Chapter 8
Rowan survived a Matilda O’Faolain inquisition. She would survive dinner with Diana Gaines. Her sisters laughed hysterically when Rowan told them that Tina had picked out Diana approved evening wear for her to try on. During their daily video chat, where the sisters told each other the minutia of their days and Rowan got to tell her nephew how much Auntie Row loved him, she also tried on the outfits.
Raven and River both chose a simple black silk wrap dress. It boasted long flowy sleeves with buttons to the elbow. The skirt was above the knee with a slit up the right leg. If conservative sexy was the goal—winning. River voted heels. Raven voted for strappy sandals. Sandals won. Hair down and wavy, a silver comb with three silver triskelia decorating the top held one side back.
Rowan exited her Uber at the Country Club’s grand entrance. The meeting with the boutique”s contractor had run over because Rowan wasn’t happy with the dressing room lighting. Seriously though, was there a woman alive that wanted fluorescent lighting beaming across their bodies while they’re stripped down?
She told the contractor, and the owner who showed up before the meeting ended, that the store would be hard pressed to sell an outfit if the woman was confronted with every wrinkle, dimple, and roll before they slipped the clothes on.
Her client gasped in horror. The contractor groaned. Rowan smiled.
Winning aside, she was late for dinner. It didn’t matter if her excuse was valid or if it was one minute or one hour, DG had a zero-tolerance policy. For everything.
Rowan knew to avoid eye contact and order whiskey straight away. In this instance, Diana wasn’t the biggest trap to avoid. That award went to Matilda O’Faolain.
Rowan’s face still burned from embarrassment over their…“talk.”
“You love my son?”
No foreplay. Noted. “Yes. I do.”
“And my son is being an idiot?”
“I believe so.”
“I know his feelings are engaged. They have been for quite some time. He has tried to hide them, but concealing something from his mother is an exercise in futility.” Matilda shook her head in annoyance at her son.
“It’s fine, Tilly. He has made his feelings toward me, or his lack of feelings, I suppose, more than clear and on more than one occasion.”
“Will you tell me…I mean…can you explain his reasons?”
“Our age gap. Nothing trumps our ages in his mind—not our attraction to one another, not our similar tastes, not even the fact that he knows me better than anyone in the world, possibly even my sisters, and I know him. I know he loves his family, his mother and sons, and his grandson and daughters-in-law. He is protective, opinionated, passionate, and stubborn as a mule.
“He sees me, and I see him, but it isn’t enough. Not for Hugh anyway.” Rowan took a deep, shaky breath, embarrassed that she’d shared all that with Hugh’s mother but too far in to pull back. “It’s enough for me. Hugh is enough for me.”
Matilda pulled Rowan into a deep, maternal hug, where her aches were smoothed, and her tears could disappear onto her shoulder. Rowan didn’t believe she’d ever opened up about Hugh that much to her own sisters, but damn it, she was tired of hiding.
“Why did you leave Dublin then?” Matilda asked while she walked them slowly to two comfortable swivel chairs in the living room.
Rowan sat down, wiping her eyes across her sleeves. “A woman can only take being told ‘no’ or ‘it will never happen’ or ‘leave me alone’ so many times before self-preservation kicks in. So, I left. I hope to gain a modicum of control over my emotions before I have to see him again.”
“That makes sense. Do you think all hope is lost? Truly?”
“It took a while, but yes, I have accepted we aren’t to be. Our story is about loving the same group of people, just not one another. He…he hurt me too many times, Tilly. I know he’s your son, and I wholly admit he’s one of the most honorable men I’ve ever known, but he threw me away and what we could have had together too many times.
“It is over.”
“Never say never, my dear. That bull-headed Neanderthal may surprise you.”
The hostess ledRowan to Mrs. Gaines table where Matilda and Diana were sitting with two gentlemen. Clearly father and son if genetics were to be believed. They both stood at Rowan’s approach, causing her cheeks to pinken at the fuss, but she’d been to enough fancy soirees since meeting the O’Faolains, she wasn’t completely thrown.
Rowan smiled and held her hand out to the older man first. “You needn’t have stood on my account. I’m Rowan Byrne.”
He smiled at Rowan’s introduction. “Even though I’m older, if I didn’t stand for a woman while my sister is here to witness it, she’d whack my head with the champagne bottle.”
Diana actually laughed. “Hush, brother, you have always been the biggest liar.”
Her brother grinned again and took Rowan’s hand to shake. “I’m Owen Stanton. I’ve heard many good things about your family from Di.” Rowan internally giggled at Owen’s nickname for his sister. “And this is my son, William. We call Houston home.”
Rowan turned to the…the extremely handsome man beside him, taking in the chiseled cheekbones, tall, athletic build, and sandy blonde hair shot with grey. Jesus, Rowan thought, she must have a ‘type.’ Taking William’s hand and smiling through her blush, Rowan said, “Very nice to meet you, Mr. Stanton.”
“William. Will, please. It’s nice to put a face to your name, Miss Byrne.”
“Rowan. Or Row, please.” She extended the same level of kindness that Owen and Will had. Who could have guessed that Diana Gaines was related to these men?
Dinner was a nice surprise. Rowan couldn’t remember a night that she’d enjoyed that much. Before Hugh, certainly. And if she wasn’t mistaken, Owen was attempting to throw a smidge of flirt Matilda’s way. Rowan could not wait to tease her when she got her alone. Who’d be in the hotseat then?
“My son and his wife have one daughter, Samantha. She’s turning four next week.”
William seemed so thrilled by this that Rowan couldn’t help but grin. “Four, huh? I imagine she has quite a detailed birthday list for her grandpa.”
“She sent me a voicemail from my son’s phone. Sam’s mom sent me a list later that I could make sense of. Samantha is very particular. The voicemail was thirty minutes long. She went over what she wanted as well as alternate gifts, brands that she won’t accept and a reminder that I could ship directly to her house.”
Rowan leaned closer to William’s side and pretended to whisper, “Does your granddaughter spend very much time with her Great-Auntie Di?”
Diana tried to huff and puff as though she was offended, but once the whole table burst out laughing, she joined in good-naturedly. All in all, a lovely evening and totally unexpected. As the group moved to the lobby to wait for their cars to be brought around, Willaim asked Rowan if she’d like to catch lunch next week. It was a casual, friendly invitation, or it would have been, except William was fidgeting with his watch and his cheeks held a distinct tinge of blush.
The invite took Rowan by surprise. Her personal, intimate feelings had been tied up with Hugh for so long. She’d told herself, more than once, that she would move on. She would find a man who wanted her. Who wasn’t embarrassed to date her. She just hadn’t gotten around to that ‘moving forward’ step.
Before Rowan could overthink, she answered, “Sure, that sounds great. I’ll probably be working at the boutique I’m decorating. Wallpaper is going up tomorrow, which is one of my favorite parts. They should be all but done by noon. I’ll send you the address, and we can meet there. If that works for you, that is.” Now, she was blushing. Too much information. Rowan despised word-vomiting, and she’d just puked. A lot.
Thankfully, he smiled, seeming to relax. “Great. If you could give me your number, I’ll text you so you can have mine.”
And that was that. Rowan had a lunch date with a man who wasn’t Hugh.
Hugh wokeup to his phone playing The Lonely Island’s I Just Had Sex—the irony. Try a yearlong stint of abstinence. Fucking Patrick changed his alarm tone again. How did the little shit keep doing that without getting caught? Groaning, Hugh grappled with his phone before finally ripping the charging cord out so he could look at the screen and turn the alarm off. Eight a.m.
Christ, he’d only gotten a few hours’ sleep. Once he’d reached the hotel and the staff got his bags hauled up, it’d been four in the morning. He rubbed a hand over his face and chest, trying to think why he’d even set an alarm. Then he realized he must have accidentally toggled one of his many alarms when he was checking the weather. It was probably time to get his eyes checked.
A workout would help energize his body. He had a small home gym in house, so he didn’t have to use the hotel’s. Hugh found that a person risked two things at public gyms—getting hit on or contracting a staph infection. Getting hit on by random women had lost its appeal about thirty years ago, and he’d rather stay staph-free.
As Hugh slipped on gym shorts and a t-shirt, he studiously avoided looking at his emails and texts. He knew Bran and Patrick had gotten the email hours ago with the time difference, and he wasn’t looking forward to those conversations. Hugh knew he’d made the right decision to leave Dublin. He would miss everyone, but it was a small price to pay to stop hurting Rowan. And he had hurt her. Several times. His very presence after he’d basically told her that he didn’t want her—would never have a relationship with her—that her feelings didn’t matter to him…hurt her. It killed him.
The lies had felt like acid on his tongue, but Hugh had always been good at staying the course. He’d been so successful in business because the men and women who made deals with him learned quickly that if Hugh O’Faolain said it, he’d do it without fail.
Walking out of Rowan’s hospital room when she’d offered him another chance, offered her trust, a future, herself. He’d thrown that away too. He’d walked out of that hospital knowing he was doing the right thing. He would not date a woman so young.
It was funny, the more he repeated his stance, his reasoning for rejecting Rowan, sounded weaker and weaker. He was weakening with his want. Had he stayed in Dublin…Christ, had he stayed in the same city as Rowan Byrne he would have thrown his choices, his rejection in the garbage.
He would have gone to Rowan and begged her forgiveness.
Hugh threw himself into his workout, turning the music up to drown out his thoughts. His body was warm, a light sheen of sweat covered him, and his muscles were swelling with the repeated reps.
He almost made it through the last set when thoughts of Rowan snuck past his defenses. Rowan smiling and laughing. Rowan conspiring with her sisters or whispering to Daniel as she rocked him to sleep. Touching hishand or leg. Turning to him for reassurance. How she looked when her back arched right before she came.
“Damn it!” He yelled, replacing the barbell in its cradle. Shaking his head in annoyance, he castigated himself. “Pretty difficult to do chest presses with a Goddamn hard-on, Hugh.” Add talking to himself to his List of Lows.
He sat on the bench, staring at himself in the mirror. Jesus, he looked defeated. He picked his phone up, anything to postpone digging any deeper into his depression and scanned through his emails. None were from the boys. He had several text messages. One from Patrick. Call when you get up. Bran’s with me.
He dragged himself to the shower. He’d at least be clean for his ass chewing.
Twenty minutes later, he was showered, dressed, and sitting at his desk dialing up Pat. It only rang twice before his son picked up.
“Hang on, let me put you on speaker. Bran and I are just getting drinks at the Lobby bar.” He heard crystal glasses clink, and then Pat said, “Okay. Bran’s here.”
Hugh didn’t say anything, he’d learned years ago that silence usually moved conversations along. He could hear muffled whispering. They were probably arguing with who would say what first. He heard the word ‘oldest’ and then a fist meeting flesh followed by a groan. Patrick must have pulled the ‘you’re the oldest card,’ and Bran punched him. Their antics might have made him teary-eyed if he weren’t irritated at having to discuss his decisions.
“Dad, are you still there?” Bran asked.
“Obviously.”
“We got your email, and…and we both think it’s absolute bullshit that you left without talking to us in person.”
“It was.” Silence. The kids must have thought he would argue. He didn’t want to argue, which was why he’d left without a goodbye.
“But,” Patrick began, sounding exasperated, “we agreed last year, less actually, that we were sticking together.”
“I know you didn’t forget the conversation, Dad. You don’t forget a fucking thing.” Bran sounded frustrated. “I get making a run to Oklahoma, of course. We both get that, but you’re leaving us for who knows how long.”
“It’s always been the three of us together. Bran and I aren’t fucking toddlers, I get that, but since we’ve been adults, you’ve been our dad and our best friend.”
Okay, Hugh wasn’t expecting the boys to make this conversation so hard. His body burned with excess emotion. The truth was, they were his best friends too. Hugh pinched the bridge of his nose to stem the strong emotions attempting an escape.
“I explained my reasons in the email.”
“There’s only one real reason. At least be honest about that,” Bran pushed.
“Fine. One reason.”
“Dad, I think there’s something you should?—”
Whatever Patrick was about to say was cut off by more thuds and groans. Good Lord, his sons could try a saint’s patience, and Hugh was no fucking saint. Hearing a glass break was the last straw.
“Boys!” Hugh barked over the speaker. Silence reigned. Good. “I have better things to do with my time than listening to your ridiculous tantrums. I might reconsider how long I’ll be staying, but I won’t be pushed. Is that clear?”
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
“Fine. Now clean up the fucking glass from the bar before one of your wives gets cut. And boys, that better not have been one of my Rene Lalique’s.”
“Oh shit.”
“Fuck.”
Sighing, Hugh hung up and went in search of his mother. He was smiling, though. Bran and Patrick. “Jesus,” he muttered, shaking his head in exasperation as he shut the door behind him.