Page 12 of Velvet Betrayal (The Dark Prince of Boston #3)

“Thanks to me,” he interrupted.

I stared at him, eyes narrowed. “Kieran…you don’t get to take credit just because you happened to be in the right place at the right time.”

“Oh, Rubes…you don’t even know the half of it.

” He glanced over at Rosie to make sure she was still asleep, then leaned in close enough that I could feel the heat of his breath on my neck.

“I sat outside your place and watched you every night for months …because Tristan wanted you out of the picture, and I didn’t know who else might.

You’re alive right now because of me . You should start thinking about that when you take risks. ”

I stiffened. “I made promises to my constituents.”

“Okay. And how can you keep your promises if you’re dead?”

He let it hang: the fact that I belonged to him, no matter what I believed, what I did, what promises I’d made. It made me want to hurt him, just a little, so I could believe I was still on my own side.

“I shouldn’t have taken you,” he said, so quiet I almost missed it. “I should have called. Let you hate me from a distance and just sent money and flowers and a couple of bodyguards and called it a day.”

I stared at my water glass, traced the rim with a shaky pinky. I thought of his hands, how they could cradle or break in the same motion. “You’re not wrong. You should have.”

He smiled, but it was empty. “But you would have ignored it. You’d have rolled your eyes at the threat and bull-charged your way down the courthouse steps and right into the sights of whoever wants this enough to get through the door without a key.

I love that about you. But I have to protect you.

And, honestly, Rubes, I have to protect her too. ”

I smirked. All those years forcing the world to treat me like an adult, and here I was: two blocks from the Boston Common, stashed away by a mobster ex who still called me by my law school nickname and poured hotel club soda like it was holy water.

“So you’ll leverage your brother’s criminal empire to keep your ex and your daughter from getting murdered. That’s your pitch?”

“It’s a pretty good one. Unless you have a better offer?”

“No. I don’t.” I reached for my glass, then changed my mind and, for the first time in hours, really met his eyes. “Okay. Let’s say I agree. How does this actually work, once Tristan gets involved?”

“I don’t really know,” he said.

“What do you mean you don’t know? Isn’t he your brother?”

“He is. He’s also the boss, Rubes. I don’t know what he’ll do at the best of times.”

Kieran wasn’t a liar, but omission was his native tongue, and I’d spent a decade reading men’s faces for a living. His was shuttered. Whenever he ran out of answers, he’d retreat, let the silence fill, let you imagine the rest.

“So we’re just… gambling,” I said.

He shrugged. “Not a bad strategy in this family.”

“That is not how lawyers work.”

“Good thing your baby-daddy is a lawless miscreant.”

He was right. I wasn’t. This…it wasn’t my world, and there was a good chance I would get myself and maybe my daughter killed if I tried navigating something I didn’t understand.

I was sitting in a luxury hotel, several floors above the frozen city, on the eve of giving myself to a world I’d spent a career trying to destroy.

I should have felt panic, or fury, but mostly I just felt tired.

And the tiredness made space for something like relief.

It was easier to stop fighting him and start plotting the next move.

I stood, a little unsteady from the wine, and almost tripped over Rosie’s sock at the foot of her bed. She’d kicked off the comforter and sprawled, starfish.

Kieran caught me before I fell. “Hey,” he whispered. “Don’t fall. I can’t deal with you being hurt.”

“I’m not going to break.”

“You might. I’m gonna shower. Will you be okay without me?”

“For ten minutes? I’ll live.”

“You better,” he said, dead serious—then he turned away, hand on the bathroom door. For a second he paused, as if he might say something else.

But he didn’t.

Just flashed me a tired look over one shoulder, and shut the door quietly behind him.

I crossed to the window. Boston glowed beneath me, distant and menacing.

The grid of Boylston cut through the dark like a scar, lit in red and white.

Every building looked like it had eyes. Every alley, a whisper.

Somewhere down there, someone was already running the plates.

Someone was making a call. Filing a report. Drawing a line.

But up here? The window didn’t open. It was sealed shut, a reprieve from Kieran’s world and from mine.

The glass had fogged from the inside, condensation creeping across the corners. I pressed a finger into it, drew a little spiral without thinking, then wiped it away.

Safe—for now. Maybe.

A bus rolled past below, taillights fanning red across the wet street. I watched it go, and for the first time in years, I had no plan.

I waited up for Kieran. When he came out of the bathroom, toweling his hair, the sight of him startled me—not because he was dangerous, but because for a second, I saw him the way a stranger would: a man built for war, rough at the edges, but softened by the small gestures that tied his life to mine.

He sniffed at the curtains, arms crossed, towel at his collarbone. “You didn’t have to wait,” he said.

“I know.” I kept my voice low. “It’s weird sleeping in a place like this and not thinking about… everything else.”

He stepped closer, gaze unreadable in the TV’s afterglow. “You want the bed closest to the wall, or the one by the window? I remember you used to hate light, but maybe you’ve changed.”

“People don’t really change,” I said, and instantly regretted it. “Sorry. I’m tired.”

“So am I. Come here.”

“What? Why?”

He rolled his eyes. “Just do what I tell you for once. Come here.”

I was too tired to argue. “Fine, but please don’t murder me,” I said, walking up to him. He laughed, pulling me into the bathroom with him.

“What are you—”

“Shh,” he said. “Look at yourself in the mirror.”

“What? I look really tired.”

He smiled. “You do,” he said. “But you also look like you could kill someone with a Post-It and a legal pad and maybe a paperclip. Which is exactly how I remember you.” He steered me so I was bracketed by him and the mirror, hands on my shoulders—gentle, not sexual, just insistent.

“Last time I saw you in a hotel bathroom like this, you were prepping a closing argument. Except you were wearing my shirt, not…this.” He thumbed the collar of my robe.

“Anyway. I want you to see this version of you.”

I tried to look away, but he caught my chin. I stared into my own eyes, braced and lacquered. There were new lines, more shadow; it wasn’t the face of a woman who ran six miles every morning and exfoliated with the tears of locally-sourced virgins. But I didn’t hate it. Not as much as I should.

“Why does it matter?” I asked, voice barely above a whisper.

Kieran’s hands eased. “Because you keep thinking there’s a break between who you were and who you are, and you keep punishing yourself for crossing it.

” He traced a thumb down my jaw, so gentle I almost laughed.

“But it’s the same damn face. And it’s the same damn person. Just…sharper. And you’re not dead.”

I blinked, and the red rimming my eyelids went temporarily transparent. I had to close my eyes. “That’s a very long-winded way of saying I look tired.”

He snorted. “Just tired is an improvement over some of the alternatives.”

I almost laughed. Maybe that was the trick. Whenever he was this thoughtful, I wanted to slap him, because I’d spent years convincing myself Kieran Callahan was a blunt weapon, not a source of comfort. But here it was.

“You don’t have to worry. I’m not breaking apart, even if it looks that way sometimes. You can stop…doing this. Whatever this is.”

He leaned against the vanity, arms crossed, lazy and confident and stubborn. “I don’t want to stop.”

And I realized, with a weight that wasn’t unpleasant, that I didn’t want him to stop either.

I knew what I should have done. But when he leaned down and kissed me, I didn’t even think about telling him to stop.