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CHAPTER ELEVEN

NIALL

I watched the woman walk away from Una and Anna with a frown. I didn’t recognize her, although I was sure I had seen her in the lobby one day. She was probably a guest, but why was she talking to the girls?

Finn strolled in a few moments later, and I looked over at him. He joined me by the monitors, a small smile on his face as he observed them laughing together.

“What a bond they’ve formed,” he said.

“I know.”

“Fucking awful how it happened, but Una loves her.”

“Anna feels the same. I like knowing she has a friend.” I tapped the image I had frozen earlier. “Do we know her?”

He sat down. “Heidi Walters. A hotel guest. Apparently she asked the girls about a sushi place yesterday, and they chatted. Sat and had tea with Anna this morning.”

“Anna never mentioned her.”

“I checked her account. Everything seems normal.” He grinned. “She asked William yesterday about a sushi place, and he sent her over to Una.”

I laughed. William was one of our oldest employees, and, while very knowledgeable about the area, some of the newer fads didn’t interest him. “I doubt sushi is a big item on William’s list.”

“Unless it comes with a plate of chips and some tartar sauce, no. I doubt raw fish ranks very highly.” He picked up some papers. “Una made a list, but I don’t think he could find it.”

“Well, luckily, they were sitting close.”

“I suppose so.” Finn looked over some numbers. “Business is good.”

I snorted. “That’s an understatement. We’re so deep in the black, we’ll never see another color.”

He grunted, looking over another file. “Everything quiet on the streets?”

“Yes. I checked in with all the senior men. Nothing untoward. No more fires, robberies, or areas of concern.”

“That makes me happy.”

“Me too.”

He reached for the coffeepot, pouring himself a cup and taking a sip. “I’m going to give Una a ring tonight.”

“About time.”

He smirked. “I want to marry her as soon as she’s ready.”

“Of course.”

“Which, if I have my way, will be in a few days. Not weeks. I plan to pull every string I have in order to make it happen.”

I laughed. “Not surprised.”

He sat back with a frown. “Roisin can’t travel.”

“No,” I said with a shake of my head. “Not for a while.” Understanding his line of thinking, I added, “She’ll be sorry to miss the wedding, Finn, but she wouldn’t want you to stop your plans.”

“I was thinking of taking Una to Ireland for a few days. Visit Roisin. Let her have a party at the pub.”

“She’d love that.”

He paused, and I waved my hand. “I know what you’re going to say. I’ll stay here and run the show.”

He frowned. “I want you to join us, but?—”

I cut him off. “I know. With what happened, you’ve already asked too much of Roman. It’s fine. You take Una and visit with Mum. I’ll go after you get back. She’ll see us both—just not at once.”

He studied me. “And Anna?”

“What about her?”

“Will you take her to meet Roisin?”

I hesitated. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Finn, we’re not you and Una.”

“No, you’re not. Not yet anyway. Nothing is standing in your way—except you.”

“I’m not relationship material.”

“Funny, the past while, you’ve been exactly that.”

“I’m helping her.”

He met my gaze. “Bullshit. You’re sleeping with her.”

“That’s not a relationship.”

He took a sip of coffee, set it down, and held up his hand, ticking off his fingers.

“One, you refuse to let her leave your room. Two, you worry over her constantly and are as protective of her as I am of Una. Three, you buy her clothes. Four, you’re ready to beat the shit out of anyone—including me—if they so much as look too long.

Five, you’re sleeping with her. You took her virginity. ”

I gaped at him. “You know that?”

“She and Una talk. About everything. Una fills me in.”

“Jesus,” I muttered. “That was personal.”

He waved his hand. “It’s all personal, Niall. This whole fecking thing is personal. And emotional. Why can’t you admit you have feelings for this woman? She looks at you like you hung the moon, and frankly, you look back at her the same way. What the feck is stopping you?”

“I ruin every relationship I’ve tried to have. I just don’t connect on the same level. It’s as if there’s a wall. I can’t break it down.”

“Maybe it’s not you who needs to break it down. Maybe you simply need to allow it to happen.”

I shook my head, and he leaned forward. “Don’t you think I fucked up some relationships before Una? Jesus, I fucked up this one with her, and we found our way through, finally. We all have people we leave behind, Niall. We simply weren’t ready for them.”

I sighed. “I don’t want to hurt her.”

“But you are hurting her. You’re hurting yourself too.”

I stood and paced. “I keep thinking of my mistakes.”

“Such as?”

“Marie—”

He cut me off. “Marie—you were infatuated with her fecking breasts and the way she dropped to her knees any time you were around. It was lust, you stupid feck. You were twenty-one.”

I ran a hand through my hair. “I thought it was more.”

“You grew up. Or, at least, I thought you did.”

“I fucked things up with Joy.”

Finn snorted. “Joy was a fecking adrenaline junkie. She liked being with you because of the danger you represented. Once she realized how boring you were, it was she who had an affair and walked. Jaysus. ”

He was right about that one.

“I thought Tamara might be the one.”

Finn rubbed his eyes, laughing. “Are you on drugs? Tamara wanted your money. You figured that out. Fast, thank God.”

“I haven’t felt anything for anyone in a long time. I use them for sex when I get tired of my own hand, and that’s it.”

He dropped his head into his hands. “Fecking TMI, Niall. TMI.” He looked up. “Are you honest with them?”

“Always.”

He was quiet for a moment. “I met Una when she was eighteen. She left me with a lasting impression I could never shake. I tried to be with others, but my heart was never with them. It was always with her. For a long time, I thought there was something wrong with me too, but when I found her again, I knew that I had been waiting for her. My heart had belonged to her all that time.” He blew out a deep breath.

“Maybe you’ve just been waiting for Anna. ”

I stared at him, some of my doubts beginning to fall away.

He stood. “Stop blaming yourself for things you didn’t cause. You aren’t broken, Niall. Those women meant nothing. They weren’t the right ones for you. There was nothing to them—no substance.”

“Except I have a pattern. I pick the wrong ones.”

“Then Anna is perfect. She picked you.”

That stopped me.

“She is real,” he insisted. “She has substance. A good heart. A loving heart. She wants nothing from you but your love. Why are you refusing to give her something you have in abundance?”

“I don’t know if I love her.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, give me strength. You wanted to kill Roman for offering her a new start. Beat the crap out of me for buying her some clothes. You threatened Rodney. A seventy-four-year-old man with a wife of fifty-plus years and grandkids, for looking at her too much. Who has cataracts, by the way, so he can barely see. One suggestion of getting her a place of her own, and you shut it down. What the feck do you call it if you don’t love her? ”

I had no good answer.

“Let me ask you a question.”

I nodded.

“If she were in an accident and you could rescue her, would you?”

“Of course,” I snapped.

“If she were in the same accident with your mum, and you could only save one, which would it be?” he asked, watching me carefully.

I opened my mouth, but no words came out. I blinked, my heart thudding, my chest tight.

“If you could save them both but give up your own life, would you?”

“Yes,” I replied instantly.

“Because you love both of them,” he stated triumphantly.

I had to look down, grip the back of the chair, and take a deep breath.

Holy feck, was he right? Did I love Anna?

The thought of her hurt killed me. The idea of her leaving was abhorrent to me.

And I would trade my life for hers in an instant.

Being with her made me feel things I had never experienced before.

I felt lighter. Happier. As if the only thing in the world that mattered was right there.

I looked up, meeting Finn’s knowing gaze.

“The lightbulb finally went off,” he stated, triumphant.

I walked toward him, and he held out his hand, expecting me to shake it.

Instead, I punched him in the gut.

He gasped, bending over.

“That’s for putting me in a fecking impossible situation.”

“It was hypothetical!”

“Fecker,” I snarled.

He laughed between gasps of air.

“Go get your girl, if she’ll still take you.” He sat down. “You dumb feck.”

I slammed the door behind me and headed to the elevator.

But I was smiling as I stepped in.

Anna came out of the bedroom, looking nervous.

I stared at her, enraptured by her simple beauty.

Her makeup was light, mostly covering the fading marks, but she had played up her dark eyes and they looked huge in her face, set off by her long lashes.

Her mouth was pouty with some pink stuff on her lips I wanted to kiss off.

She wore a dress I’d picked. A swath of royal blue, the color suited her.

With a deep neckline and gathered at the waist, it had long sleeves, a demure slit on one leg, and suited her to perfection.

I knew she’d chosen it as it covered the still-darker bruises on her arms. Her hair was up to one side, tendrils hanging around her face. She was elegant and sexy.

“You take my breath away,” I told her. “You are so beautiful, mo mhuirnín. ”

Her eyes widened, and she looked away. I stepped closer, brushing my knuckles over her cheek.

“What?”

“That doesn’t mean little doll.”

“No,” I agreed tenderly. “It means more.” I paused. “You mean more.”

She inhaled sharply.

“I need some time, Anna. To put it all into words. The right words.” I tilted my head. “Can you give me a little more time?”

Her answer was breathless. “Yes.”

I pressed a kiss to her soft mouth. “Thank you.”

I slipped a small box out of my pocket. “I had this made. I had planned on asking you to wear it for added safety, but the truth is, I want you to wear it because it’s from me.”

She took the box, her hand trembling. As she opened the lid, her gaze flew to mine, then back.

I reached in, pulling out the bracelet. It was white gold, the banding a simple weave, the tiny chocolate and white diamonds woven on the top twinkling under the lights. It was delicate yet strong—like her.

“Niall,” she breathed.

“I hope you’ll indulge my choice. The chocolate diamonds are like your eyes. Brilliant and beautiful.”

The eyes I was referring to sparkled at me as she nodded.

“This,” I said, slipping it on her wrist and tightening it, “is called a bolo slide. Very common. But it contains a small tracking device. Undetectable. I’ll know where you are.”

“It’s so beautiful.”

I smiled. “If you press and hold it once, it will send me an SOS, and I’ll know you need me.”

“How?”

“Press it.”

She did as I requested, and immediately, my phone, watch, and laptop all lit up. “If anything happened, if you were scared or lost or needed me, I could find you.”

I touched the slide. “If the tracker were somehow disabled, if you press and hold it twice, it sends a different signal. One that cannot be disabled.”

“Oh. Wow.”

“We don’t know the range. It’s something Evan’s been working on.”

At her questioning look, I explained. “He’s part of our security team, and tech is his jam. He handles all our gadgets. Trackers, drones, surveillance. All that sort of stuff.”

“I see,” Anna murmured.

“But since you’re not going far, it should be fine in the hotel or the grounds,” I continued. “Plus, it’s just a precaution. An extra measure to help you feel safer.” I smiled with a shrug. “And make me feel better too.”

She threw her arms around my neck and kissed me. I responded instantly, not caring about her gloss or anything else. Only tasting her. Holding her. Kissing her back until we were both breathless.

I drew back, touching her mouth. “I messed up your makeup.”

Her dimple popped with the width of her smile. “I don’t care.”

I grinned. “Me either.”

“Thank you. For the gift. The care that went into it.”

I gazed down at her. “A life with me would need precautions like this, Anna. Always.” I tightened my grip on her waist. “There would be dangers.”

“I know. Una and I talked a lot about that in the, um, place. And again here. I’m not afraid.”

I frowned. “You have to think about that. What you would give up.”

“I’d rather think of what I would gain.”

“Which is?”

“You.”

I swept her into my arms again, kissing her with utter abandon. My alarm went off, and I pulled back. “We need to be in our seats in ten minutes.”

She blinked. “I’ll get my bag.”

“You might want—” I tapped her mouth.

She grinned. “You too. Pink is not your color.”

I laughed. “I’ll remember that.”