Irish Crown

by Nashoda Rose

  “We need to talk,” he repeated.

  I raised my chin and met his eyes that were now more green than blue, with amber mixed in. “I don’t have anything to talk to you about.”

  “It’s not a request, pet.”

  Pet? Was he for real? Okay, admittedly, I’d thought it was cute with his sexy Irish accent, but I certainly didn’t now.

  I wanted to tell him to go screw himself. But I didn’t. I was still working to yank off that blanket that smothered me with self-doubt.

  I cleared my throat. “Sorry, but I’m busy. As you can see, the Emergency Room is swamped so you’ll have to wait your turn. One of the other nurses can take your information and you’ll be called.” Then, I straightened my shoulders and added. “It’s triage. That means—”

  “I know what triage means,” he interrupted.

  “Great. It should only be a few hours, so if you’d like to have a seat.”

  I glanced at my tablet, pretending to read a patient’s file, but the words were a jumbled mess of letters because there was no way I could concentrate with that deep, earthy scent wafting around me.

  His voice softened, “I’m not leaving until we talk, Eva.”

  Ally cleared her throat and shifted closer, so she could, not so subtly, kick my foot. I thought she wanted me to introduce her, which I was so not doing.

  “Rachael,” I said to the pretty blonde nurse who would love nothing better than to assist Deaglan. “Do you mind helping, Mr.…” I raised my brows, waiting for him to offer his last name.

  He didn’t.

  Deaglan shifted closer. “I asked twice. I’m not doing it again. If you want to do this here, we’ll do this here.” Oh, shit. “Why the fuck didn’t you take the cab?”

  I stiffened. How the hell did he know I didn’t take the cab? I saw his door shut. It was a garage, so he had no windows. And I’d made sure he’d gone into his place before I hopped out of the cab.

  “I felt like walking,” I said.

  “Wait. What are you talking about?” Ally asked.

  His jaw clenched. “You felt like walking.” I nodded, despite the fact it wasn’t a question. “At five in the morning in an alley you know shit about?”

  “It was a nice morning.”

  That seemed to really piss him off as his brows lowered over his hard eyes. “It was a nice morning,” he repeated then, “Fuckin’ stupid.”

  I flinched and my stomach twisted. He was right; it had been stupid, but I’d been humiliated. Hurt. My pride left swishing around in the sewers, and taking a cab he had paid for after he’d kicked me out made me feel worse about myself.

  Ally nudged me with her elbow. “What’s he talking about?”

  “I’ll, uh, tell you later,” I whispered out the side of my mouth, while my gaze remained on Deaglan.

  I had a feeling he wasn’t accustomed to being waved off like a pesky fly and wouldn’t take to it well.

  Deaglan had been intense, but still playful, especially with the kids, when we’d met. He’d charmed me with his smirk, and easygoing laughter.

  But there was no laughter in Deaglan now. No charm. And I was pretty sure any kids would run for their lives.

  “Some guy chased you,” he ground out.

  My eyes widened and my mouth dropped open. “You know?”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “But how do you know?”

  “I don’t like my business being everyone else’s, babe. You need to find us a place to talk or I will.”

  I had no idea how he knew, but he did, and I suspected he was here because he felt guilty I was mugged outside his place. Well, he didn’t have to be. It wasn’t his fault I didn’t take the cab. “There’s nothing to say.” Then I added, “And since you don’t appear to be ill or injured, you need to leave.”

  Ally stepped toward the desk and reached over the counter for the phone. “Do you want me to call security?”

  Deaglan’s eyes sliced to her. “Don’t fuckin’ move, sugar.” Her hand stilled on the phone. “Your girl was chased by some lowlife outside my place Saturday morning and she thinks it’s cool not to tell me this shit. I had to fuckin’ watch it happen fifty-nine hours after the fact.”

  He watched it? How did he watch it happen?

  Ally’s eyes snapped to me. “You said you were attacked outside your place.”

  I looked at Ally and bit my lip. “I, uh… didn’t actually say where it happened.”

  Her eyes narrowed before popping open with realization. “You were with him. Holy shit. You were with him? Like with him with him. You had sex with him,” Ally finally concluded.

  Oh. My. God.

  My face felt as if it was being held over a hot stove. I shifted my feet, hands gripping the tablet as I glared daggers at Deaglan, who didn’t look at all affected by the fact he’d just shared with Ally and three other nurses that I had slept at his place. Well, slept was the wrong word. There hadn’t been any sleeping, although there’d been napping, albeit briefly.

  “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me,” Ally continued.

  “You were away for the weekend and honestly, it wasn’t worth telling.”

  Deaglan snorted, shaking his head. “Babe.”

  It was so worth telling, but I was still processing the fact that I’d gone home with a guy I’d had one conversation with, had the best sex I’d ever had in my life before he called me a cab and said he had shit to do.

  So, I hadn’t shared the embarrassing info with Ally. I’d been waiting for the embarrassment to simmer with the assistance of mind-numbing wine.

  He placed his hand on the edge of my tablet, plucked it from my hands and tossed it on the counter.

  “We’re talking,” he said. “You have one second before I throw you over my shoulder and find a room for us to have this conversation.”

  I raised my chin and straightened my spine.

  “One.” His fingers wrapped around my wrist.

  The second his fingers tightened on the bruises, I inhaled a sharp breath.

  He frowned and immediately loosened his hold. His gaze sliced to my arm.

  He was gentle as he pushed up my sleeve. “What the fuck…”

  Then everything in him went explosive. Clenched jaw. Hard, narrowed eyes. Body a missile.

  A grenade with the pin pulled.

  And it was scary. He was scary. I didn’t pretend to know Deaglan, but I hadn’t been scared of him the other night.

  It was eerie how everything went silent. No phones rang. No patients moaned. All I heard was my heart slamming into my ribcage and his dangerously ragged breath.

  “Christ,” he ground out. “Didn’t see that.”

  He looked genuinely upset, concerned eyes scanning the bruises then moving to my face. “Didn’t see that,” he repeated.

  No matter what his reaction was two days ago, Deaglan was protective. I’d witnessed it in the way he’d acted at the charity event. It was in how his body shielded mine when we walked to his car and then from the car into his place. How he stayed close, his hand settled on the small of my back. How he helped me onto the top of the picnic table, and when he noticed I was uncomfortable with Georgie’s questions about my love life, he’d changed the subject.

  “I’m fine, Deaglan. And I really need to get back to work.” Or rather, go for lunch, although, I wasn’t sure I could stomach eating anything.

  He inhaled a long, ragged breath, his eyes remaining fixated on my wrist and his thumb lightly brushing back and forth over the bruises.

  He looked up. “Kane,” he said.

  “Huh?”

  “My last name. It’s Kane.”

  Oh. I slid my hand from his grasp and my fingers curled on the hem of my sleeve, pulling it down to cover the thug’s handiwork.

  I glanced at Rachael, Greta, Tammy, and then Ally, all of whom raptly watched the exchange.

  I sighed, shoulders slumping. Privacy was probably a good idea, and I had a feeling the only way to get rid of him was t
o give him five minutes.

  “Room 101 is free,” I said.

  “Which way?” Deaglan asked.

  “This way,” I said, nodding to the corridor on the right.

  “You okay alone with him?” Ally asked, snagging my sleeve.

  Deaglan raised his brows and smirked. I groaned, because I knew what was coming. “Sugar, your girl came back to my place in the middle of the night knowing shit about me. If I wanted to hurt her, I would’ve by now.” Deaglan interlocked his fingers with mine and tugged me in next to him. “She’s safe. She’ll always be safe with me.”

  Deaglan’s toe-scuffed combat boots thumped steadily on the hospital linoleum floors, matching the drum of my heartbeat.

  We passed numerous patients, nurses, and doctors, and every single one of them gawked at Deaglan as we passed. I probably would’ve, too. A tattooed, commando badass striding through the hospital drew attention.

  I frowned when I noticed Mrs. Hendy, an elderly patient the doctor had sent for radiographs three hours ago, on a gurney in the middle of the corridor.

  I pulled free of Deaglan’s grasp and approached the gurney.

  “Mrs. Hendy. Is everything okay? Is a doctor looking after—”

  “Nope.” Deaglan’s arm hooked my waist.

  I stumbled into him, and he propelled me forward down the hall. “But—”

  “I don’t care. She’s not your problem.”

  I glared at him. “Every patient who walks through the emergency doors of this hospital is my problem. My responsibility.”

  “Then, right now… I’m your problem.”

  “Well, I don’t look after the emotionally volatile patients,” I retorted. “That’s the fifth floor.”

  He smirked, gaze briefly shifting to me as we walked. “You have no idea.” Then he tilted his head and drawled, “The other night wasn’t even close to my volatile, babe.”

  My heart skipped a beat, but before I could do the sensible thing and run like hell, he pulled me inside room 101 and shut the door.

  The room had a single hospital bed, a window with orange-colored, flowered curtains, a heart monitor machine, and intravenous stand. There was a small bathroom behind the door and a yellow plastic chair beside the bed and nightstand. A television hung on the wall in the corner.

  I immediately moved away from him and stood on the far side of the bed, which maybe wasn’t optimal because I was trapped, but it was the farthest I could get without climbing out the window.

  “Why are you here, Deaglan?”

  He leaned against the door and crossed his arms over his broad chest. “A guy chased you outside my place. Now I’m finding out he did more than just chase you. He put bruises on you. Where the hell else would I be?”

  “Two and a half days ago. And it was a block away from your place and had nothing to do with you.”

  “You’re not hearing me, Eva. You were attacked outside my place, so yeah, it has something to do with me.”

  “And you’re not hearing me. A random mugging isn’t your problem,” I reiterated.

  “You have my tongue on your pussy?” I stiffened as heat blazed in my cheeks. “Have my cock inside you? Were you screaming my name as you came?”

  “That has nothing to do with anything,” I stammered. God, did that even make sense?

  He shook his head as his chin dipped. “Jesus.”

  He needed to leave before I died of humiliation. “Listen, I appreciate your concern, thank you for popping in, but as you can see, I’m a nurse and can look after a few bruises.”

  “This is way more than popping in, babe.”

  I kept going before I lost my nerve, although I avoided meeting his eyes. “You’re not responsible for what happened. So you can walk away with a clear conscious.”

  “I watched you being chased by some guy fifty-nine hours after the fact,” he ground out. “Fifty-fuckin’-nine.”

  “I got away.” I shivered, thinking about how close the mugger was to catching me again.

  He pushed off the door and stalked toward me. “And what I saw and what you didn’t because you were running, was the knife he pulled from his boot when he ran after you. How he nearly caught you before you ran into the street and he stopped.”

  The guy had a knife? I had no idea he had a knife. Because he hadn’t had it in his hand before I ran.

  Deaglan drew close.

  I inched backward, but only managed one step before my spine hit the wall.

  He stopped in front of me.

  I swallowed. “I don’t understand. How do you know all this?”

  “Security cameras. I have five in the alley.”

  “Cameras?” That wasn’t normal. I understood having a security camera outside your door, but up and down the alley? Was that even legal?

  “I deal with some not-so-nice people, Eva. I also don’t live in Toronto, so I can keep an eye on things when I’m not here. I used to stay with friends, but they have a kid now, another one on the way, and I don’t want my bad shit touching them.”

  My chest tightened at the idea that Deaglan was involved with not-so-nice people. I didn’t need a repeat of being around people like Curran.

  God, Deaglan was turning into an epic mistake.

  I snagged my lower lip with my teeth, and his eyes flicked to my mouth. He frowned, but his eyes smoldered.

  I quickly released it. “So, umm, what shit are we talking about? Are you a drug dealer or something?”

  He snorted. “I don’t deal drugs, Eva. Don’t touch them.”

  I exhaled a breath. I couldn’t have been that wrong about him, could I? Yeah, I totally could have. I’d been wrong about my ex. Epically wrong.

  “The low-life who attacked you, did he say anything?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “No. He wanted my purse.”

  “I need to know exactly what happened.”

  “It was a mugging, Deaglan. He grabbed me and threw me against the wall and tried to take my purse.” I avoided the part where he slammed his fist into my ribcage so hard I couldn’t breathe. “I got away. Nothing happened.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. Something did happen. You have bruises saying it happened. He attacked you where my security cameras failed to record, meaning he knew their exact location, so he’d been in my alley a while checking it out. The only reason my cameras caught him was you got away and he ran after you, and he failed to avoid my cameras because he was more concerned about catching you.”

  I remained silent, chewing my lower lip as I tried to process what that meant. But it wasn’t processing. Not really. Because I couldn’t process when he stood so close.

  “Then maybe he’s an experienced mugger.”

  “He’s experienced, babe. What I don’t know is why he was there. And why he’d go after you.”

  Because I was a magnet for bad guys.

  Deaglan stepped to the side and looked out the window. The sun hit the side of his face and I saw the pencil-thin scar on the right side of his jaw. I’d asked how he got it the other night while we lay in bed, but he kissed me instead of answering.

  “It was just a mugging, Deaglan,” I said quietly.

  He turned to look at me. “Outside my place.”

  “Yeah, but it could’ve happened anywhere.”

  “It wasn’t anywhere. It was outside my place after you writhed underneath me, screaming my name. After I tasted you and had your sweet mouth around my cock.”

  I glanced away and walked toward the door, my insides quivering at the memory. “Deaglan, I appreciate your concern, but really, I’m fine, and I have to get back to work.”

  “Gut says it wasn’t random, Eva.”

  I curled my fingers around the door handle, but I didn’t open it. “Maybe your gut is wrong,” I said.

  I heard his approach, his booted feet slow and deliberate. “It’s never fuckin’ wrong. I’d be dead if my gut steered me wrong.”

  I released the door handle and turned, crossing my arms over m
y chest. “So, you’re saying, or your gut is saying, it wasn’t random, and he was one of those not-so-nice people you deal with?” I said.

  He stopped in front of me, his jaw tight, eyes hard, and there was a slight flicker of unease in them before it washed away. “Yes.”

  Epic mistake had turned into an Academy Award blockbuster mistake. Way to go, Eva.

  I glared at him. “Then why would you take me to your place knowing you have not-so-nice people after you?” But really, I was asking myself why I went with him.

  “I flew in from Ireland the day before we met. I didn’t know anyone was watching my place until today when I replayed the security footage.” He leaned in so his arm bridged my head. “And I took you to my place because I knew you were rare the moment I saw you… and I told you I wanted rare.” Despite not wanting to like that, I totally did. “It was that stupid goat.” My brows lowered. What? “I saw you by the barn patting Rocket’s muzzle. You were smiling and talking to the goat like he was a friend of yours.”

  The three-legged goat, Rocket, was one of the numerous rescued animals at the Treasured Children’s Centre. It was a place that helped homeless kids who had suffered traumatic events, and the animals were there to help them. But it went both ways because the kids helped the animals heal, too. My friend Charlotte had brought them Rocket after a farmer had left him dangling by his leg in a fence.

  “When you stopped petting him and walked away, he raced after you, then head bumped you in the ass and you went flying.”

  He had. I had. Rocket had crawled under the fence and I’d heard his little hooves, but was too late to do anything before his head hit my butt and I landed on all fours on the ground.

  “You laughed. Wearing those light-blue sandals with the pink soles, and in that sexy, yellow sundress, you laughed, even though the goat put you on your ass.”

  I sagged against the door. He remembered the pink soles of my shoes?

  “I wasn’t going to approach you. I saw you weren’t a woman to take home just once, because that’s what I do, Eva. I’m not interested in anything more. But seeing you chew your bottom lip while you watched me play football. Uncrossing and crossing those long-as-fuck legs….” I hadn’t noticed him watching me. Not once had I seen him look in my direction. “Not showy or seductive, but Christ, you were all kinds of sexy. And I wanted to know more about you.”