His youngest son dipped his head at the request, and Aoife gasped at him as she obviously figured out that the roof wouldn’t have a leak until Eoghan arranged for one to exist.
Aidan didn’t seem to hear it, thank God, and mumbled, “I’m not happy about it. You two living in sin, but I’ll accept it considering the circumstances.” He rubbed his chin. “When can you move her in?”
I shrugged. “Tonight.”
“Tonight?” Aoife cried. “I need more time than that! I have all my things to pack up.”
Lena snorted. “You’re wealthy now, Aoife. You pay other people to pack your things for you.”
“I-I . . .” Her words drifted off, and I turned to look at her, an apology in my eyes if not falling from my lips. She saw it, though, saw my restraint, and while her mouth worked noiselessly with how her life was being organized around her, she seemed to take my lead.
Thank God for smart women.
She rested her hand atop mine, and I moved it, so we could clasp fingers. It was probably the first time we’d done that outside of the bedroom, and it felt good. Very good.
Gently squeezing mine, I felt her accept my apology.
One of the reasons I hadn’t been mad she’d kept me waiting for an answer to my proposal was that I knew she had to process exactly who I was and what I did.
Not that it would have stopped me.
She’d be my wife before the year was over, and that was the truth. But I hadn’t wanted her to feel forced. She had to accept the man I was, the men I knew, and if not embrace it, at least accept it.
Any other woman might not have. But I knew Aoife had been raised to fear and respect the Five Points. Anyone outside our territory, which extended quite far—through Hell’s Kitchen and onto its neighboring areas—wouldn’t understand. But Aoife had accepted the Points a long time ago. Whether she realized it or not.
To her, the violence that was inherent in this world was something she was accustomed to because she’d been raised with warnings about our Family.
Some little farm girl from Idaho wouldn’t get it. But someone born and bred here in one of our neighborhoods? She knew to fear where she tread.
The rest of the meal wasn’t as carefree as before, but there were laughs to be had and we all groaned when Lena brought out her famous crumble. She didn’t make it every week, it depended on how busy she was on the Saturday before, but when it made an appearance, the huge casserole dish always emptied even if we were stuffed full.
The twelve-seater table was covered with white linen, silver cutlery, china dishes that were patterned with ancient detailing—Aidan had bought Lena the china service as an anniversary present from Sothebys two years ago—as well as the detritus from a good meal.
I’d brought Aoife to meet my family, and though we hadn’t passed unscathed, in the grand scheme of things, we’d sailed through troubled waters quite easily together.
It was, I thought, a portent of things to come. No matter what happened, from this moment on, Aoife and I would work through it together.
I’d have no distance between us. No space.
I needed her. Like my lungs needed air, I needed her, and I knew, whether she wanted to admit it to herself or not, she felt the exact same way.
❖
Aoife
I blew out a breath the minute my butt hit the backseat. Settling in for the short ride from the Donnelly’s home to Finn’s building, I watched as Finn hugged Aidan for the final time before making his way to the yard where Samuel was waiting to shut the door behind him.
It was an unusual sight.
Finn didn’t normally wait on Samuel to open or close the car door for him, but at Aidan Donnelly’s home? Sam had done so upon arrival and departure.
I could understand after having met the man.
My first meeting with the crime lord had been without the other man’s knowledge. I’d seen Aidan waving a gun, pacing back and forth as he worked off his anger at the architect he’d been torturing in Finn’s salon.
Seeing him with his family? With his wife?
It was an experience–that was for sure.
It told me their business persona was not how they were when at home.
I wasn’t sure whether to take comfort from that or not.
When Finn climbed in beside me, Sam shut the door, and called out a goodnight to Aidan and Lena who were hugging one another against the night chill as they watched us drive off their land. His scent filled the small cabin, and as was often the way now, I thought of sex and long nights with him.
“Well, that was unusual,” I told him, deciding it was time to stop watching my tongue.
I wasn’t a shrew, but the man had asked me to marry him. He needed to know the real me, so he could call it off before we wed. We were Catholic. There was no such thing as divorce, and in light of Aidan’s zealous ways, divorce was undoubtedly as perilous as any mortal sin.
Before he tied himself to me, he needed to know that I wasn’t always meek. I took direction from him, just as I had at the table, but I had a voice.
“Unusual isn’t the word,” he mumbled, running a hand over his face. Leaning back against the seat, he turned his head to the side to stare at me. “You did well in there.”
“I had a good time until things got weird.”
He winced. “Things often get weird with Aidan. You need to get used to it. It’s just how he is.”
And it went without saying that I’d be dealing with him until either he died or I did.
Hopefully, considering my age, it would be him shuffling off this mortal plane first.
“I know,” I told him, well aware that was the truth. “I’m not afraid of that side of your life, Finn.” Then, I immediately pulled a face. “Okay, that’s a lie.” He laughed. “Well, not an outright lie. Just, I mean, I’m not afraid to own up to what you do. If that makes sense.”
“You couldn’t hide from it considering how we met.”
How little he knew. I’d met him years before, and he couldn’t remember me, but why would he? When he’d left, he’d been around fourteen, and I’d been two, for God’s sake. Why would he remember a toddler?
Still, I remembered him. Mostly because Fiona had kept him alive.
There was a starkness to his tone, though, and I knew it was founded in guilt. I knew the reason I met with the Senator, my father, was a nagging sore that ate at him.
“Are we really going to get married?” I asked, my voice soft.
He frowned at me. “Of course we are. Aoife, don’t be backing out on me now—”
Before he could rant, I rolled my eyes at him. “I wasn’t backing out. I was asking if you were going to. You haven’t necessarily seen the best side of me, Finn. What you’ve seen is a side that I don’t even know myself. I-I’m like a different person around you.”
“I know,” he told me, and the pride and satisfaction in his voice had me snickering and hitting him on the leg. When his thigh tensed where my hand lay, I liked the tiny response so I kept it there.
“But I’m a pain in the ass, Finn. When I don’t sleep, I get really grouchy. Not like a regular grouch, but I snarl and shit. I’m like a gremlin. Seriously.”
He laughed at that. “Impossible. You’re too sexy to be a gremlin.”
I wrinkled my nose at that. “Only to you,” I told him honestly.
Lifting his free hand, he cupped my chin. “I’m the only one who matters, aren’t I?”
A smile curved my lips. “I guess you are.” Well, that made me feel like I was going to glow. He was right. To the one man who mattered, I was as sexy as a pin-up model. Because even with low self-esteem, there was no way I could mistake how hard he got around me. And how often.
“I work too much, I get really engrossed with what I’m doing, and I might even forget to pay some bills because I just forget about that stuff.”
He chuckled, and the sound was so light, it made me feel like I was floating. I’d never heard Finn chuckle before.
Sure, he’d laughed, and, of course, he’d smiled and grinned. But that sound was so carefree and light-hearted that I thought I might melt.
“You don’t have to worry about the bills anymore. Lena was right. You’re going to be a wealthy woman when we’re wed. I work too much, so if you’re working, too, it won’t piss you off when I’m called away or if I’m not home every night at seven on the dot. And you’re focused. As someone who has been at the center of that focus, I’m not about to complain.”
My cheeks heated, but I didn’t think he could see that in the dying light.
“What I’m trying to say, Aoife, is I don’t care if you’re a pain in the ass before you’ve had an IV of coffee. I don’t care if you’ll butt heads with me over random shit. I don’t care if you’re stubborn. All that matters to me is you’re happy and safe. With the latter taking precedence from time to time.”
Considering what he did for a living, that made sense.
I bit my bottom lip, and when he reached over to tug it free, he murmured, “That’s mine to bite, not yours.”
I shivered at the raspy note, loving how he could make me feel with just a simple touch and a few words.
“S-Sorry,” I half-whimpered, and I knew my tone, if not the apology, satisfied him because he fidgeted in his seat, sinking slightly lower—to ease the bulge of an erection, maybe?
Ugh. My mouth watered at the thought. I didn’t even care that Samuel was less than two feet away!
This man, and what he did to me, was addictive. It was like he took me out of my own skin and made me someone else, someone who was free to live and love and to be.
“Are you scared about what I do?”
I thought about that for a second, and though it was a dash of cold water on my libido, I shook my head. “If my mom was still alive, then maybe.”
He frowned. I saw it through the headlights that flashed in the window. “What? Why?”
“Because she’d have tried to talk me out of this, even though she always told me to never say no to a Five Points man.”
He cringed at that. “I’m glad you were never in that position.”
“Me, too,” I told him softly. “But she’d have tried to convince me, and I don’t want convincing.”
That had him clearing his throat. “Why not?” He cut me a look then. “I understand to a point. I’m not the kind of guy you’d take home to a Catholic mother.”
I snorted. “It depends. Don’t forget, most Catholic mothers don’t care so long as you go to church.”
“True. That’s Lena’s fixation.”
My lips curled—mothers were the same the world over, but Irish Catholics? They were a different breed.
“So, I wouldn’t want her to convince me because she’d tell me you’re A, B, and C. But I see D, E, and F.” I shrugged. “We’d never agree, and she’d probably piss me off in her attempts to change my mind.
“I’m not an idiot, Finn. This thing, it is crazy. It’s so fast, it makes a whirlwind look slow. I know that. I do. But no one has ever made me feel the way you do. I’m not about to pass that up.”
He laughed softly. “Good to know.”
Maybe he was relieved that I hadn’t used words of love. But I wasn’t like that. I wasn’t going to gush over him—well, not outside of the bedroom, I thought with an inner giggle. I wasn’t going to expect declarations of love from him, either.
This wasn’t about love.
It went deeper than that.
And mothers the world over would roll their eyes at me, but I knew it to be true.
Finn’s soul spoke to mine.
That went deeper than love.
When I looked into his eyes, I saw a man who was capable of violence. One who would do things most would shy away from. I didn’t mistake him for a good man—our first meeting proved that. But I considered him a decent man. He had standards and morals, but they didn’t fit the current status quo.
He’d never beat me.
He rarely even swore around me outside of the bedroom. If he was on the phone and he started cursing, he’d head into another room, for God’s sake, and apologize after he returned.
He’d look after me. Keep me safe. Protect me.
I’d considered all that when he’d proposed.
Yes, he was a mobster.
He covered it up behind expensive suits and a penthouse that would make any millionaire cry with envy. But deep down, I saw the boy Fiona had told me about all those years ago. I didn’t remember him well. How could I? I was two. But I remembered her love for him. I remembered how she’d marveled over how smart he was. How deeply she’d mourned him.
Finn was one of the most complicated men I’d ever met, and me? I was a sucker for a puzzle.
“Next Tuesday . . .,” His words petered off.
I patted his lap. “I’m telling you this as your fiancée, Finn. I know full well how this could wreck Alan’s career, and I also know that if you told Aidan, he’d probably use it to cripple him. Or try to, at any rate. Alan is a very stubborn man. It’s where I got it from I think because,” I said on an exhalation, “he’s my father.”
Whatever he’d expected me to say, I doubt it had been that. He rolled my fingers in his and asked, “Your mother raised you alone?”
“No. Not until I was twelve. My stepfather died, but he wasn’t much of a loss if I’m being honest.” It was a cruel thing to say about a man, but it was the truth. “He drank too much, wasn’t interested in me or Mom, and while he worked, Mom paid for everything. His money went to the pubs and the bookies.”
He squeezed my hand. “I understand more than you’d think about feckless fathers.”
It would have been a good time to segue into my knowledge of his past, but I doubted Finn would want to know about my connection with his mother.
Maybe one day, I’d feel comfortable opening up to him about Fiona. But as it stood, it wasn’t a lie. It might have been considered faintly duplicitous but, to be honest, my knowledge of his history was the one reason I was so comfortable with this whirlwind relationship.
For that, he should have been grateful.
“I’ll have someone pack your things tomorrow and bring them to the penthouse.”
His words were out of the blue, especially when I’d expected more questions about Alan. Still, I wasn’t about to complain. I didn’t exactly want to pass up the chance of help, and truthfully, I liked waking up in his bed.
In four weeks, I’d grown to like having him at my side. I rarely woke up without one of his fingers inside me, and even when he wasn’t awake before me, I enjoyed the way he curled into me.
Because, for all he was a big, burly brute of a man, Finn was a cuddler in his sleep.
My lips curved at that, and he grumbled, “You’re not going to argue?”
“Argue? About what?” I blinked at him.
“Moving in with me?”
“I agreed to marry you, Finn. I didn’t expect you to move in with me, or for us to live separately,” I joked. “Plus, you’re mad if you don’t think I want some help. I have a lot to clear up, but I want to be involved. Some of the stuff can go in storage,” I explained before he could argue. “Then there are personal things from my family that I need to figure out where to put.”
“Do you have any pieces of furniture you want to take with you?”
At that, I laughed. I had to give him credit for maintaining a very straight face. “You think I’m going to mess up your pad with my crappy stuff? Don’t worry, Finn, most of it can stay for the next tenant.”
He chuckled. “Good to know.”
Still, I knew he’d have let me bring something with me even if it destroyed the aesthetics of his space.
His penthouse was like something from a magazine, except it wasn’t cold and clinical. It was warm and comfortable. I could easily see myself in there.
“What’s the issue with the banns?” I asked him softly. “Why do I have to move in with you now?”
He grimaced an
d turned his head away from me to look out at traffic. “Business.”
I pursed my lips, knowing that would be all he’d tell me. I figured that was an important part of being a mobster’s wife. Not that I wanted to know all the details. . . .
Squeezing his fingers, I stated, “You can tell me it’s business, and I’ll take it under advisement if you expect me to modify my behavior. But if I’m in danger, then I want to know. Keeping me in the dark about a threat isn’t the same as telling me the ‘who, why, and when.’”
He pondered that. “No, you’re right. In this instance, it’s a nasty threat. If you had the tea room still, I’d assign a few men to you, but until you get the bakery up and running, your schedule is random, so there’s no need to worry.”
My eyes flared wide in surprise at that. “Men? Like bodyguards?”
“A man protects his treasure,” he rasped, lifting my hand to his mouth and just about flooring me with his words.
Whatever I’d expected him to say, it wasn’t that, but God, it made everything inside me melt. Not with lust, although there was a bit of that. But with hope. Hope for more. Hope for what we could build together.
Because I’d seen the danger in my neighborhoods, I didn’t argue with his statement about my needing guards. Certain parts of the city would never be safe, and certain streets in this area would always be rife with danger. I wasn’t Aoife Keegan anymore. Owner of a teashop, tenant of a very crappy apartment, with my one secret being a genetic connection with a very important man.
No, I was going to be Aoife O’Grady, and that came with ties.
“Understood. I’ll be careful,” I told him.
“That’s all any of us can ever be,” he replied, his tone pensive, and to be honest, that surprised the hell out of me.
Finn was never pensive. He was so sure of himself, it would be annoying if I didn’t want to ride him like he was a bucking bronco.
After that, we didn’t say much, but I was happy to go to his place and to realize that now, it was our place.
Chapter Twelve
Screw You: A Screwed Duet (Five Points, Hell's Kitchen Book 1) Page 15