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It doesn’t.
“That bastard thinks he can walk into a Tallon event and taunt us for sport.”
Fionn turns away. His men follow him through the doors, and the conversations nearest the entrance slowly recover while my heartbeat continues thundering in my ears.
“You’ve come over all flushed,” Eilish says. “I’ll get you a glass of ice water.”
“It’s okay. I’m fine.”
The lie comes easily because I haven’t told Eilish what really happened. I also haven’t told my brothers why some of my bruises came from fighting Fionn while others came from dragging him closer.
Nobody knows that Fionn created the danger I was in, then killed one of his own men to pull me out of it.
I’ve spent days refusing to ask myself why he did it. The question I can’t silence is why, after everything that happened, my body burned so fucking hot beneath his.
I don’t want to understand it.
I want it gone.
Chapter 5
Sera
Two days after Clonmore, I still haven’t told Eilish that every encounter with Fionn leaves me hating him more and secretly wanting to know when I’ll see him again.
She sits opposite me and tucks her bare feet beneath her on a cream sofa that probably cost more than my first car, one hand wrapped around a mug of hot tea.
“What did he say exactly?” I ask.
She stares at the gold rim of the mug, one thumbnail rubbing the porcelain handle. “He wants me downstairs in twenty minutes.”
“Okay.” I shrug. “What’s wrong with that?”
“With my mother.”
I lean back in the armchair and cross one boot over the other, making the leather creak. “That’s less promising.”
“And Father Cormac is here.”
“Christ.”
Eilish lets out a breath that almost becomes a laugh. “Exactly.”
Father Cormac doesn’t come to Kinnane House for brunch. He comes for baptisms, burials and arrangements that need holy water thrown over them.
If he is downstairs with Art and Mara Kinnane, then this is not a regular family chat.
I reach for my china cup and take a sip. “Maybe someone died.”
Eilish makes a face at me. “Like who?”
“I’m trying to be optimistic. Death is usually quicker than whatever your father has planned.”
“Did he say if anyone else was coming?” I ask.
“No.” She shakes her head and sighs. “But if it was a family death, they wouldn't have told me to wear this blue dress.”
I put my tea down before I crack the cup. “Eilish—”
