by Iris Morland
Dani and Jacob exchanged a look, and I wanted to tell them this delay didn’t mean anything. Yet protesting overmuch would only bring attention to the subject, so I moved the conversation back to Dani and Jacob’s engagement.
By the time I got home, it was close to ten o’clock. David and I had never moved in together, mostly because it’d been easier to wait to buy a house together as a married couple. Thank God for small favors.
My apartment hadn’t changed much since our breakup, except there was no longer a second toothbrush in my bathroom or the nose hair trimmer I’d gotten David for his birthday last year. Which he’d specifically asked for, I should add.
I didn’t know what drew me to look at my wedding dress. Maybe it was Dani’s engagement, or talking about my Vegas wedding that would soon be dissolved. Unzipping the bag, I took out the gown I should’ve worn a few months ago.
My heart was in my throat as I touched the chiffon skirt of my dress. An A-line gown with a lace bodice and long sleeves, it was open in the back to show a bit of skin. Classy, elegant, with a hint of sex appeal. I’d fallen in love with it the second I’d seen it in a magazine. I’d planned to wear a jeweled headband instead of a veil so the open back wouldn’t be covered.
I’d thought David was the one. I’d loved him, but there hadn’t been any passion. I still loved him, but with every day that passed, a smaller and smaller part of my heart remained his. If I were truly being honest, I’d fallen in love with the idea of what we’d be together more so than the man himself.
Enough reminiscing. I zipped up the bag and returned my dress to the back of my closet where it belonged.
Chapter Eight
Liam
A week after I’d got back to Seattle, I had dinner with Niamh at our favorite sushi place in Capitol Hill. Niamh had just bought herself a car after working all summer at our uncle Henry’s auto shop, and she showed the car to me like it was her new kid.
“Isn’t she a beauty?” Niamh brushed a hand down the side of her Volkswagen that had to be three times older than she was. “The second I saw her, I knew she’d be mine.”
“Did you help fix her up?”
“Duh. Put in a new transmission, brakes, everything. I wouldn’t let anyone touch her, except for when Uncle Henry got mad at me for messing with the engine. He said I didn’t know what I was doing and could’ve gotten hurt.”
I wished Niamh were less like me, but Christ Almighty she was just as stubborn and impulsive. As a toddler, I had to buy a leash to keep her from running into traffic. I’d got a reputation in town for being the teenager who took his sister out for walks like a dog.
As the years passed, Niamh hadn’t lost that willfulness. She did whatever she wanted and apologized later. That included: cutting off all her hair in sixth grade; climbing up the highest tree back in Ireland and getting stuck when she was seven; eating a caterpillar because a boy dared her when she was twelve; and a few months ago, she’d bleached her black hair and dyed it blue. Aunt Siobhan had called me and yelled into the phone about my sister for an hour that particular evening.
She’s going to be the death of me! She never listens to me or Henry. Can you talk some sense into her?
No, I couldn’t, and I wouldn’t be the one to extinguish my sister’s spark. She was a handful, but that made her interesting. The last thing I wanted was for my sister to become less than she was.
One thing I hoped she never discovered? Boys. She was still too much of a tomboy, thank God. The first guy who looked at my sister sideways would see the side of my fist.
She reminded me of another obnoxiously stubborn woman, actually.
I pushed thoughts of Mari aside when Niamh and I went inside the sushi place to eat. Although it was a Wednesday, it was packed with scarf-wearing hipsters. Niamh’s blue hair didn’t stand out here.
“How was the wedding?” Niamh asked after we’d ordered a plate of sashimi and sushi to share. Niamh propped her chin in her hands, her blue hair complementing her blue eyes.
With creamy skin, naturally dark hair, and a sharp tongue, she reminded me so much of Mam that it hurt sometimes. Niamh didn’t remember Mam much since she’d died when Niamh was only four. Niamh didn’t even have a tinge of Irish brogue to her speech, having lived in the States since she was six. At the time, I’d got a gig over in Washington from one of Uncle Henry’s friends, and we’d both immigrated here. It had helped that Mam had been a dual US-Irish citizen, so both Niamh and I were able to become dual citizens as well.
The wedding. Which one? I thought darkly. My friends’ or my own that I’d done when I’d been so rat-arsed I’d thought it had been a great fucking idea?
I hadn’t seen Mari since we’d got back to Seattle. I hadn’t had time to talk to a lawyer yet, although I had a feeling Mari hadn’t wasted any time on that front. That shouldn’t have rankled. I didn’t know her. We weren’t really married.
But it hurt that she was so determined to get rid of me, her dirty little secret.
“The wedding was fine,” I said finally.
“Poor Liam, forced to act like he was happy for his friend getting married.”
“I am happy for Sam.”
“You look thrilled.”
Niamh mimicked my expression—brooding and sullen—that I couldn’t help but laugh.
“The wedding was fine. People got married and drank too much. Now, tell me about your college applications. When do you hear back from each school?”
Niamh’s sullen expression instantly transformed to an excited one. She began to list all of the Ivy League schools she was applying to—Harvard, Yale, Brown, Stanford—telling me all about the recommendation letters she’d asked from her teachers and tennis coach.
“Asked them? You mean you wrote them and they signed them,” I said before popping a sushi roll into my mouth.
Niamh wrinkled her nose. “I might have given suggestions.”
“Sure, just like you suggested that Aunt Siobhan’s car should get a new paint job, and you painted it pink for her. She sure loved that idea.”
“That was forever ago!”
“You haven’t changed.” I pointed to her bare plate. “Eat. You’re too skinny.”
“You sound like some old Irish grandma.”
But Niamh started eating and talking. I could just imagine Aunt Siobhan telling her to chew with her mouth closed. Be ladylike, Niamh! But I didn’t give a shit if my sister wasn’t ladylike. She was smart and ambitious, and she’d get to go to her dream college.
“What’s your safety school?” I said. “University of Washington?”
Niamh squirmed in the booth. “Um—”
“Don’t tell me you didn’t apply to a safety school.”
“I don’t want to go to U-dub!”
I sighed. “It’s a perfectly good school.”
“I know, I know.” Niamh chewed on her bottom lip. “But I don’t want to stay here. You get it. You’ve never lived anywhere long. And U-dub just doesn’t have the political science departments like the Ivies do.”
“But what if you don’t get into any of them? Are you just not going to college in the fall?” I hated even suggesting it, but it had to be said. My sister wasn’t great about considering the pitfalls of her decisions.
She lifted her chin, the stubborn brat. “That won’t happen. There’s no way I won’t get into at least one of them.”
I hoped she was right. I didn’t want to see how devastated she’d be if she didn’t get even one acceptance.
After we’d finished eating, I walked Niamh to her car and told her to behave herself.
“Don’t stick your hands into any more engines,” I said. “I don’t need another phone call from Aunt Siobhan about how you’re driving her insane.”
“Aw, Liam. Don’t be like that.” Niamh threw her arms around my neck and hugged me.
I sighed inwardly. She wasn’t a toddler on a leash anymore, but I almost wished she were. She was easier to control at that age. Now I c
ould only advise and help her up when she stumbled.
“Be good,” I said, trying to sound firm.
“Mo ghrá thu,” she said with a bright smile before she drove off. I love you. It was one of the few phrases Niamh remembered in Gaelic.
Before we’d moved to the States, I’d worked odd jobs while raising Niamh on my own. She’d been so young that it hadn’t taken long before she’d mostly forgotten that she’d had a mam at all. I became her parents, wrapped up in a too-young package.
She’d never known Da. He’d walked out on us when Mam had been pregnant with her.
I could’ve let Niamh be raised in foster care. No one would’ve blamed me. What the hell did I know about raising a child, only eighteen years old? When Mam had got sick and passed, I hadn’t even known how to cook or do laundry. But Mam had made me promise to take care of my little sister. I wasn’t about to break that promise—not then, and not now.
I thought of when Niamh had started primary school, and she’d clung to my leg that first day. Her teacher, a Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, had been a jolly, kind woman who’d worked with young children for so many years that nothing fazed her.
“Come on, dear, it’s your first day of school,” said Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, kneeling in front of Niamh.
Niamh clung more tightly to me, her little fingers surprisingly strong. I had to get to work, and I impatiently detached her fingers from my trousers.
“I have to go,” I said, even as she started crying.
“Nooooooooo,” she wailed. She threw herself onto my feet.
At that age, Niamh had a tendency to be melodramatic. If I wanted her to eat peas, she’d throw herself on the ground. If I wanted her to brush her hair, she’d act like I’d wanted to set her hair on fire.
So it didn’t occur to me that Niamh would take my leaving her at school that day as me abandoning her. When I came to get her that afternoon, Mrs. O’Shaughnessy told me Niamh had cried the entire day. She’d only been soothed when they’d eaten lunch—nothing could distract my sister like a good pudding.
Niamh was extra clingy for weeks after that. Dropping her off at school became a more complicated affair. It reached a breaking point when Mrs. O’Shaughnessy called me while I was at work to ask that I come pick her up because she was disrupting the class.
We walked home in silence. I was frustrated and even more frustrated that I was losing money while taking this time off from work. When we reached home, though, Niamh sat down in the middle of our tiny flat and wouldn’t talk the rest of the afternoon and into the evening.
It took until I put her to bed for her to ask me, “Are you going to leave again?”
“Leave? I’m not going anywhere.”
“Like Mam left. She isn’t here anymore, and you might not come back, too.”
The guilt I felt was overwhelming. I hadn’t realized Niamh had thought that every day I’d taken her to school that it might be the last time she’d see me. I’d thought she was too young to remember Mam’s passing.
After that, I always assured my sister I would never leave her. Even when she started living with our aunt and uncle, I’d vowed I would never be more than a phone call away from her.
I pushed the memories aside when I arrived back at my flat. I needed to work on editing the photos I’d taken a week ago. It wasn’t a paying gig—just an impromptu trip into the mountains for some much-needed time alone. Mount Rainier featured in most of the photos, white-tipped with snow. There had been more and more snowfall the further I’d hiked. It had reminded me of winters in Ireland, except this time I hadn’t had to hoard my food to make sure Niamh had enough to eat.
My eyes felt like they had pebbles in them after staring at Photoshop for two hours. Yawning, I closed my laptop and began to open the mail I’d neglected since I’d gone to Vegas.
When I opened the envelope without a return address, I should’ve known it wouldn’t be anything good.
In strained handwriting, my grandda—or old man Gallagher, as I thought of him—wrote to remind me that Niamh would receive her inheritance as long as we both “took care to keep within the bounds of propriety.” I scowled as I read the letter until I wished I had a fireplace to burn it in. That arsehole. What year did he think it was?
A chill ran up my spine a moment later.
Mari. My drunken marriage. The annulment.
Jesus Christ, if old man Gallagher found out about this he’d disinherit Niamh. He was petty enough to do it. The fact that he hadn’t yet was a fucking miracle.
Old man Gallagher had hated Mam because he’d thought she wasn’t good enough for his son. Da had married Mam without his own da’s consent, and apparently it had rocked the entire island. Or so Mam had always told me. Your grandda nearly blew his brains out, she’d say with amusement.
I’d thought that old man Gallagher would help me and Niamh after Da had run off and Mam had died. I’d called; I’d written him letters. I’d borrowed my friend’s car and drove up to his place, but I’d been turned away without a single explanation.
I’d done my level best to take care of my sister on my own. My worst fear had been that she’d be taken away from me.
Old man Gallagher had terrified me when I’d been a kid. He’d been the type of person to put you in your place with a single look. Once when he’d asked me how my marks were in school, I’d pretty much pissed myself when he’d pronounced I’d get nowhere with those kinds of grades.
I’d been five years old.
A year after Mam had died, old man Gallagher sent me and Niamh letters to inform us that he’d included us in his will. I’d been tempted to tell the old man to go to hell. Why would he write us into his will now when he’d not cared if we’d starved on the streets for a year? But I’d given in because Niamh was getting the bulk of the money anyway.
Nice guy, my grandda.
I’d already got my inheritance a decade ago since I was older than eighteen. I’d spent the money on photography equipment and the best whiskey I could get my hands on in podunk Georgia.
At that point, Niamh had already been living with our aunt Siobhan and uncle Henry—Mam’s sister and her husband—and I’d been wandering around the States like a stray dog, taking photos, sleeping with women, and getting into fights at bars when I had too much to drink.
I knew deep in my bones that old man Gallagher was spiteful enough to disinherit my sister because of my mistake with Mari, though. And then Niamh’s chance of attending an Ivy League would go up in smoke. I couldn’t afford to pay for Ivy League tuition. She deserved the best life I could give her. She was too fucking brilliant to go to a state school, no matter what I said to her about safety schools. She would get to do something amazing with her life—unlike me.
Niamh only had six more months before she turned eighteen and she’d get her inheritance. The thought that I’d destroyed my baby sister’s chances to make the best of her life made me want to vomit. I couldn’t let my drunken mistake ruin Niamh’s life.
“I have to stay married to Mari.” Saying the words out loud made them real—and fucking terrifying.
I broke open the bottle of whiskey I used for special occasions—yes, I was a walking Irish cliché, fucking sue me—because I had no idea how I’d get Mari to agree.
Like it’d be that much of a burden.
Fine, I was attracted to my wife. I wanted her in my bed. I wasn’t dead, and she was a gorgeous, alluring spitfire of a woman.
I thought of how she’d felt as her pussy clenched around my finger. The look of surprise on her face when her orgasm had rolled through her. How she’d tasted on my fingers, how she’d kissed me back with a ferocity that had surprised even cynical ol’ me.
It wouldn’t exactly be a hardship to stay married to her.
I had some money. Not enough for Niamh’s tuition, but enough that I could bribe Mari to agree to this scheme.
Even prim little women like Mari Wright could be bought for the right price.
I smiled darkly
into my whiskey. Mari thought she was done with me?
No chance in hell.
Chapter Nine
Mari
I have a proposition for you,” said Liam without preamble.
When Liam had texted me a week after we’d returned from Las Vegas to ask that we meet in a neutral place, I hadn’t hesitated.
Now I wondered why I hadn’t hesitated. Apparently him giving me an amazing orgasm had fried my brain and made me forget he was a giant jerk-wad.
“A proposition,” I repeated. “Why do I not want to know what that means?”
His grin was too easy, his body language almost languid. Like he knew I’d agree before I’d said the magic yes word. It was annoying.
We’d decided to meet in a neutral place, a coffee shop in Ballard that currently had an array of customers, including a man with a blue macaw on his shoulder. No one batted an eye at the bird even when it squawked random words at other customers. Beans! Coffee! Llamas!
Last week in Ballard, I’d seen a guy wearing a cat in a front pack so random pets were pretty normal around here.
“I don’t need people knowing we got married when we were drunk in Vegas,” Liam continued, stretching his long legs out in front of him, “but I can’t agree to an annulment, either.”
I stared at him in shock. “You can’t agree? I don’t understand. You don’t want to stay married to me. Don’t you hate marriage?”
“You underestimate your charms.”
I rolled my eyes. “Flattery will get you nowhere.”
“You didn’t say that that night in your hotel room.”
I kicked him under the table. His smile just broadened, the jerk.
“Can I tell you, or are you just going to assault me?” he said, smooth as butter.
“Wait, let me guess.” I tapped my chin, thinking. “Do you need an heir for your glorious Irish estate? Because you’re actually an Irish lord?” I covered my mouth, faking a gasp. “Does that mean I’m a duchess?”
