Page 146 of Three Irish Kings

The bartender pours me a double shot, sliding it to me.

I shoot it back like water even though I flinch afterward as it burns down my throat.

I’m not a drinker. Even after Isla left and the bottle called to me, I didn’t give in. I usually hate the way it makes me feel, numb and emotional somehow at the same time, but I’m cravingsomethingother than the awful way I’m feeling.

I hail for another, and the bartender raises an eyebrow but pours it. I shoot it back, and when she pours me another, she catches my eye.

“Are you… okay?”

“Aye,” I answer, and her face changes when she hears my accent. I have a light one, but it starts to slip into a heavier brogue when I’m upset or tired. Or drunk, apparently.

I wouldn’t know. I’ve never really been drunk, except for once in high school with Cill that I don’t really remember.

I flash her a smile and place another hundred on the counter. She gives me a bright smile and shrugs, sweeping it into her apron.

Maybe she’d be cute if I wasn’t so in love with Isla. I haven’t thought about another woman since the day I met her.

And I’ve never thought about having kids. Not once. I know what kind of lifestyle they’d grow up in, know the target I’d be putting on their back.

But with Isla—she's not in the life, but she came from it. She knows how to disappear, clearly, since even Dare had taken this long to find her, and Cormac doesn’t have anyone nearly as good as him in their clan.

If we just took off…

I can do my job from anywhere, and I make millions every month.

Everything could be good. Everything could be… different.

But what if it isn’t mine? What if it’s Cillian’s, or even Dare’s? With how crazy they both are about her… If she’s pregnant by one of them, she’ll never choose me.

And now that alcohol is finally fuzzing my brain, I know that I do want her to choose me. I want her to know how much I care about her, how I want to protect her.

I don’t even know when it happened, when I fell for her… It just did.

First, I’d just wanted her, wanted to make her come, wanted to be buried inside her. The next thing I knew, I was talking about a book series with her that we’d both read, bantering with her while I made her lunch.

I fell for Isla so gradually that it felt like breathing, and now... now it’s like I can’t breathe at all.

I look down into the pale whiskey in the glass, my vision blurring at the edges from four shots. I’m a big guy, but I don’t drink much, hardly ever more than a glass I nurse at a meeting or a gala.

I make eye contact with the bartender, and she smiles, and I shoot back another drink.

I want to forget Isla Quinn ever existed for a few hours, and then I’ll figure out what the hell to do.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

CILLIAN

Dare grumblesand paces around the small room like he’s got ants in his pants, but all I can do is stare at Isla.

“You’re... you’re really having a baby?”

“Yeah, and who knows whose baby it is?” Dare pipes up.

I ignore him, going to her, taking her in my arms again.

My fingers intertwine at her lower back, and she puts her hands on my chest.

“I'm so sorry you’ve been going through all this alone.” I kiss Isla’s temple, and she sniffles, tears tracking down her face.