by Penny Reid
As soon as the call clicked off, I looked back at Sean, indecision churning in my gut. My brother wasn’t the kind of guy to often admit when he was wrong, so that message was a big deal. And as much as he didn’t want to upset me, I didn’t want to hurt him.
But I didn’t want to upset Sean, either.
I didn’t know what to do.
What Sean and I had just shared had been monumental, life altering, and as much as I loved Ronan, I wasn’t sure I could give up what I had with Sean just to keep Ronan happy.
And I couldn’t bring myself to feel regret. If I’d had the chance, I knew I’d do everything exactly the same. I’d make the same choices. I wouldn’t give up my time with Sean for a mountain of inner peace. Still, I needed time to think, to figure out a plan to tell Ronan about Sean and get him to accept him in my life without summoning the apocalypse.
By the time I was dressed he was snoring lightly, and I hated myself for leaving him, but there was nothing else for it. Finding a pad of paper and a pen, I scribbled down a quick note and left it on the end of the bed.
Tonight was everything. I’m sorry I left when I promised I’d stay, but I just need some time to think. We’ll talk after the wedding.
Yours,
Lucy.
xoxo.
With one last look at his handsome profile in slumber, I slipped out of the room without making a single sound.
Chapter Nineteen
@SeanCassinova When you forget to pack gym socks and all you want to do is run until you’re numb.
*Sean*
I’d been accused of being heartless. Frequently. By everyone.
Well, everyone but Eilish. She was delusional.
Regardless, the accusation never bothered me much because I considered it entirely possible. I liked Eilish, I liked her a lot. I liked my shoes. I liked my fame. I liked having an effective moisturizer. I liked power and money and a good steak.
I almost loved SkyMall magazine.
The last and only thing I knew without a shadow of a doubt I’d loved had been my childhood dog.
But when I woke up and Lucy was gone, such a depth of sorrow and anger and fear flooded my chest that I felt as though I would drown in it.
At first, I tried to explain her absence. Call it self-preservation. Call it wishful thinking. Call it the power of Lucy Fitzpatrick’s messy influence.
However¸ I’d never been good at lying to myself. When I confirmed she was nowhere in the suite, I knew with absolute certainty I was not heartless. I pressed my hand to the ribs on my left side. A violent, stabbing sensation wrest a grimace from me, which made each inhale uncomfortable and shallow.
I was not without a heart. Because, and I admitted this fully aware of how completely pathetic I sounded, there was a good chance my heart had just been broken.
Really, until that moment, I’d been in denial. I’d thought the weekend was the beginning of something new and solid for us. I’d told her I hadn’t forgotten her like she’d insisted would happen. For some bizarre reason, I thought my devotion would make a difference. I thought she’d see my constancy and . . .
I don’t know.
See that I was right?
Give us a real chance?
Choose me?
Present a united front to her brother?
I was a fool.
Her absence could mean only one thing.
And because the acute pain in my chest had only grown more unmanageable within the span of five minutes, I picked up the lamp by the bed and threw it against the wall, shattered pieces of porcelain flying in all directions. I cast my gaze about the room, searching for something else to destroy, still unable to draw a full breath, and caught my reflection in the mirror.
I appeared dazed, incensed, and wholly uncivilized. I’d officially become a melodramatic, sentimental arsehole.
I was an ape.
Disgusted, I turned from the mirror. I stormed to my suitcase and dressed in my workout clothes. I let fly a string of curses when I realized I’d forgotten gym socks.
When the hell had I ever forgotten gym socks?
I’d been eager to see her and rushed through packing. All I had were gray argyles for my suit. I might have been mentally unhinged and enraged, but I was not without sensibility for fashion decorum. I wasn’t completely insensible. Not yet at any rate.
I wore my shoes without socks—which I abhorred—and slammed the door after me, not caring if I woke or offended any of the hotel’s prissily stoic inhabitants. I needed to use my body, run until I was numb, or else I would decimate the interior of my hotel room.
Perhaps I would do both.
Anger pumped through my heart, stitching together the broken pieces, hardening and cooling the blood in my veins. Too impatient to wait for the lift, I took the stairs, deciding as I descended that I was going to hate her. I needed to loathe her.
I’d already begged. Leaving after promising to stay meant she’d refused me. I would not pine.
Bursting into the lobby just minutes later, I made a beeline for the west corner of the hotel, irritated by the plaster pattern on the crown molding. Were those fish? Flowers? I hated it. Garish and appalling.
Since the K Club had an extensive world-class golf course, they also had a pro shop with a small collection of clothing. The hour was late, but not too late. The shop was still open.
A man lifted his head as I entered, his greeting dying on his lips at my glare.
“Socks,” I demanded.
His eyebrows jumped, his eyes widening in alarm. Swallowing nervously, he lifted his chin to the back wall. “Yes, sir. In a basket, just there.”
I grunted my non-response and marched to where he’d indicated. I glowered at the basket. It was full of the most ridiculous and tasteless patterned socks I’d ever seen. Golf balls on cartoonish smiling tees, golf clubs arranged in a heart, little golfing men swinging a club.
Atrocious.
I lifted my head to shout at the man, demand he bring me socks for actual athletes, when a streak of color caught my eye. More precisely, many colors. All the colors of the rainbow.
Lucy.
Heart and lungs seizing, I stumbled a half step back, blinking at the sight of her entering the shop, not trusting my eyes. Yet, there she was. Shopping.
She’d left—ended us—no more than an hour ago. Apparently that’s what one does after breaking someone’s heart. They browse the goods at a pro shop within a gaudy golfing hotel in Kildare.
Obviously.
My original errand completely forgotten, I stalked over to her. Because I had to. It wasn’t a conscious decision and I had no idea what I was going to say or do.
I just . . .
Christ.
I just wanted to see her.
The last month had been torture without her easy smile and teasing laugh. My only reprieve had been the daily text messages.
I sought to hold fast to my anger, yet I couldn’t manage it. Raw, swelling sorrow choked me as I halted my approach and studied her profile.
Fuck.
I hated this.
She’d been crying. Her eyes were puffy, her lips swollen and abused, the tip of her nose red. The rest of her typically glowing skin was white and drawn. Observing her misery didn’t help. Rather, it fueled a sudden desperation to ease her discomfort. Unthinkingly, I began closing the remainder of the distance between us, intent on taking some action.
But then she did something rather unexpected and it brought me to a full stop. She picked up a three-pack of expensive golf balls and slipped them into her handbag. Afterward, she stood frozen for several seconds. She then proceeded to pick up four more three-packs—the obnoxious neon yellow kind—and placed those in her bag as well.
Then she darted for the exit.
I gaped at her, unable to fathom what I’d just witnessed.
Unless she’d developed an insatiable penchant for expensive golf balls in the last forty-five minutes, Lucy was shoplifting to soothe acute emot
ional distress. I’d only witnessed her habit once—months ago now—and I’d brushed it off as a harmless, meaningless diversion.
Two hundred euros in golf balls was not a diversion. It was a compulsion.
She’d nearly made it to the perimeter of the shop when I shook myself from the grip of stupor and charged after her, not wanting to lose her in the lobby of the hotel. But then my stomach dropped, because the shop alarm gave a loud whoop whoop. A previously unseen detector flashed red and white, alerting all within that someone was trying to escape with fancy golf balls.
I quickly glanced around, horrified to see the man I’d interrogated about socks just minutes prior jogging toward a paralyzed Lucy, his expression thunderous.
“You there! Empty your bag.”
She mouthed the words, Oh shite. Her eyes closed as a scarlet flush of mortification spread up her neck and cheeks. He reached Lucy before I did and yanked her bag away, the same bag I’d mocked at the restaurant after I’d spotted her shoplifting the first time. He then unceremoniously turned it upside down and shook it.
Rescue her, an impulsive voice insisted in the recesses of my mind. Rescue her as she’d rescued you.
Possessions rained from her purse, clattering on the shop’s marble slab floor. Four containers of golf balls fell along with her phone, purse, and other sundry items.
When her phone collided with the marble, an unmistakable cracking sound of the screen shattering reverberated like a gunshot between my ears. It was the final straw that spurred me into action.
“You’ve broken her phone,” I said, charging forward, drawing both Lucy’s and the store clerk’s attention to me. I felt her eyes like a physical touch. I didn’t need to see her face to know I’d shocked the hell out of her.
He backed up a step at my approach, lifting his chin to meet my glare, and responding with haughty impatience, “Sorry for the inconvenience, sir. But I’ve just caught a thief.” He gestured to Lucy, either misunderstanding or mishearing my complaint.
“No you haven’t,” I insisted, stepping in front of her protectively and crossing my arms.
Delay, my mind insisted. Bluff. Threaten. Improvise. Fix this.
The man’s mouth opened and closed, working to sort through my words.
“Do you know who she is?” I gained another step forward, towering over him and glaring menacingly.
“Sean,” her soft voice pleaded. “Don’t.”
The man’s eyes narrowed and he set his jaw. “I don’t care if she’s the Queen’s sister, she’s a thief and I’m calling the police.”
“You’ll lose your job,” I threatened, pleased to see his eyes widen with a moment of hesitation. “She’s Ronan Fitzpatrick’s sister, captain of the Irish rugby squad.”
“I don’t care for rugby,” he said, sniffing self-importantly. “I prefer golf.”
“Well, you ought,” I growled, both irritated and perversely pleased he wasn’t a rugby fan. “He’s getting married here tomorrow. What do you think management will say if you call the police on his little sister after he’d spent thousands of euros on his special day?”
He frowned, a deep V of consternation forming between his eyebrows. A sound to my right caught his attention and I allowed my gaze to stray for a brief moment. We’d drawn a crowd. Gawking passers-by had stopped to watch the exchange.
Unfortunately, their presence seemed have the effect of reinforcing his resolve. He puffed out his chest and lifted his chin higher. “As I said, I don’t care who she is. Nothing negates the fact that she’s attempted to steal several hundred euros of valuable merchandise from my store. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a call to the authorities to make.”
Unthinkingly, I placed a hand on his arm to stay his movements, “Wait—”
“Unhand me, sir!”
“You have the wrong person.”
He wrestled his arm from my grip. “I certainly do not.”
“You do,” I seethed, seeing intimidation of the normal kind would get me nowhere and, scrambling for a solution that would see her free and safe, I announced, “I put the balls in her bag.”
“Sean!” Lucy was at my side, her hands wrapping around my wrist. “Stop this.”
I threaded my fingers through hers to still her movements. “While she wasn’t looking, I put them in her bag, thought it would be a good joke. She had no idea.”
“You did no such thing,” the man huffed, clearly seeing through my lie.
“I did, and you can’t prove the contrary.”
Lucy tried to bypass me, so I wrapped my arm around her, covering her mouth just as she said, “No he—”
“I did.”
She strained against my grip, her hands coming to mine in an effort to pull my fingers away so she could speak.
“I did it. It was me. Call the garda. I don’t care.”
The clerk looked between the two of us like we were crazy. Lucy growled, now trying to elbow me in the stomach.
“What’s going on here?” a new voice asked, one I immediately recognized. “Let go of my sister, Cassidy.”
I didn’t. I held her tighter for fear she would blurt her guilt. Lucy had stiffened, having abandoned her struggle as soon as her brother appeared.
I shot Ronan a look, hoping I could take advantage of his typical reactionary behaviors for the next few moments.
“Ah. Ronan. May I introduce the man who is trying to arrest your sister?”
“Arrest Lucy?” he asked dumbly, his eyes moving over the three of us. Behind him, I spotted several of our teammates, all watching the scene with a hushed readiness. Prepared to jump into action should their captain require assistance.
For once their blind loyalty didn’t aggravate me.
“That’s right. This man is determined to call the Garda even after I explained it had been a joke.”
“It was not a joke,” the clerk raged. A vein stood out in relief on his red forehead. “That girl,” he pointed to Lucy with obvious spite and contempt, and I saw Ronan tense at the movement, “tried to steal from my shop, and this odious man is trying to take the blame for it.”
I shifted my eyes to Ronan’s, finding his wide with dawning comprehension.
“And if he,” the clerk gestured to me, “would unhand the thief, she’d confess everything herself.”
“Don’t unhand her,” Ronan ordered, giving me a stark look. Then addressing the clerk, shouted, “If he said he did it, then he did it. Stop badgering my sister and go call the Garda. Have them come and sort it out. Go.”
The man stiffened in surprise, gaped, then opened his mouth like he was ready to argue. But he didn’t. Instead, he gave a belligerent, prideful sniff and spun on his heel, marching to the shop desk and grabbing the phone behind the counter.
Lucy huffed through her nose, drawing my attention back to her. I relaxed my hold slightly and tried to look down, examine her expression. She stared forward, looking mortified and angry.
I bent to whisper something in her ear, a plea for her to stay quiet, but was interrupted from doing so by Ronan.
“I don’t know what happened,” he’d lowered his voice so only we three were privy to his threatening words, “but whatever you’re trying to do to my sister—”
“Just listen for one fucking second, okay?” I growled, leaning closer. “I’m trying to keep her from getting into trouble. Just let me take the blame and get her out of here.”
Lucy’s garbled protest was lost to my hand while Ronan reeled back, frowning and blinking at me. His attention seemed to settle on my palm over his sister’s mouth, touching her with obvious familiarity.
“And why would you do that?” he demanded on a harsh whisper, after adequately recovering from my words and the blatant truth of what he was seeing. He might have been a bullheaded oaf, but he was a perceptive bullheaded oaf. Something in his gaze told me he was quickly adding things up, painting a picture, and coming to some kind of conclusion.
Lucy squeaked and tensed.
&n
bsp; Ignoring her, I stared at him, flexing my jaw, undecided as to what course to take.
The moment of truth.
Would Ronan ever accept me for his sister? Probably not.
Would Lucy ever choose me over her brother? Most assuredly no.
Therefore, what did I have to lose?
Nothing . . .
Everything.
I’d already lost Lucy. She’d already made her decision by leaving my room. But the lovesick fool in me couldn’t bear to see her unhappy. Telling her brother about us, tearing apart her world, wasn’t my decision to make.
I swallowed the sentiment that, likely due to self-preservation, hadn’t quite formed in my mind.
Instead, I answered unsteadily, “To have one over on you. Why else?”
Ronan lifted a disbelieving eyebrow, his eyes moving between mine, searching. Then his gaze dropped to that of his sister’s. To my surprise, something like shrewd understanding knitted his eyebrows. And the longer he studied Lucy the more incredulous his gaze grew, as though he were reaching into her mind and forcefully extracting the truth.
“Well fuck me,” he breathed, blinking once at his sister. Ronan lifted his glare to mine again, his expression one of both anger and shock. “You’re in love with him.”
***
I wasn’t arrested.
Nor was Lucy.
The hotel manager arrived to intercept the Garda and reprimand the clerk.
I didn’t feel sorry for the man. He was old enough to know better. The world revolves around money and power and those who wield both. He’d been a fool to press the issue.
Ronan did most of the talking and the team stuck around to sign autographs for the cops, myself included. Though I couldn’t escape Ronan’s seething glares. In fact, I welcomed them.
With all his ire focused on me, perhaps he’d take things easy on Lucy.
Meanwhile, after I helped her collect the contents of her bag, Lucy had been unceremoniously ushered upstairs by Bryan Leech and William Moore, the Oklahoman. She’d been quiet in her wretchedness, and it was clear she was tearing herself apart, guilt warring with shame.
The shame felt like a sucker punch in my stomach. But I was a big boy. I’d persevere. In fact, as I stood next to Ronan, signing autographs for both the Garda and the hotel guests, an unfurling rage took hold.