Page 41 of The Unlikely Spare (Unlikely Dilemmas #3)
Chapter Twenty-Four
Nicholas
As Christmas parties go, this ranks up there in the “surprisingly not ghastly” realm.
My protection officers have achieved that particular level of relaxation where they’re still scanning for threats but are far more relaxed than normal.
Blake’s actually laughed twice, Cavendish has unbuttoned his top button—which is almost the equivalent of stripping naked by his standards—and no one’s mentioned protocols in at least twenty minutes.
It’s a Christmas miracle.
Now the party is winding down, with people executing that delicate social ballet of departure.
They don’t want to seem too eager to leave and appear ungrateful, but they also don’t want to linger and outstay their welcome.
Blake makes her excuses first, then Davis practically sprints for the door, muttering how he’ll be back for his shift soon.
Singh leaves, discussing security rotations with Malcolm, while Cavendish follows a few minutes later, phone pressed to his ear.
The suite feels too large with most of the crowd gone. MacLeod remains planted by the window, nursing the dregs of her whisky. Eoin moves through the space collecting abandoned plates, and I find myself tracking his movements the way he usually tracks mine.
My body still carries the memory of him: the slight soreness, the faint marks on my collarbone and hips, the echo of fullness that makes me shift restlessly.
I try to ease that restlessness by gathering empty glasses.
“It is weird watching royalty do actual tidying,” MacLeod announces to no one in particular. “It’s like seeing a unicorn use a hoover.”
“I’m perfectly capable of basic cleaning tasks,” I reply.
“Capable is a strong word,” Eoin says. “I think it’s more likely to be ‘theoretically aware that cleaning exists as a concept.’”
The half grin he gives me is a dangerous thing.
MacLeod finishes her whisky and stands. “Right then. Early start tomorrow.” She nods at us both. “Happy Christmas, sir. O’Connell.”
Then she’s gone, leaving behind a silence that stretches between Eoin and me like a held breath. The silence seems to have texture now, threaded through with the echo of gasped names and tangled sheets.
My phone buzzes, breaking the tension. Callum’s name lights up the screen with a photo attachment of him and Oliver in matching Christmas jumpers that look deliberately hideous. At least, I hope it was deliberate. Oliver’s expression suggests he’s been thoroughly charmed into this indignity.
I flash the screen at Eoin. “My brother has a gift for making Oliver do things that would have his former constituents questioning their voting choices.”
Eoin examines the photo. “The former PM in a reindeer jumper. That’s definitely something I never thought I’d see.”
“Callum’s power knows no bounds.” I set the phone aside.
I’m curiously reluctant to shatter this moment, Eoin as relaxed as I’ve ever seen him, with a trace of a smile on his face. I have a rather desperate need to keep him here, talking about brothers and bad jumpers and anything else that he wants to talk about.
“Do you have any Christmas traditions with your brother?” I ask.
His fingers go still on the glass he’s just picked up. “We drink. Remember the people who should be there.” He raises his gaze to mine, and I recognize the shadows in them only too well. “Mam died when I was twelve. Da followed her a few years later.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, even though I know platitudes are meaningless.
“Long time ago now.” But his voice carries the weight of old grief.
I know how grief ages differently than time, how “long ago” can feel like yesterday when a memory is triggered.
I move to the window and stare out at the city and harbor sprawled out, the volcanic island of Rangitoto in the distance. “My father died in a skiing accident when I was five,” I say.
“I know,” Eoin replies, his voice quiet.
Of course he knows. The whole world knows. My father’s death has been dissected in unauthorized biographies and trotted out at dinner parties by people who think tragedy makes for good conversation. My father, the playboy party prince, showing off, skiing too fast.
It’s what he did, pushed everything past its limits, until he eventually went too far.
“He loved Christmas.” I don’t know why I’m saying this, but now I’ve started, I can’t stop myself. “He made everything into an adventure. Once he rappelled down the side of Sandringham dressed as Father Christmas. Security nearly shot him.”
Eoin makes a sound that might be amusement or sympathy.
“Everyone has these stories about him. But I hardly remember him.” The confession feels like it’s been excavated from some sealed vault I’d rather forgotten existed.
But it’s true. I’ve only got flashes of memories left. The smell of his cologne. How his laugh filled entire rooms. The way his hand felt enormous when it held mine.
“People tell me I’m exactly like him,” I continue. “But I have no idea if that’s correct. And I’ve heard so many different versions of him that I have no way of actually knowing which one is true.”
My grandmother’s carefully edited versions, my mother’s bitter recollections, the tabloids’ greatest hits. Who was my father actually? And am I exactly like him, destined to make the same mistakes?
I hear Eoin move, his footsteps soft on the carpet. When I glance in the window’s reflection, he’s leaning against the back of the sofa. Like he’s giving me space while staying present.
“People can lose themselves trying to live up to someone else.” Eoin’s gaze doesn’t leave my reflection. “Especially when that person is gone and all that’s left is everyone else’s interpretation of who they were.”
Air evacuates from my lungs completely. I turn from the window to face him properly.
Somehow, Eoin’s summarized it exactly.
I’ll never know what my father would think about the person I’ve become. I’ll never know what guidance he would have offered me, whether he would have advised me to play by the rules or break them spectacularly.
It’s been driving me mad, trying to infer what he would say or do based on the fragments of him in other people’s memories. Trying to work out how to cope with the particular legacy he’s left me.
“I think you have no choice but to just be you,” he continues, his voice softer than I’ve ever heard it. “Not the version your grandmother or mother wants, or the tabloids crave. Just Nicholas.”
Just Nicholas. As if it were that simple. As if one can simply shed centuries of breeding and expectation like an ill-fitting dinner jacket.
“And if I have no idea who that is?” The question slips out before I can stop it.
Eoin tilts his head, regarding me seriously. His fingers drum once against the sofa back, then still.
“Then you figure it out one choice at a time,” he replies finally.
The simplicity of his words strikes me. Because he’s right. When it boils down to it, all we are is a combination of the choices we make.
I find myself moving closer to him, drawn by some invisible pull.
“Is that what you did?” I ask. “Figured out things one choice at a time after your brother’s accident?”
His eyebrows fly up, like he’s surprised I remembered.
Does he honestly believe I don’t catalog everything he’s ever said to me like some besotted archivist hoarding rare manuscripts? That I don’t trawl through our conversations afterward, searching for clues to the man under that stoic exterior?
His jaw works, the muscle jumping beneath stubbled skin. “I didn’t have much choice. When everything fell apart, I just…did what needed doing.”
“Which was looking after your brother.”
Eoin nods, moving to the mantelpiece, picking up one of the decorative objects and turning it over in his hands without really looking at it.
“Malachy’s life was derailed by his injuries.
He was this mouthy kid who loved nothing more than playing football, making mischief with his mates.
And then suddenly, this kid who was always on the move was a full-time wheelchair user… ” He trails off.
I stay quiet. I get a sense he needs to tell this story in his own way.
“I was supposed to be with him that day.” His fingers tighten around the ornament. “But I’d gone out to meet friends. If I’d been home instead…”
“You might both have been injured,” I say softly. “Or worse.”
His jaw tightens. “Or I might have got him out sooner.”
The weight of that guilt hangs in the air between us.
“So you became his protector,” I say.
“Someone had to.” Eoin shrugs. He sets the ornament down with exaggerated care, then turns to face me properly. “Da already had a drinking problem, but it got worse after the accident, and he drank himself into liver failure. Had my aunt and uncle nearby, but they had their own struggles.”
“That’s a lot of responsibility on you.”
“You do what needs doing,” he repeats as if it’s a mantra he’s lived by. “Mal needed someone to help with physical therapy, to make the flat accessible, to fight the insurance companies and the landlord. I needed…” He pauses, seeming to search for the right words. “I needed to not feel helpless.”
I understand that feeling at a visceral level. To not be at the mercy of circumstances beyond your control. To find purpose in a new situation. It’s what I’ve been searching for ever since my life was derailed and I became second in line to the throne.
I sink onto the sofa, suddenly exhausted by it all.
“Do you still feel guilty?” I ask. “About not being there when it happened?”
His gaze is startlingly direct. “Every day.”
His honesty rather knocks me for six. There’s no careful calculation of how much to reveal. Just the truth, bare and unvarnished.
Is this what has attracted me to Eoin, right from the start? He’s straightforward, upfront, honest. No false charm, just the truth as he sees it, delivered with an Irish bluntness.