Dad's Irish Mafia Friend (A Man Who Knows What He Wants Book 110)

by Flora Ferrari

  I snapped the lid open, revealing a pair of delicate diamond earrings that cascaded down in a single, slim strand. They were beautiful.

  "Wait a minute." I darted back into the room to find a handful of hair pins, and swept my hair off my shoulders, twisting it into a loose up-do before slipping the earrings in. Jewellery as elegant as that needed showing off, not hiding in amongst my curls.

  I joined him at the door and he looked me over again, with a slight nod of approval. I hated that it filled me with a glow of warmth.

  "Where are we going?"

  "Wait and see."

  CHAPTER 14

  Garrett

  With Kaitlin on my arm looking so stunning I had a sense of pride that I wasn't used to. I was used to being sure of myself and where I'd made it to, that I was interesting to a range of women because of my build and the clothes I wore and the car I drove. I knew when I walked into a place in this city that I had the respect of anyone who knew me, and many who didn't. But Kaitlin linking her arm with mine as I walked her down the corridor and out to the street was a rare and precious thing.

  She made me feel like the king of the world.

  Despite the drama of yesterday, she was standing tall with her head held high, and I knew, whatever she said, that she wanted to be with me right now. The woman was muleish enough that she'd have dug her heels in and refused that dress on principle if she decided to. She wouldn't have turned up at the fight the way she had otherwise, and I was impressed by that.

  I wanted to show her off and keep her all to myself at the same time. There wasn't another woman alive who could have fit so well at my side.

  I should have made a statement by taking her into the middle of my world and facing off anyone who had a problem with it, but I wanted one night for the two of us before all the posturing had to start.

  The lights of my Lotus flashed as I unlocked it and Kaitlin stopped walking. I looked across at her, quietly pleased to see a smile sneaking onto her face.

  "You sure Nora wasn't right about that midlife crisis?"

  I scoffed, thoroughly unamused.

  "First thing I got once I started making decent money was a decent car. I'm hoping to live a wee bit longer than seventy."

  Live hard and die young might have been my motto in my early twenties, but things had changed. Dublin had changed. I'd carved a niche that let me take a step back from the violence. For the most part, anyway. And looking at Kaitlin, I wanted at least another fifty years to spend with her, enjoying every day of it.

  The thought startled me. When had finding her attractive turned into spending the rest of our lives together? I could picture the life we'd have together so easily it was like I hadn't realised some part of myself had been missing before I met her.

  She shook her head, laughing at me just a little, and I reached around her to open the passenger door.

  "If you're lucky I'll show you how fast she goes."

  She slid into the low leather seat with an ease that made me raise a brow. Most first time passengers were stymied by the high side of the car and the drop down into the racing style seat.

  The interior was like a cockpit, and I'd always relished the close communion with the wheel, the engine and the road. My other holy trinity.

  Getting in behind the wheel, I fired up the engine, and Kaitlin gasped as I revved and the vibrations intensified with a beautiful, throaty roar that rumbled through us. Her thighs pressed together and she squirmed slightly in the seat, distracting me from looking at the road. One hand gripped onto the handle the door, and her breasts seemed all the more obvious with her nipples standing at attention.

  "Oh my God."

  "Thought you might like that."

  It took all I had in me not to drag her right back up to the hotel room.

  Out of St Stephen's Square, I took the coast road out to Howth. The sheltered stretch of flat water in the bay shimmered silver in the late afternoon sun, and the sky stretched out, marbled with storm clouds. It wasn't San Francisco, but there was a kind of beauty even in power station cooling towers and the industrial cranes of the port.

  I felt Kaitlin's eyes on me, and when I looked over, she had her head nestled in against the passenger window, her body turned towards mine.

  "It's beautiful here."

  "I've always thought so."

  The village of Howth boasted a prime position overlooking Dublin Bay, and the place I was taking her had the best spot of all. Aqua sat right on the harbour front, where the curved piers of the seawall stretched around to the mouth that shielded the boats from storms.

  The building used to be a yacht club, but times had changed and the owner had diversified, making the most of the position by extending the dining room into a white cube of floor to ceiling windows looking out with an uninterrupted view across the sea.

  I'd timed it so the sun would just be going down, tinging the sky with pink and red and orange as we sat down at our table and Kaitlin couldn't take her eyes off the view.

  The restaurant was quiet this time of year and we had the space around our table not to worry about who was listening in, or what we could or couldn't talk about.

  "I hope you like seafood."

  "Love it."

  "Excellent."

  For tonight the way we'd ended up here didn't matter. This was me romancing the woman I'd already publicly and privately claimed as my own.

  "Good. Oysters to start and then Dublin Bay prawns."

  Kaitlin

  Back in San Francisco Dad had taken me to my fair share of swanky places to eat, but I'd never had a romantic meal like this, with a man I could see myself falling in love with. If I was honest with myself, I already had. There wasn't anyone else in the world like Garrett, and I didn't want there to be. Why would I keep looking for what I wanted in a man somewhere else when I already had the best version right in front of me?

  He ordered fillet steak for his entree and I went with lamb.

  "A bottle of your Gruner Veltliner please. And a couple of glasses of the Chianti with our mains."

  Part of me knew I should have protested him taking control, but Garrett seemed to know what he was doing when it came to navigating the wine list, and I didn't have a clue anyway.

  The place was perfect, and we had the view of the sunset almost completely to ourselves. For all the noise Garrett had made about needing to show me off, there wasn't anyone here paying attention apart from the waiting staff. At least not as far as I could see. And I liked it that way. Just the two of us.

  "All this is local," Garrett told me, nodding to the plate of oysters as they came out. The prawns were more like miniature lobsters - slim and pink with solid pincers. I hadn't thought of Dublin as somewhere for seafood, but all this was changing my mind.

  Just like back home, the sea was a key part of the city.

  I followed Garrett's lead in slurping down one of the oysters with a little diced shallot and vinegar on top. The salty wet mouthful burst with liquor as I swallowed it down, reminding me of the way he'd come in my mouth. I caught a drip of the clear juices dripping down my chin, my mouth full of the fresh taste of the sea, smothering a happy laugh.

  Garrett's eyes lingered on mine. I could feel the dampness of the gusset of my sheer panties against the tops of my thighs and I crossed my legs, indulgently smoothing the silky stockings against each other.

  Tonight there weren't going to be any obstacles to get in between us. I'd make sure of that.

  But for now, I had him to myself and I wanted to get to know what lay behind the gentleman gangster persona he so successfully portrayed.

  "What is it you do for Kilpatrick, Garrett?"

  "I don't work exclusively for him. You could call me a freelancer."

  "Doing what?" The man wasn't getting off the hook that easily. I deserved to know a little more about him after how much I'd trusted him, surely.

  There was a long pause, where I thought he wasn't going to answer, but then he took a deep breath an
d seemed to decide. "I'm what's known as a fixer."

  I frowned. "What's that?"

  "I'm the guy who makes the problems disappear."

  I had a feeling I'd heard the term before, and it was usually tied to the men in the gangster films who'd otherwise be called a hitman. That picture didn't tally with what I knew of the man in front of me. I swallowed.

  "You must be very good at your job."

  He shrugged. "Ah, I do okay."

  "How come both the Tiernans and the Kilpatricks listen to you?"

  "I'm the only reason they haven't torn each other apart already. I guess they both like me. I'm a likable fellow. D'you like the wine, Kaitlin?"

  Right when I thought he might be opening up, he goes and proves me wrong.

  "Yeah, I do. It's lovely."

  "Then let's not talk business. I'm done with work for the day and those two men get far too much air time in this city for my liking."

  "Okay, fine. Will you tell me about my Dad? You two grew up here together, right?"

  Garrett pried open one of the prawns with his fingers and I watched him lick the buttery juices from his thumb. "We did. What d'you want to know?"

  His directness floored me and I floundered for a moment. "Just - I don't know. What he was like? I never even knew he was a prizefighter until after he died. I don't know anything about it. Or my Mom's family. I don't remember half the stuff she used to tell me growing up. I don't have anyone else to ask."

  It had come as a shock to find the newspaper clippings and photos stored away with the rest of the papers in the safe showing my dad wielding trophies, when I finally got to go through them.

  Garrett nodded and again I saw that conscious shift come over his face as he decided to open up and let me in. "He was a solid fighter. My father coached him. That's how we got to know each other. I'd sparr in the ring with him sometimes, but I was just a kid. Your Da was a good few years older than me. There were people in the circuit who’d say he was unbeatable."

  I guessed he'd been pretty good, given the number of pictures I'd found with him grinning through his mouthguard, one gloved hand held high, skin slick with sweat, holding a glinting belt covered with medals up to the cheering crowd.

  "How many fights did he win?"

  Garrett laughed, than shook his head. "A lot. Too many. He thought no one could touch him. He loved the attention. Your Ma fell right for him. No one could have kept them away from each other."

  The man I'd known hadn't been that kind of guy. Dad hated the spotlight. He would have done anything he could to avoid getting noticed, but he looked like he was living for the glory in those shots.

  Garrett leaned in, taking my hand across the table. "I was the tag along kid, at your Da's every fight. I kept his secrets for him, and when he made a run for it with your Ma, he told me to keep my head down. Stick at school and use my brains, because he reckoned I had more than he did. Your father's why I got to where I am today."

  I squeezed Garrett's hand, and he turned his in my grip, patting the back of it. "That's why I've got to protect you, Macushla. I owe him that much."

  The rest of the meal, he fielded me away from details about his life, but I couldn't complain when he made me laugh as easily as he did. I loved the glint in his eyes when he was telling a story, or teasing me, and the heat in them when he looked at me like he could already see me in only the underwear he'd picked out.

  It was fully dark outside and I was leaning over the table to try to see the stars in the sky.

  "It's a buoy in the harbour, reflecting on the waves, Kaitlin. There's clouds over the whole sky." Garrett's eyes danced with another flare of amusement and he took another long sip from his glass, leaning back in his chair.

  I watched him savouring the amber liquid before he swallowed. When he wet his lips my eyes shifted to follow the tip of his tongue and a rush of heat went through me as I realised how entranced I'd become by his mouth. I already knew the flare of heat the whiskey was capable of creating, and my nipples tensed at the reminder.

  My lips tingled with the memory of his rough lips pressed forcefully against mine and the startling thrust of his tongue was something I wanted to know again.

  He blinked slowly and set the tumbler down on the glass-topped table with a sharp chink that brought me back to myself.

  "What are you planning on doing with the business?"

  "I don't know. Selling it?" Apparently work talk wasn't off the table when he brought it up.

  Garrett's brow notched up. "What is it you think your Da did for a living?"

  "I don't know. He was a businessman. He had a varied portfolio."

  Garrett leaned back, his cool eyes watching calmly, with that infuriating spark of amusement I recognised from pictures of his younger self but hadn't seen in his expression as a man.

  "A varied portfolio, is it?"

  I glared at him. I knew what he was trying to get at, but he wasn't right. He couldn't have been. "You don't know anything about my father. He was a good man."

  "I never said he wasn't that." Garrett's eyes darkened, all of that spark fading out of them and the vibrancy of the colour seemed to dull too. "They never tell you why they left Ireland?"

  I let out a breath, my confidence rising again. "Of course they did. Mom said their families didn't approve of them getting together and didn't want them marrying, so it was easier to move away."

  "Across an ocean?"

  My eyes hardened. I didn't like him poking holes in the small shred of history about my family that I did know. "What, going to the UK would have been better. That has ocean in between too."

  "It's the Irish Sea, actually, darlin'."

  "Saltwater. Whatever. You can't drive there!"

  "Sure, but you can take your car on the ferry, you know?".

  I gritted my teeth. "Was there a point you had, in any of this or are you just trying to irritate the hell out of me?"

  "Ah, that's just a bonus." He picked up his glass of whiskey again, and took a slow sip. "Calm yourself. I'm only teasing you."

  He fell silent as the waiter came over, and set the bill on the table on a little dish. He handed him a note too discreetly for me to know what it was about and Garrett opened it out. I watched his eyes skimming over the page quickly.

  "Who gave you this?" Garrett's hand darted out to tighten on the waiters wrist.

  I stared at him. What was he doing? The server looked petrified. "I'm sorry, sir. He didn't leave a name."

  "What is it?"

  Garrett stuffed the note into his jacket pocket with a tight shake of his head. "Nothing. Kilpatrick's having a pissing contest. Let's go home."

  "But I haven't finished my-"

  "We need to leave."

  He had his phone out in a second and the Garrett who laughed with me and fought with me and told me everything was going to be just fine vanished back behind the facade of the cool businessman I'd first met.

  I knew better than to ask any more questions if Garrett was as rattled as that.

  Outside on the quayside he bundled us into the same dark-windowed black car that had taken me to Finnegan's after the fight.

  "What about the Lotus? What's going on?"

  "My man'll fetch it back for me. I've had a wee bit much to drink to get us back safely."

  Something was going on. Garrett didn't strike me as the type to let just anyone drive his car. But then again maybe I was wrong. We had shared a bottle of wine and had whiskey and Irish coffees, so maybe this had been his plan all along.

  The hurried exit didn't feel part of the same evening though.

  The whole journey back he seemed distracted, looking out of the window or at messages on his phone more than at me. I was looking forward to escaping back to my room and putting the abruptly ended evening behind me, but when we were nearly there, Garrett leaned forward and settled his hand on the driver's shoulder.

  "Not Finnegan's Mickey. Take us home."

  My eyes widened, surprised that I was b
eing let into his lair.

  "Get someone to bring Kaitlin's things around later. Not one of Kilpatrick's lads. They're all busy this evening. You understand?"

  Mickey nodded. "No problem Mr Brannigan."

  "My things?"

  "I asked Nora to fetch your bag back from the hostel. She picked it up after her shift. Thought you might appreciate your own clothes, after that conversation earlier."

  I blushed, remembering the fuss I'd made about him buying this dress and I was glad the darkness inside the car hid it. I reached across the middle seat to squeeze his hand.