Page 52

I reach for my phone sometime in the middle of the night to adjust the thermostat.

It’s too warm, and there’s not enough airflow.

The settings we have downstairs are perfect for that room, for our bed linens, with two people.

Here it’s stuffy, without the right circulation, and the temperature is off.

It’s three-thirteen a.m., and that’s solid heat at my back. Sure the covers are too thick, too… unused, and the air isn’t ri ght. But the heat isn’t because of the mechanical system in the house or the airflow. It’s— Nope. Nuh uh. I need space. I need?—

Lips hit my lat muscle just as I throw the covers back and exit the bed, turning to stare down at Ayla, wide-eyed and vulnerable.

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Where else would I be?”

Where else would she be? The traitor could be with her sack of shit father. The liar could be with her mother at the hospital.

“Anywhere but here. I give no fucks where that might be.”

“At the risk of pissing you off?—”

“What do you mean risk ? I’m furious.”

She sits up, stares into my face and says, bold as brass, “I took vows. You took vows. And I damn well expect you to honor and keep them. I don’t give a fuck if I can remember them or not.”

The fuck? Did she just throw my commitment to her back in my face?

“You think I trust anything you say?” I scoff.

“I think—” She extends the back of her left hand out to me. “You made a commitment, and so did I. I think I’m your wife in good times and in bad. I think you trusting what I may or may not have said doesn’t undo your obligation to this marriage. And I think?—”

“I don’t give a fuck what you think.” I storm out of the room, waiting for her to charge right behind me.

Instead, I find myself alone in the kitchen, thirsty as shit with a raging headache.

She just threw in my face what I said to her the night we got home.

Those words are burned on my brain because I replayed that conversation over and over again when I was in the shower that night.

Was I too harsh? Was I brutal in my honesty? I’d worried.

But I was speaking from love. From commitment to my wife, to the life we made with each other. I was reiterating my vow.

Her words, instead, are a trap. Or a trick. She’s trying to hold me in something that she alone created. And like hell will I fall for it.

Four hours later, I’m at my desk downtown. I’m exhausted, hung over, and run out with where my mind and heart have gone.

I worked out again until I was so physically spent, I couldn’t do another rep. I showered and got the fuck out of the house. And here I sit, staring out the window, no good to anyone in my businesses. No good to myself.

I pull up the house cameras on my laptop and watch the goings-on in my home. The cleaners are there. Come to think of it, I’ve never once paid attention to faces. The company was vetted, fingerprinted, and signed the NDA. I’ve never even considered their employees.

Ayla works in her studio. The redhead is in a stare down with that damn eagle. The Eye of the Storm was a more appropriate name than I could’ve known. How fucking prophetic.

I wish there was something I could do to get out of my head, out of the torment, away from the sadness or the hurt I refuse to feel.

Anger is easier. Anger is cleaner. Anger is me fighting back, not me being played by someone I trusted.

Vibration from my desk draws my attention from my melancholy. Cian Murphy’s name flashes across the screen before I direct the call to voicemail. It immediately rings again, and again, I do the same.

Cian Murphy: Answer the damn phone, Barone.

Oh joy. My day is getting better and better. Even my own sarcasm falls flat.

When the phone rings again, I answer. “Yeah.”

“Yeah? Fuck you, Christian.”

“Okay. But what did I do this time to warrant the anger and mistrust of a Murphy? ”

“You knew? You’ve known all this time and didn’t bother to tell us?”

“What are you talking about? I discovered it last night, just like you.”

“How could you— Wait. What?” Cian’s anger has fizzled into confusion and taken mine along with it.

“Cian, what are you referring to? I’ve had a hell of a twenty-four hours, and I’d like to avoid another Murphy knock-down drag-out if I can. Three in one day is three too many.”

“I’m talking about you knowing about Ma’s PLS diagnosis three years ago and not having the decency to tell us.”

What the hell?

“Six days, Cian. I learned six days ago just like you. Ayla told me when she got home from your house.”

Home. Home .Ugh, that word.

“Look, you lying piece of shit?—”

I disconnect. I’m not listening to this when it’s not staring me down, like Liam was last night or Ayla did early this morning.

My phone rings and I cycle it off. Fuck this shit.

I’m not surprised when my desk phone rings forty minutes later and my assistant, Sandra, buzzes to tell me I have a guest at the same time my door flies open on its hinges slamming into the wall behind it.

“Cian.” My voice sounds cold, but inside I’m seething. I do not have time for another battle today. Not when my patience is this thin.

The normally calm Murphy is channeling his inner Seamus, red faced and looking… murderous. He stalks my way while reaching into his pocket.

My mind seizes. I remember the burn of a bullet peeling the skin from my body, the rip and tear through muscle and bone, the bite of it flying through an exit allowing the pieces inside of me out. My only thought is duck. I fling the high back chair behind me and hit the floor.

The slap to the desktop and his unbelieving “What the fuck” happen in tandem. He rounds my desk, staring down on me. I wish I were the guy who would puff up my chest in the face of a gun. Apparently, I’m the hide-and-seek-shelter guy. Bruise number thirty-seven to my pride is complete.

“What the fuck are you doing down there?” Cian’s face is the picture of bewilderment. He extends a hand and, with my brutalized ego already crushed in humility, I accept.

He steps back, drops into the chair opposite me, and never looks away.

We sit in complete silence until he gets up, closes the door, and returns to his chair.

“I’ve known you a long time. We don’t always see eye to eye, but I’ve always shown you respect.

At first because of my sister. Later, because you earned it. ”

He waits for me to say something, but my mouth is dry and adrenaline is screaming through my veins. I need the time to breathe and have my body and mind return to normal function.

“Learning that you knew this whole time about Ma and were helping her… I don’t get it. I respect you doing it. I don’t respect you hiding it.”

I extend a palm out to him. “No clue what you’re talking about, Cian. I learned about Janie a week ago just like you.”

His eyes drop to the paper on my desk and back to me. His jaw goes hard as do his eyes.

Dropping my eyes to the paper, I skim it quickly, before lifting it to devour the words, not once but twice.

It’s a recommendation for Janie Murphy to get into a research trial for patients with Primary Lateral Sclerosis at CU-Anschutz.

It’s from just under two and half years ago.

And it is signed by me, referencing my position on the board at the hospital.

On the third reread, my eyes fall shut, my head drops to the headrest, and my whole world crumbles from below my feet.