He frowned into his cup. “You didn’t say anything to me about this.”
“What would you do about it from California?” She threw that question over her shoulder as she walked to one of the chairs in front of the hearth and sat down.
“I can make phone calls,” he told her as he took the chair beside her.
“As can I,” she pointed out. “And have, as it’s my job, isn’t it? The only real worry now is the slate tiles for the roof. They’ve been delayed again, and should a storm hit—”
“I’ll talk to the supplier tomorrow.”
“I don’t need your help to do my job any more than I need your help to care for my child,” she said.
“For the baby, you can’t know yet what you’ll need,” he countered. “About the roof tiles, it’s my castle. I’ll call and get the damn things here.”
“Because you’re a man, of course.”
He grinned. “We use what we have.”
“And you’ll offer them money, as well?”
“Someday,” Brady mused, “you’re going to have to explain to me just what it is you’ve got against money.”
She sniffed, took a sip of tea and laid her head against the chair back. “You being here will only make things harder, Brady.” Her voice was so soft, he nearly missed her words. “Take one of the rooms on this floor, spend the night, check out the castle to your heart’s content.” She turned her head to spear him with a forest green glance. “Then, for both our sakes, go home.”
Well, now he had an idea of how she’d felt when he’d practically pushed her onto a plane for Ireland. The difference between them was he had no intention of leaving.
Brady took a sip of the tea and wished it was coffee. Or better yet, Irish whiskey. Then he met her eyes in a steady stare and vowed, “I’ll take a room, Aine. But I’m not going anywhere. Get used to it.”
Nine
The next morning, Aine was up and out of the castle early. Yes, it was cowardly to slip away just to avoid Brady, but she simply couldn’t deal with another “discussion” about the baby. She knew going to see her mother wouldn’t prevent the next confrontation—only delay it. But in the meantime, she needed the space to think.
“He’s angry,” Aine said over a cup of tea at her mother’s kitchen table.
“Of course he is,” Molly told her daughter. “The man’s just found out he’s to be a father. And that you kept the news from him.” She smoothed one hand over Aine’s hair. “You should have told him, love. He had the right to know.”
“Maybe,” Aine admitted, remembering the look on Brady’s face yesterday when he’d spotted the evidence of her pregnancy.
Molly pushed a plate of sugar biscuits toward her daughter. “Have one to tide you over until I make breakfast.”
Aine was almost too tired to chew the cookie. She hadn’t slept all night. How could she, with Brady just down the hall from her? Missing him had been hard on her when an ocean separated them. It was impossible with only twenty feet between them. Because he was here, in Ireland, and still not hers.
Seeing him again after five long months had nearly torn her in two. Her head warred with her heart and too often came out the loser. Even knowing there was no future for her with Brady, she couldn’t stop the yearning.
“What am I to do, Mum?”
Molly reached across the table and patted her daughter’s hand. “Follow your heart, always, Aine. You can’t make a mistake if you do.”
Wryly, Aine smoothed her palm over her belly. “I followed my heart five months ago...”
“You did.” Molly’s blue eyes were kind and full of understanding. “And if you keep doing just that, you’ll perhaps come out the other side with your heart whole and a future to look forward to.”
Not once had her mother been anything but supportive in the past five months. Aine knew just how lucky she was in that. Molly was on her side, no matter what. Robbie, on the other hand, had been furious as only a younger brother could be when he felt his sister had been used and discarded. Molly, though, had been steadfast without even a flicker of disappointment in her only daughter.
Aine loved her mother, but Molly was a hopeless romantic. Aine knew the truth. That Brady would never be in a relationship with her. The manager of his hotel? No...wealthy men didn’t marry women like her. What drove him now were duty and his own sense of honor.
“I don’t like that look in your eye, Aine,” her mother said.
“Sorry, but you don’t know him, Mum.” Frowning into her tea, she said, “He’ll see the baby—and me, for that matter—as a burden to be carried. A debt to be settled. There’s no thought of more from him because he doesn’t want more.”
“Duty’s not so far from love,” Molly said. “A man feels a responsibility to his child, to the family he’s made...”
“We’re not a family,” Aine interrupted.
“I’m not finished. Duty may drive his actions, but if he felt no duty to the child he made, you wouldn’t want him anyway, would you?”
“I suppose not,” Aine admitted, and acknowledged silently that she hadn’t thought of it like that before. Brady wanting to do the right thing was the mark of a good man. If he didn’t care on some level, he’d have left the moment he saw her rounded belly.
“Still, he didn’t want me before,” Aine admitted, turning her cup between her hands, watching the tea inside slosh against the sides. “He couldn’t put me on a plane fast enough the moment we got...close.”
“Yet he’s here, in Ireland,” her mother pointed out.
Shaking her head, Aine said, “He came to check on the castle.”
Molly snorted and gave her daughter’s hand a hard pat. “Did he? And in all these months, he’s never once done that. He bought the castle without seeing it. Began costly renovations without seeing it. Why is it now, I wonder, the man’s here?”
Hope was a dangerous thing, and even knowing that, Aine couldn’t keep a tiny blossom of it from forming inside her. But if she held to hope, wouldn’t she just be crushed all the more when that hope dissolved?
“Do you love him?” Molly asked gently.
Aine had asked herself that question many times over the past several months and the truth was, she’d even tried to talk herself out of what she felt for Brady Finn. But the fact remained. “Fool that I am, yes. I do.”
“Love makes fools of all of us,” Molly assured her. “And if you love the man, you can’t give up on him.”
When her mother stood up and moved to the stove, Aine watched her. Molly wore black slacks and a deep green sweater, and her thick auburn hair, now streaked with silver threads, curled under at chin level. Molly tucked her hair behind her ears and reached for a skillet to start breakfast. Turning the fire on under the pan, she moved off to get the fixings from the fridge, which was currently hiccupping noisily in the corner.
Aine sighed and glanced around the familiar kitchen with its white walls, red cabinets and aging appliances. It was neat and clean as a church, but like the castle itself, the guest cottage was in sore need of repair. She’d like to have the cottage renovated at the same time as the castle, but how, she couldn’t imagine.
Making the castle over was one thing, but to fix up the cottage where her family lived was something else again. Then she wondered if Brady would continue to allow her family to live on the grounds. What if he didn’t? Worry spread in the pit of her stomach like an ink spill, dark and thick. If he chose to rent out the cottage to guests as well, where would her family go? Her mother couldn’t afford a higher rent, and with the baby coming, Aine wouldn’t be able to help much.
Her head was swimming with this whole new set of worries when she heard a knock on the door.
“Now, who in the world?” her mother asked no one in particular as she left the kitchen to answer
the summons.
Aine took another sugar biscuit and had a big bite when she heard the rumble of voices and recognized Brady’s. She pushed to her feet, hurried into the main room and saw him step inside, taking her mother’s hand.
“Mrs. Donovan, I’m Brady Finn, the father of your grandson.”
His dark hair tumbled over his forehead and he wore a black leather jacket over a dark red T-shirt and black jeans. His boots were scuffed and appeared well used. He looked impossibly gorgeous, and when Aine felt a stir inside her she nearly sighed. There was just no getting past what she felt for the man, even knowing she should.
Molly threw her daughter a quick glance before shifting her gaze back to Brady with a smile. “Aren’t you a handsome one? It’s good you’ve come.”
“Well,” Brady said, “when I couldn’t find Aine at the castle, I remembered she said her family lived in the cottage. I hoped I’d find her here.”
“And so she is.” Molly tugged him into the house. “Come in, won’t you?”
“Why are you here?” Aine asked.
“To meet your family.”
He said it as though she should have expected him, which she hadn’t. As he’d told her many times, Brady Finn didn’t do families.
“I was just making breakfast,” Molly said into the silence. “You’ll join us.”
“Thank you.” Brady threw a half smile at Aine over his shoulder as Molly tugged him in her wake toward the kitchen.
When Aine followed after them, she found Brady already seated at the table and her mother dropping sausages and bacon into a pan to sizzle.
“That smells great,” Brady said, fixing his gaze on Aine as she moved farther into the room.
“You’ll have tea, as well,” Molly told him, then fired a look at her daughter. “Aine, fetch another cup and pour some tea for the man.”
Aine caught the gleam of amusement in Brady’s dark blue eyes. As she poured tea and then automatically refilled the kettle and set it on to boil again, she asked herself why he was doing all of this. Duty was one thing, but when a woman told a man she didn’t want or need his guilt money, why would he stay? Introduce himself to her family? Lay claim to her child?
The luscious scent of frying bacon and sausage sizzled into the air as Molly efficiently cracked eggs into a bowl and whipped them into a froth.
“How long have you lived here, Mrs. Donovan?” he asked.
“Oh, call me Molly, love, as we’re in the way of being family now, aren’t we?”
He grinned again, and Aine wondered if her mother was doing this on purpose. “He’s not family, Mum.”
“If he’s not, I don’t know who is,” her mother countered. “Now, then, Brady, the Donovans have lived here five years now, since we lost Aine’s father to a storm at sea.”
He sipped at his tea, then gave her a solemn nod. “Aine told me. I was sorry to hear it.”
“Thank you.” Molly gave him a smile that took the edge off the sheen of tears clouding her bright blue eyes at the mention of the man she still loved and missed. “The cottage was a godsend to us, for sure, as Robbie was so young and Aine was working here at the castle...”
Aine watched Brady as her mother continued to talk, regaling him with family stories while she cooked. And Brady took it all in, looking as comfortable in the shabby kitchen as he had in the plush penthouse that was his home. Anyone looking at him would never think him a billionaire.
Then he smiled at her and her heart turned over in her chest. She’d missed him, damn the man. She hadn’t wanted to, but it was hard not to think of the man who had given her a baby. And it was more than that, as well. She’d missed the contradiction and contrariness of the man. She’d missed looking at him and feeling that slow spin of something lovely sliding through her. And she knew that when he left again, the pain of missing him would be even sharper than it had been before.
But of course he had to leave. The fact that she loved him changed nothing. There was nothing between them but a child each of them wanted. He wouldn’t stay, so why was he here, charming her mother?
“Is he the one?” Robbie’s voice shook her out of her daydream.
Aine stepped to her younger brother and put one hand on his arm. It still amazed her that at almost eighteen, Robbie towered over her. Tall and lanky like their father had been, Robbie’s gaze was locked on Brady, and he didn’t look willing to be charmed.
Brady stood up and held out one hand to the boy. “Brady Finn. You’re Robbie.”
“I am,” the boy said, whipping his hair back from his face as he took Brady’s hand in a hard grip.
The room went quiet as Aine and her mother watched, neither of them knowing quite what to expect. There was a long moment where the two of them stared hard into each other’s eyes and seemed to be each taking the measure of the other. Finally, though, Robbie asked, “You’ve come to see Aine. Why?”
“Robbie...”
“’Tis a question I’d like answered, too,” Molly said, ignoring her daughter’s sigh.
Brady let go of Robbie’s hand and looked the boy square in the eyes, giving him the respect of treating him like an equal. “I didn’t know about the baby,” he said quietly, “or I would have been here sooner.”
Aine felt a twinge of shame that she’d lied to the man, but it was too late to change that now.
Robbie only nodded and waited for Brady to continue.
“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since I found out about the baby,” he said, looking from one to the other of them. “And I think I’ve got the solution. Aine and I will get married.”
“Wonderful!” from Molly.
“Good,” from Robbie.
“We will not,” from Aine.
* * *
Brady wasn’t surprised. He’d known what her reaction would be, and how could he blame her? Not as if he was husband and father material after all. No one knew that better than he did. But all through the long night, he’d considered and rejected dozens of possibilities.
She wouldn’t take his money. She’d made that plain enough, and he wasn’t about to let her and his son go without whatever they needed. In his whole life, he’d never had anyone rely on him. He’d been alone and he’d liked it that way. Until Aine. After she’d left, the solitude he had always prized hadn’t seemed as comfortable as it had before.
He’d missed her laughter, the way her eyes narrowed and her chin lifted when she was ready to argue with him. He’d missed the feel of her, the taste of her. And he hadn’t been able to find any damn peace without her.
Now there was a child who was only alive because of him, and he wouldn’t fail that boy. The one thing Brady could do for his son was to marry his mother and ensure that the two of them had whatever they needed.
“He’s not serious,” Aine said, shaking her head.
Brady shifted his gaze to hers, willing her to see in his eyes that he’d never meant anything more.
“He looks as though he is.” Molly waved them all into chairs at the table, then brought platters of food and set them down. “Everyone tuck in while it’s hot, now.”
Brady settled in to eat breakfast with Aine’s family and didn’t look her way again. He knew what she must be thinking, because he wasn’t far from thinking the same thing himself. Married? He’d never thought to marry anyone. But times and situations changed, he reminded himself as he took another bite of scrambled eggs.
All night, his mind had raged, going from one possibility to another, and finally he’d even called Mike Ryan to tell him what was going on. While Robbie talked eagerly of zombies and programming and his mother watched him proudly, Brady’s mind drifted back to that conversation.
“She’s pregnant?”
“Yeah.” Brady paced his room, pausing now and again to stare out the windows
at the night beyond the glass. “She says she doesn’t want anything from me. Doesn’t need me.” And wasn’t that a kick in the gut?
“And you believe that?”
Brady stopped, frowned and thought about it. No one had ever needed him before, so why would Aine? “I’ve no reason not to.”
“You have every reason not to. She’s giving you an out, that’s all.” Mike sighed and then patiently spoke again. “You told her you weren’t interested in a relationship and sent her back home, right?”
“Yeah...” Brady scrubbed one hand over his face at the memory, wishing he could wipe it away.
“So why would she think you’d changed your mind now? She’s just saying what she thinks you want to hear, that’s all.”
“You think?”
“Please.” Mike snorted. “The question is, what are you going to do about this? Give her what she thinks she wants, or what she needs?”
Brady looked at Aine and something inside him tightened uncomfortably. Her eyes were hypnotic as they latched on to his, and he felt himself wishing that things were different. That he was a different man. But he didn’t belong in this cozy family setting, and he knew it. The best he could do was provide for Aine and their child whether she liked it or not.
* * *
“Did you really think I’d agree to marry you when you’ve made it clear time and again you’ve no wish for a relationship at all?”
Hadn’t taken her long to fight back, Brady thought. They’d hardly taken more than ten steps from the cottage when she turned on him.
“You will marry me. If not for you, then for our son,” Brady said, taking her arm and steering her toward the castle.
“No, I won’t,” she argued, whipping her auburn hair back from her face when the wind tossed it into a tangle. “I’ll not live a lie. Why does this matter to you? In California you made it plain you weren’t interested in becoming involved with your hotel manager.”
“What?” Brady shook his head and stared at her. “That had nothing to do with anything.”
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