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“I’m alright.”
We race down the runway before the wheels leave the ground.
He reaches for my hand and wordlessly laces his fingers through mine. I breathe easy again.
That's a problem. I shouldn't breathe easy when he holds my hand.
I should be thinking about Dublin and my brothers and what happens next. Instead, I turn back to the window and watch the Atlantic open up beneath us, black and enormous, navy blue under the night sky.
I think about the fact that I don't pull my hand back.
I think about the fact that I might fall asleep like this, fingers laced with his, over an ocean, on a stolen passport, going somewhere I've never been.
I think about how none of that is what scares me. Somewhere over the water, I feel myself tipping toward sleep. In that moment before I go under, I notice two things: his thumb moving, slow and warm, across my knuckles, and second… I feel safe.
Sleep comes. I let it.
Chapter Seventeen
VALENTINA
“How do you drive on that side of the car?” I give Torin a sidelong glance as the car lumbers up the long drive to the McCarthy family home. Maybe small talk will make me forget that my stomach is literally churning with nausea and nerves.
I’m in a foreign country, on my way to meet his entire family. No big deal.
“I grew up here, remember?”
“It just feels so backward.”
He smirks. “America’s the one that has it backward.”
He drives the way he does most things—with complete economy of movement, like nothing about the wrong-side wheel or the narrow hedgerow roads costs him anything. It's irritating, but I don't say so.
I'm a fish out of water. Everything seems so different, from the steering wheel being on the opposite side to the way it feels almost too bright for how late it is.
But when the McCarthy family home comes into view, my thoughts about where we are and what we're doing fly out the window.
Because… well, shit.
I blatantly stare, my jaw unhinged.
I don't know what I expected, but it isn't… this.
The large, majestic house is like something out of a fairy tale. It sits back from the main road behind a moss-covered stone wall. The iron gate is flanked by three uniformed men who check Torin's identification and call on a comm before they allow us to pass.
Beyond the gate, the drive curves through grounds that are somewhere between manicured and wild, dotted with bunches of late-blooming autumn flowers that bleed color along the borders. Someone obviously tends this garden. I find myself wondering whether it's someone they hire or someone in the family, and for reasons I don't quite understand, I hope it's not hired help.
What I wasn't expecting was the light, such a stark contrast to the dark browns and blacks of my home. The sun is low as it catches the stone and garden. From here, I can see the picturesque waves of the Irish Sea below the craggy cliffs. It's lonesome and beautiful… like me.
A family that lives in a house like that has roots.
When Torin cracks open the window, the chilly salt air permeates the car. It's bracing and cleansing, and I love it. I wish I didn’t.
I know, roughly, what I'm walking into after calling some of his siblings, but it’s not the same as meeting in person.
It feels like going to dinner at a fancy restaurant with valet parking, as we hand the car keys over to staff and are escorted along a pathway lined with greenery. Dusk has fallen in Ireland. The twinkling lights dotting the lawn look like stars embedded in a velvet night sky.
As soon as my feet hit the stone steps leading to the main door, bright lights illuminate our path. My belly clenches, and my hands go cold and clammy. I swallow my rising nerves. There's no turning back. There's nowhere to go.
