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I watched their exchange like a tennis match while I filled my face and was mildly surprised when Wren said, “To watch Wheel of Fortune,” she laughed, kissing him on the top of his head. She snagged a piece of bread from the cutting board and laid it atop her stew. “You three need to talk about the family business, so I’m outta here. Kat, take my spot.”
Declan took hold of her hand as Kat placed her bowl in Wren’s spot and slid over to sit in the chair.
“But you are family,” he said.
She gave a quick nod. “Yup, thanks to you. But I want nothing to do with the business.” And with that, she left the room to join the others in the kitchen.
Declan wiped his hand over his jaw and stared off into space. I knew that look. He was thinking. He shook himself and without a word, started to dig into his food. He looked at his sister. “Eat Kat, we’ll talk after.”
He shot me a guilty look before dropping his gaze to his food, and I wanted to smack him because he was up to something, and he hadn’t filled me in first.
I looked across the table at Kat. She was concentrating on her food, sitting there eating quietly. Now that I think about it, she hadn’t said a word since coming into the room. Did she know what was up?
Suddenly my appetite was gone. I pushed my bowl away and leaned back in my chair, staring daggers her way, hoping she would at least look to see me glowering at her. Maybe then she would leave and go back home.
Conner came back into the dining room, carrying his stew pot and looked at my half-eaten bowl.
“Are you sick or something?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Nah, I grabbed a burger in town.” It was a lie of course, but he needn’t know that.
He accepted that with a nod. “Kat, would youlike some more?”
“Oh. No thank you.” She looked up at him and smiled. “It’s delicious, but I’m having a hard time finishing what I have, it’s so filling.”
Conner pursed his lips. “Right. Declan, do you want more?”
“I’m good, thanks.”
“You know, you guys don’t have to lie. I know it sucks,” he said, dropping the ladle into the pot.
“Oh no!” Kat laid her spoon on the plate under her bowl. “Truly it’s the best stew I’ve ever had, Connor. My stomach has just been in a knot since meeting my father.”
Declan took that as an opening. “If you two are done eating, let’s head to the library to discuss this.”
Kat
I don’t want to discuss anything, I want to pack my shit and leave, but the glint in Rory’s eyes when Declan said that, had me staying against my better judgment. And now, I’m following them down the hall to the library.
Declan stops outside a set of double doors and slides them open. I step into the room andglance around. A desk sits in front of a windowed alcove, with two chairs facing it. Along one wall is a fireplace with a sofa and two-wingback chairs gathered around it and the other walls in the room house built-in bookshelves. My eyes are drawn to a golden horse the size of a Shetland pony, and I wonder if it’s real gold.
“Rumor has it that it is,” Declan said.
I spin around to look at him, wondering how he could possibly know what I was thinking. “What?” I ask as he sits in the chair behind the desk.
“The horse. I was always told it was solid gold.” He motions for me to take the chair beside the one that Rory is sitting in, a glass of amber liquid already in his hand.
I watch as Rory reaches for a bottle of Cognac, and my eyes just about pop out of my head when I read the label. I snatch the bottle from his hand and stare at it in awe. Thought to be the oldest cognac, with only three known to exist in the world, and I’m holding one of them, Gautier Cognac 1762. “Where did you get this?” I ask in a hushed whisper as I rub my thumb over the two hundred- and sixty-two-year-old label.
“Who cares,” Rory says, taking the bottle back. He splashes some into two glasses and caps the bottle and sets it down on the desk.
The bottle alone had to be worth a prettypenny, but the cognac inside was priceless. Livid, I cross my legs and fold my arms over my chest. “I care! That bottle shouldneverhave been opened. Do you have any idea what it even is? Probably not, because you’re an idiot.”
He sat back in his chair with a grin on his face, and all I want to do is reach over and smack the shit out of him.
“Kat,”— Declan pushes a glass towards me — “the booze was drunk a long time ago. I just refill it because I know what the significance of that bottle is. Now, drink up, you’re going to need it.”
Feeling like a fool, I pick up the glass and toss it back. Its warmth spreads down my throat to the pit of my stomach as I gasp.
