marco can’t see the tears in the corners of my eyes. “Where were you last night?”

“Garden.”

I blink. “All night?”

Marco studies me. “I was talking to Elio,” he says after a moment.

Oh.

“Do you… usually talk to Elio all night?” I ask. I know that he doesn’t. or at least, he didn’t when we were… living together.

It’s not being together. It was when I held him in custody in witness protection.

But I don’t know how else to describe the relationship we had. We were living together, I was holding him in custody.

But there was more. There was absolutely so much more.

He shrugs. “It’s new.”

“Okay. Well. Good for you, I think,” I mutter. I eye the bed. If I just tug the sheets back, he won’t be able to see the tear stains…

I go for it .

Quickly, I tuck myself back in, pulling the covers up around my chin. I look at him, then glance at a chair that Stassi tucked up under the window. “You can sit there.”

“I’ve been out in the cold all night,” he growls.

“And you smell like it,” I say. It’s a cheap shot, I know. But I don’t know what I’m going to do if Marco climbs into the bed.

He glowers at me.

Without saying another word, Marco grabs his bag and stomps into the bathroom attached to the guest suite. I hear the shower come on, and I cower under the blankets.

Stop thinking about him naked, Ro. It’s not okay. Just focus on your problems. The fact that you are at risk of losing everything. The fact that you…

The door to the bathroom opens and Marco reappears…

Without a shirt on.

I resist the urge to squeak with shock, and instead roll over. I’m fully ready for Marco to get into the chair, but to my shock, the bed dips.

“What are you doing?” I hiss.

“Sleeping.”

My jaw works. I can’t believe that he just… got into the bed.

“I recommend you do the same.”

I huff. “I was sleeping.”

“No, you weren’t.”

The sound is slightly muffled by the blankets, but I snort again. “How do you know?”

“I heard you crying.”

I stiffen. “I wasn’t.”

“You were.”

“No, I wasn’t.”

“I heard you.”

“You heard wrong?—”

Abruptly, the bed shifts. The covers get pulled down, and within a heartbeat, Marco looms over me, his eyes dark as he stares down.

“You were crying. And I’m not doing a childish back and forth with you, Roisin.

I heard you crying. You have every fucking right to be scared.

We’re here, but it doesn’t sound like your brother or your future sister-in-law is in a position to figure out what happened, or why you’re being blamed.

Someone in your brother’s organization is fucking selling you out, and Liam is going to have to trust both of us in order to figure out who the fuck it is. Hell, it could be him,” he grunts.

I look away.

“It’s not looking good. But sitting here and arguing with me isn’t going to fucking help,” Marco mutters.

I don’t answer.

He’s right. The thought that Liam might be the one who sold me out has crossed my mind, but considering that I’d be able to tell Interpol exactly how fucked he is as a business leader, and where I’d be able to sell his secrets to the highest bidder .

It’s not love or commitment, sure, but at least I know that I could hurt him just as badly as he hurts me.

Unless, of course, there’s more.

Marco seems to understand, and moves off of me. I breathe, sucking in air that seems oddly cold without his heat to warm it.

“We need to figure out who the fuck did this to you, Roisin. We need to figure it out, fast, because you don’t have time to argue with me. For better or worse, I’m here with you. I’m here to fucking figure this shit out.”

“And then you’ll leave when it’s done,” I whisper.

It’s too vulnerable. Too fragile. The question sits in the air like a glass suspended mid-drop, waiting to hit the ground and explode.

Marco breathes.

“Yes. When it’s done, I’ll be gone. We’ll be connected through Liam, but I have my own family to look after.”

I roll over.

The words hit me, somewhere that fucking hurts. I don’t want him to see me cry. I don’t want him to hear me.

But the fact that he will be gone, after this?

It’s the icing on the fucking cake.

Eventually, I suppose I fell asleep, because when I awaken, the light has changed from the soft gray of early morning to the muted, rainy gray of the wintery Irish morning. I sit up, blinking, and notice the lack of male presence next to me.

He’s gone.

But, he hasn’t left.

I think.

I shower quickly, opting for a comfortable, if luxurious, outfit. Expensive jeans and a cloud-soft cashmere sweater. I do my best to wrangle my hair into a composed state, choosing to keep it back and off of my face, before I head out into the manor.

I have no idea what to do right now.

Marco is, unfortunately, right. I need to start working Liam and Stassi over for information about who might have come up with the plan to frame me in the organization, but I don’t know how to do that.

Liam is my brother. For better or worse, I would rather just ask him outright.

And Stassi is… Stassi.

She is the unknown, though. So I do probably need to start there.

Sighing, I head into the kitchen, in search of my future sister-in-law.

Stassi, poised and perfect as always, is sitting in the kitchen.

I note with some satisfaction that her outfit echoes mine; dark, well fitting jeans, and a black sweater that also looks quite soft.

Stassi, however, looks like a literal model, and I give her sleek blonde hair an envious glance before sliding in next to her.

“Morning,” I say, reaching for the pastries displayed on the table in front of her.

“Oh my god. I’m so happy you’re awake!” Stassi beams. “Okay so, I’m thinking today that we need to go into town and run some errands.”

My fingers freeze on the croissants. “What for?”

“Well, I need to confirm some things with the florist, and I think that someone in town has a really cute little stationery shop that I’m thinking of using for the invitations.”

“Invitations?”

Stassi nods. “Liam agreed that we need to make sure people buy into what we’re doing. So. Invitations, flowers, the whole nine yards. My mom will never believe that we’re getting married unless I really sell her on it, you know?”