Page 153 of Beautiful Scars

Chapter 11

CILLIAN

Meisie wasn’t joking.

I tried to keep tabs on how many champagne glasses she’d demolished, but I lost count partway through the meal.

The meal.

Holy fuck, the meal.

I don’t know what her game is. What she’s playing at. Sometimes I think she acts out because she’s just not capable of facing reality. It’s like a way of protecting herself. I can sympathize with that—I have unconventional ways of protecting myself too.

But this…? She’s torturing herself.

I don’t know what to say to her. I don’t know how to fix her. To fix us. How to make this better. I’m not good with words. I prefer action.

I unlocked the door. That was my action. I didn’t want to, but I knew I had to.

Now, bearing in mind the gates were locked so she wouldn’t have gotten very far at all, but she didn’t know that, and I had to know what she would do.

She stayed.

A prime fucking example of action speaking louder than words.

Why do we still need words when I gave her the chance to leave me, and she stayed?

We should be beyond words. But the way she’s been acting would suggest that’s not the case.

I sit back in my chair, watching her from the shadows.

She’s sitting at a table across the room with Sarah and a few of my mate’s wives and girlfriends. Laughing her head off. Drinking.

She looks happy. Happy without me. But I know that’s an act. Every so often she glances up, making sure I’m still here. Still watching her.

“Tadhg’s come up with a contingency plan. For if this—” Ethan gestures around the room. “—fails, and the legalization goes through.”

I nod my head. “Tell him to take it to Cole.”

Ethan swallows and looks down at his glass. “Callum says we take things to you until further notice.”

Of course he does. The whole world seems to have noticed that my brother is slowly descending into...God knows what to call it. “I’ll catch Tadhg before you leave for Belfast.”

We’re interrupted when the DJ lowers the music and the microphone squeals with feedback. “Attention, folks. Can we have everybody gathered around the dance floor for Mr. and Mrs. Hendry’s first dance?”

“That’s you, mate,” Ethan says, chuckling. He slaps me on the back as I get out of my chair.

This is the last thing we have to do before the cameras fuck off. The final pretense before my new wife can go off the rails completely.

I stand in the middle of the dance floor watching while Sarah fixes her curls and Meisie takes the last swig from her champagne flute. My patience with that is wearing thin, and I’ve a good mind to make her sit on my knee for the remainder of the evening so she doesn’t end up slumped over the toilet-bowl before midnight.

She walks toward me with her chin jutting out and I can’t fight my smile. She looks beautiful. Really fucking beautiful. And I never even told her.

I should have.

There’s a lot of things I should just tell her.

Maybe then we can salvage this. Like Cole said, I’m not getting another one. And neither is the new Mrs. Hendry.