Page 41 of Irish Betrayal

“Mags, be honest. Blair and I were together the night before she left. Do you think that has something to do with her change?”

“What do you mean together? Together, together? Like naked together?”

Daniel sighed, shaking his head as a reluctant smile tugged at his lips. Only Mags could inject levity into a moment like this. “You know exactly what I mean, damn it.”

“But…she was a—” Mags cut herself off before she could possibly out a secret of Blair’s.

“Not anymore.”

“Okay then. Okay,” she repeated. “I’m going to be blunt.”

“Aren’t you always?” Daniel asked.

“Right,” Mags continued, ignoring Daniel, “if she had sex with you it’s because she wanted to. Blair doesn’t do regrets because she’s too smart to make stupid mistakes. I guarantee you, if you were naked and she was naked, she did the math.”

Some of the tension eased from his shoulders. He had wanted to believe that. It was a relief to hear one of Blair’s best friends say the same.

“Now that we’re talking about it, I believe something else has to be going on. Something she doesn’t want us to know. It’s all too sketch for my liking. Let me speak to Gray and Bébhinn. I’ll be in touch. We’ll figure this out, Dan.”

Once he disconnected the call, the suffocating silence of his office began to weigh on him. He would give Mags a few days, but that was it. His family didn’t own a private jet for nothing. Whether Blair liked it or not, she would be seeing his face. Soon.

There was one other woman that he knew might help. Putting his phone on speaker, he dialed his aunt Rowan, tapping his fingers restlessly against his desk until she answered.

“Daniel, what a surprise,” Rowan answered. “I’ve been missing you terribly.”

Daniel felt his chest pinch. He didn’t like disappointing either of his aunts, but particularly Rowan. “How about I take you out to dinner tomorrow night? In Tulsa, Oklahoma.” While he was holding his breath, Ulf opened the door and stepped back into his office without asking. Daniel raised his brow in question at his uncle’s interruption, but he simply chose to lean against the back wall and cross his muscled arms across his chest and scowl.

Silence greeted him on Rowan’s end, prompting him to add, “Bébhinn is still weeks away from having the baby.”

“Wren,” Rowan corrected.

“Right, Wren. I thought we could visit William and Katy Stanton while your sisters are on vacation.” Daniel’s mom told him that they’d tried to talk Rowan into going with them, but she declined.

“So, you want to take me halfway around the world to visit friends. It has nothing to do with the fact that, according to my sources, you just spent an exorbitant amount of money buying the house of a certain woman’s dreams, and that woman is currently living with those friends?

Daniel eyed Ulf’s smug expression, suppressing the urge to flip the man off. “Well, we could see Blair, too, of course.”

“I would enjoy getting away. Thank you, Daniel.”

Ulf’s smirk dropped, and his pretense of holding up Daniel’s office with his shoulder was gone. Ulf moved in close to his desk, leaning toward the speakerphone.

“That’s amazing, Row.” And it was. Amazing. Not only would she be his in to invading the Stanton’s, but it was also shocking because the trip would be the first spontaneous thing Rowan had done since her husband passed.

“I’ll call Katy this afternoon. And start packing, I suppose,” she chuckled. “You know Bébhinn will be furious with us.”

Daniel chuckled. “She might not be due for a while yet, but Dagr would never let her leave the country. Dagr’s a prick like his father.”

“True,” Rowan sighed, earning a scowl from Ulf—the other prick. “No worries, sweetheart. We’ll figure things out with your Blair. Relax. One Byrne sister isn’t as good as all three, but you know I’ll do my best.”

Daniel felt his chest tighten for a whole other reason. “I love you, Row.”

“I love you, too, sweet boy. Text me when you’ll be picking me up. Bye, now.”

Daniel took his first deep breath since that devastating text from Blair three months ago. He focused on the white-headed dark cloud hovering over his desk.

“Did you need something, Uncle?”

“I’ve hired a private detective to look into Samson,” he said without preamble. “I never lose a negotiation. Blair should have chosen Wales for her master’s and doctorate. There is some reason she chose Oklahoma, and I’m going to find out what it is.