FILTHY
Obsessive habits weren’t alien to me.
They were as much a part of me as my coal-dark hair and my diamond-blue eyes. Ingrained as they were, it didn’t mean they weren’t irritating as fuck.
As I rifled through the folder on the table in front of me, staring down at the life of one pesky tenant, I wanted to toss it in the trash. I truly did.
I wanted not to be interested in her.
Wanted my focus to return to the matter at hand—business.
But there was something about her.
Something. . .
Irish.
I was a sucker for my own people. When I was a kid, I’d only dated other Irish girls in my class, and though I’d become less discerning about nationality and had grown more interested in tits and ass, I’d thought that desire had died down.
But Aoife Keegan was undeniably, indefatigably Irish.
From her fucking name—I didn’t know people still named their kids in Gaelic over here—to her red goddamn hair and milky-white skin.
To many, she wouldn’t be sexy. Too pale, too curvy, too rounded and wholesome. But to me? It was like God had formed a creature that was born to be my downfall.
I could feel the beast inside me roaring to life as I stared at the photos of her. It wanted out. It wanted her.
Fuck.
“I told you not to get those briefs.”
My eyes flared wide in surprise at my brother, Aidan O”Donnelly’s remark. “What?” I snapped.
“I told you not to get those briefs,” he repeated, unoffended. Which was a miracle. Had I been speaking to Aidan Sr., I’d probably have lost a finger, but Aidan Jr. was one of my best friends, as well as a confidant and fellow businessman.
When I said business, it wasn’t the kind Valley girls dreamed their future husbands would be involved in. No Manhattan socialite, though we were wealthy as fuck, would want us on their arm if they truly knew what games we were involved in.
My business was forged, unashamedly, in blood, sweat, and tears.
Preferably not my own, although I had taken a few hits for the Family over the years.
“My briefs aren’t irritating me,” I carried on, blowing out a breath.
“No? You look like you’ve got something up your ass crack.” Aidan cocked a brow at me, but his smirk told me he knew exactly what the fuck was wrong.
I flipped him the bird—the finger that I’d have lost by showing cheek to his father—and he just grinned at me as he leaned over my glass desk and scooped up one of the pictures.
That beast I mentioned earlier?
It roared to life again when his eyes drifted over Aoife’s curvy form.
“She’s like your kryptonite,” he breathed, tilting his head to the side. “Fuck me, Finn.”
“I’d rather not,” I told him dryly. “Now her? Yeah. I’d fuck her anytime.”
He wafted a dismissive hand at my teasing. “I knew from that look in your eye, there was a woman involved. I just didn’t know it would be a looker like this.”
I snatched the photo from him. “Mine.”
My growl had him snickering. “The Old Country ain’t where I get my women from, Finn. Simmer down.”
Throat tightening, I grated out, “What the fuck am I going to do?”
“Screw her?” he suggested.
“I can’t.”
He snorted. “You can.”
“How the fuck am I supposed to get her in my bed when I’m about to bribe her into selling off her commercial lot?”
Aidan shrugged. “Do the bribing after.”
That had me blowing out a breath. “You’re a bastard, you know that, right?”
Piously, he murmured, “My parents were well and truly married before I came along. I have the wedding and birth certificates to prove it.” He grinned. “Anyway, you’re only just figuring that out?”
I shot him a scowl. “You’re remarkably cheerful today.”
“Is that a question or a statement?”
“Both?” The word sounded far too Irish for my own taste. My mother had come from Ireland, Tipperary to be precise—yeah, like the song. I was American born and bred, my accent that of someone who’d been raised in Hell’s Kitchen but, and I hated it, my mother’s accent would make an appearance every now and then.
‘Both’ came out sounding almost like ‘boat.’
Aidan, knowing me as well as he did, smirked again—the fucker. “I got laid.”
Grunting, I told him, “That doesn’t usually make you cheerful.”
“It does. I just never see you first thing after I wake up. Da hasn’t managed to piss me off today.”
Aidan was the heir to the Five Points—an Irish gang who operated out of Hell’s Kitchen. It wasn’t like being the heir to a candy company or a title. It came with responsibilities that no one really appreciated.
We were tied into the life, though. Had been since the day we were born.
There was no use in whining over it, and Aidan wasn’t. But if I had to deal with his father on a daily basis? I’d have been whining to the morgue and back.
Aidan Sr. was the shrewdest man I knew. What the man could do with our clout defied belief. Even if I thought he was a sociopath, he had my respect, and in truth, my love and loyalty.
Bastard or no, he’d taken me in when I was fourteen and had made me one of his family. I’d gone from being his kids’ friend, the son of one of his runners, to suddenly being welcome in the main house.
All because Aidan Sr.—though I was sure he was certifiable—believed in family.
I shot Aidan Jr. a look. “Was it that blonde over on Canal Street?”
He rubbed his chin. “Yeah.”
Snorting, I told him, “Hope you wore a rubber. I swear that woman has so many men going in and out of her door, it should be on double-action hinges.”
He scowled at me. “Are you trying to piss me off?”
“Why? Didn’t wear a jimmy?” I grinned at him, my mood soaring in the face of his irritation. “Better get to the clinic before it drops off.”
Though he flipped me the bird as easily as I’d done to him—I was his brother, after all—he grumbled, “What are you going to do about little Aoife?”
I squinted at him. “She’s not little.”
That seemed to restore his humor. “I know. Just how you like them.” He shook his head. “You and Conor, I swear. What do you do with them? Drown yourself in their tits?”
Heaving a sigh, I informed him, “My predilection for large tits is none of your business.”
“And whether or not I wore a jimmy last night is none of yours.”
“If it turns green and looks like a moldy corn on the cob, who you gonna call?”
“Ghostbusters?” he tried.
I shook my head, then pointed a finger at him and back at myself. “No. Me.”
Grunting, he got to his feet and pressed his fists to the desk. “We need that building, Finn.”
“The business development plan was mine, Aid. I know we need it. Don’t worry, I won’t do anything stupid.”
He snorted. “Your kind of stupid could go one of two ways.”
That had me narrowing my eyes at him, but he held up his hands in surrender.
“Fuck her out of your system quickly, and then get started on the deal,” he advised. “Best way.”
It probably was the best way, but?—
He sighed. “That fucking honor of yours.”
I had to laugh. Only in the O”Donnelly family would my thoughts be considered honorable.
“If I’m fucking someone over, I want them to know it,” was all I said.
“That makes no sense.”
“Makes for epic sex, though,” I jibed, and he shot me a grin.
“Angry sex is always good.” He rubbed his chin, then he reached over again and flipped through the photos. “Who’s the old guy to her?”
“To her? Not sure. Sugar daddy?” The thought alone made the beast inside rage. I cleared my throat to get rid of the rasp there. “To us? He’s our meal ticket.”
Aidan’s eyes widened. “He is?”
I nodded. “Just leave it to me.”
“I was always going to, deartháir.” He tilted his chin at me, honoring me with the Gaelic word for brother. “Be careful out there.”
“You, too, brother.”
Aidan winked at me and, with a far too cheerful whistle for someone whose dick might soon be ‘ribbed for her pleasure’ without the need for a condom, walked out of my office leaving me to brood.
The instant his back was to me, I stared at the photos again. Flipping through them, I glowered at the innocent face staring back at me through the photo paper—if only she knew.
Hers was a building in Hell’s Kitchen. Five Points Territory. One of many on my hit list.
Back in the 70s, Aidan Sr., following in his father’s footsteps, had bought up a shit-ton of property, pre-gentrification, and it was my job to either sell off the portfolio, reconstruct, or ‘improve’ the current aesthetics of the buildings the Points owned.
This particular one was something I’d taken a personal interest in.
See, I was technically a legitimate businessman.
This office?
I had views of the Hudson. I could see the Empire State Building, and in the evening, I had an epic view of the sunset setting over Manhattan. This office building, also Points’ property, was worth a cool hundred million, and I was, again technically, the CEO of it.
On paper?
I looked seamless.
The businessman who sported hundred thousand dollar watches and had a house in the Hamptons. No one save the Points and my CPA knew where the money came from. I liked that because, fuck, I had no intention of switching this pad for a lock-up in Riker’s Island.
Still, this project cut close to home, and the reasoning was fucking pathetic.
I’d never admit it to any of the O”Donnellys. The bastards were like family to me, and if I admitted to this, they’d never let me hear the end of it.
Extortion?
I usually doled that out to someone else’s to do list. Someone with a far lower paygrade than me, someone expendable. But the minute I’d heard of the troublesome tenant who was refusing to sell her lot to us? After not one, not two, not even three attempts with higher prices?
Fiveoutright refusals?
The challenge to convince her otherwise had overtaken me.
See, I liked stubborn in women.
I liked fucking it out of them.
Throw in the fact the woman’s name was Aoife? It had been enough to get me sending someone out to follow her.
If she’d been fifty with as many chins as she had grandchildren, she’d have been safe from me.
But she wasn’t.
She was, as Aidan had correctly stated, my kryptonite. All milky flesh with gleaming auburn hair that I wanted to tie around my clenched fist. Her soft features with those delicate green eyes that sparkled when she smiled and were like wet grass when she was mad, acted like a punch to my gut.
Now?
My interest hadn’t just been piqued.
It had fucking imploded.
Yeah, I was thinking with my cock, but what man, at the end of the day, didn’t?
I’d just have to be careful. Just have to make sure I put pressure on the right places, make sure she’d bend and not break, and the old bastard in the pictures was my key to just that.
See, every third Tuesday of the month, Aoife Keegan had a habit of traipsing across Manhattan to the Upper East Side. There, at three PM on the dot, she’d enter a discreet little boutique hotel and wouldn’t leave until nine PM that night.
Five minutes after she arrived and left, the same man would leave, too.
At first, when Jimmy O’Leary had told me that Senator Alan Davidson was at the hotel, I hadn’t thought anything of it.
Why would I?
Senators trawled for donations in fancy hotels every fucking day of the week. It was the true luxury of politics. Sure, they made it look real good for the press. Posing in derelict neighborhoods and shaking hands with people who did the fucking work . . . all while they lived it up large with women half their age in two thousand dollar a night suites.
My mouth firmed at that.
Was Aoife selling herself to the Senator?
The thought pissed me off.
I couldn’t see why she’d do such a thing. Not when I’d looked into her finances, had seen just how secure she was. But maybe that was why. Maybe the Senator was funneling money to her.
The only problem was that the lot Aoife owned—did I mention it was owned outright? Yeah, that was enough to chafe my suspicions, too, considering she was only twenty-fucking-five years old—was a teashop in a small building in a questionable area of HK.
I mean, come on. I loved Hell’s Kitchen. It was home. But fuck. Where she was? What kind of Senator would put his fancy piece in that?
My jaw clenched as I studied the Senator’s and Aoife’s smiling faces as they left the hotel. Separately, of course. But whatever they’d been doing together, it sure put a Cheshire Cat grin on their chops–that was for fucking sure. Jimmy being a dumbass, hadn’t put the two together, had just remarked on the ‘coincidence,’ but I was no fool.
How did I know they were together in the hotel?
Jimmy had been trailing Aoife for four months—told you I was obsessive—and every third Tuesday, come rain or shine, this little routine had jumped out, and when Jimmy had picked up on the fact Davidson had been there each and every time, I’d gotten my hands dirty, bribed one of the hotel maids myself—and fuck, that had been hard. Turned out that place made even the maids sign NDA agreements, but everyone had a price—and I’d found out that my little obsession shared a suite with the old prick.
My fingers curled into fists as I stared at her. Butter wouldn’t fucking melt. She was the epitome of innocence. Like a redheaded angel. Could she really be lifting her skirts for that old fucker? Just so she could own a teashop?
Something didn’t make sense, and fuck, if that didn’t intrigue me all the more.
Aoife Keegan had snared one of the biggest, nastiest sharks in Manhattan.
She just didn’t know it yet.
***
Aoife
“We need more scones for tomorrow. I keep telling you four dozen isn’t enough.”
Lifting a hand at my waitress and friend, Jenny, I mumbled, “I know, I know.”
“If you know, then why the hell don’t you listen?” Jenny complained, making me grin.
“Because I’m the one who has to make them? Making half that again is just . . .” I sighed.
I loved my job.
I did.
I adored baking—my butt and hips attested to that fact—and making a career out of my passion was something every twenty-something hoped for. Especially in one of the most expensive cities in the world. But sheesh. There was only so much one person could do, and this was still, essentially, a one-woman-band.
With the threat of Acuig Corp looming over me, I didn’t feel safe hiring extra staff. I’d held them off for close to six months now. Six months of them trying to tempt me to leave, to sell up. They’d raised their prices to ten percent above market value, whereas with everyone else in the building, they’d just offered what the apartments were truly worth. Considering this place wasn’t the nicest in the block, that wasn’t much.
Most people hadn’t held out because, hell, why wouldn’t they want to live elsewhere?
Those who were landlords hadn’t felt any issue in tossing their tenants out on the street. The tenants grumbled, but when did they ever have any rights, anyway?
For myself, this was where my mom and I had worked to?—
I brought that thought to a shuddering halt.
Mom was dead now.
I had to remember that. This was on me, not her.
My throat thickened with tears as I turned to Jenny and murmured, “I’ll try better tomorrow.”
The words had her frowning at me. “Babe, you know I’m not the boss here, right?”
Lips curving, I whispered, “I know. But you’re so scary.”
She snickered then peered down at herself. “Yeah, I bet I’d make grown men cry.”
Maybe for a taste of her. . . .
Jenny was everything I wasn’t.
She was slender, didn’t dip her hand into the cookie jar at will—the woman had more willpower than I did hips, and my hips seemed to go on forever—and her face looked like it belonged on the cover of a fashion magazine. Even her hair was enough to inspire envy. It was black and straight as a ruler.
Mine?
Bright red and curly like a bitch. I had to straighten it out every morning if I didn’t want to look like little orphan Annie.
I’d once read that curly-haired women straightened their hair for special events, and that straight-haired women curled theirs in turn, but I called bullshit.
Curly-haired women lived with their straightening irons surgically attached to their hands.
At least, I did.
My rat’s nest was like a ginger afro. Maybe Beyoncé could make that work, but I sure as hell didn’t have the bone structure.
“I think grown men would cry,” I told her dryly, “if you asked them to.”
She pshawed, but there was a twinkle in her eye that I understood. . . . She agreed with me, knew it was true, but wasn’t going to admit it. With anyone else, she might have. She had an ego–that was for damn sure. But with me? I think she figured I was zero competition, so she felt no need to rub salt in the wound, too.
I plunked my elbows on the counter and stared around my domain as she bustled off and started clearing the tables. It was her last duty of the day, and my feet were aching so damn bad that I didn’t even have it in me to care.
This owning your own business shit?
It wasn’t easy.
Not saying I didn’t love it, but it was hard.
I slept like four hours a night, and when I wasn’t in bed, I was here. All the time.
Baking, cooking, serving, and smiling. Always smiling. Even if I was so sleep-deprived I could sob.
Jenny’s actually a life saver.
My mom used to be front of house before. . . .
I sucked down a breath.
I had to get used to thinking about it.
She wasn’t here anymore, but just avoiding all thoughts of her period wasn’t working for me. It was like I was purposely forgetting her, and, well, fuck that.
She’d always wanted to have a teashop. It had been her one true dream. Back in Ireland, when she was a little girl, her grandmother had owned one in Limerick. Mom had caught the bug and had wanted to have one here in the States. But not only was it too fucking expensive for a woman on her own, it was also impossible with my feckless father at her side.
I didn’t want to think about him either, though.
Why?
Because the feckless father who’d pretty much ruined my mother’s life, wasn’t the only father in my life. My biological dad hadn’t exactly cared about her happiness, but once he’d come to know about me, he’d tried. That was more than could be said for the man who’d lived with me throughout my early childhood.
“You look gloomy.”
Jenny’s statement had me blinking in surprise. She had a ton of dishes piled in her arms, and I’d have worried for the expensive china if I hadn’t known she was an old pro at this shit. Just as I was.
We could probably earn a Guinness World Record on how many dishes we could take back and forth to the kitchen of Ellie’s Tea Rooms. I swear, I had guns because of all that hefting. My biceps were probably the firmest part of my body.
More’s the pity.
I’d have preferred an ass you could bounce dimes off of, but, when it boiled down to it, there was no way in this universe I could live without cake.
Just wasn’t going to happen.
My big butt wasn’t going anywhere until scientists could make zero calorie eclairs and pies.
“I’m not glum.”
“No? Then why are your eyes sad?”
Were they? I pursed my lips as I let the ‘sad eyes’ drift around the tea room. I wish I could say it was all forged on my own hard work, but it wasn’t. Not really.
“I was just thinking about Mom.”
“Oh, honey,” Jenny said sadly, and she carefully placed all the dishes on the counter, so she could round it and curve her arm around my waist. “It was only seven months ago. Of course, you were thinking of her.”
“I just—” I blew out a breath. “I don’t know if I’m doing what she’d want.”
“You can’t live for her choices, sweetness. You have to do what you think is right for you.”
I gnawed at my bottom lip again. “I-I know, but she was always there for me. A guiding light. With Fiona gone and her, too? I don’t really know what I’m doing with myself.”
This business wasn’t something that made me want to get up on a morning. It was my mom’s dream, her goal. Every decision I made, I tried to remember how she’d longed for a place like this, but it wasn’t my passion. It was hers, and I was trying to keep that dream alive while fretting over the fact my heart wasn’t in it.
“I think you’re doing a damn fine job. You have a very successful teashop. Your cakes are raved about. Have you visited our TripAdvisor page recently? Or our Yelp?” She squeaked. “I swear, you’re making this place a tourist hotspot. I don’t think Fiona or Michelle could be more proud of you if they tried.”
The baking shit, yeah, that was all on me, but the other stuff? The finances?
I’d caved in.
I’d caved where my mom had always refused in the past.
With the accident had come a lot of medical bills that I just hadn’t been able to afford. Without her help, I’d had to take on extra staff, and out of nowhere, my expenses had added up.
Mom had been so proud of this place, so ferociously gleeful that we’d done it by ourselves, and yet, here I was, financially free for the first time in my life, and I still felt like I was drowning because my freedom went entirely against her wishes.
“Is this to do with Acuig? I know they’re still pestering you.”
Jenny’s statement had me wincing. Acuig were the bottom feeders who wanted to snap up this building, demolish it, and then replace it with a skyscraper. Don’t get me wrong, the building was foul, but a lot of people lived here, and the minute it morphed into some exclusive condo, no one from around here would be able to afford to live in it.
It would become yuppy central.
I’d rejected all their offers to buy my tea room even though I didn’t want the damn thing, not really. Mostly I wanted to keep mom’s goals alive and kicking, but also, it pissed me off the way Acuig were changing Hell’s Kitchen. Ratcheting up prices, making it unaffordable for the everyday man and woman—the people I’d grown up with—and bringing a shit-ton of banker-wankers and 1%ers to the area.
So, maybe I’d watched Erin Brockovich a time or two as a kid and had a social conscience . . . Wasn’t the worst thing to possess, right?
“Aoife?” Jenny stated, making me look over at her. “Is Acuig pressuring you?”
I winced, realizing I hadn’t answered—Jenny was my friend, but she also worked here and relied on the paycheck. It wasn’t fair of me to keep her hanging like that. “They upped the sales price. I guess that isn’t helping,” I admitted, frowning down at my hands.
Unlike Jenny who had her nails manicured, mine were cut neatly and plain. I had no rings on my fingers, and wore no watch or bracelets because my wrists were usually deep in flour or sugar bags.
I spent most of my life right where I wanted it—behind the shopfront. That had slowly morphed where I was doing double the work to compensate for Mom’s loss.
Was it any wonder I was feeling a little out of my league?
I was coping without Fiona, grieving Mom, working without her, too, and then practically living in the kitchens here. I didn’t exactly have that much of a life. I had nothing cheerful on the horizon, either.
Well, nothing except for next Tuesday, and that wasn’t enough to turn my frown upside down.
The money was a temptation. I didn’t need to sell up and start working on my own goals, but that just loaded me down with more guilt and made me feel like a really shitty daughter.
Jenny squeezed me in a gentle hug. But as I turned to speak to her, the bell above the door rang as it opened. We both jerked in surprise—each of us apparently thinking the other had locked up when neither of us had—and turned to face the entrance.
On the brink of telling the client we were closed for the day, my mouth opened then shut.
Standing there, amid the frilly, lacy curtains, was the most masculine man I’d ever seen in my life.
And I meant that.
It was like a thousand aftershave models had morphed into one handsome creature that had just walked through my door.
At my side, I could feel Jenny’s ‘hot guy radar’ flare to life, and for once, I couldn’t damn well blame her.
This guy was . . . well, he was enough to make me choke on my words and splutter to a halt.
The tea room was all girly femininity. It was sophisticated enough to appeal to businesswomen with its mauve, taupe, and cream-toned hues, and the ethereal watercolors that decorated the walls. But the tablecloths were lacy, and the china dishes and cake stands we used were the height of Edwardian elegance.
Moms brought their little girls here for their birthday, and high-powered executives spilled dirt on their lovers with their girlfriends over scones and clotted cream—breaking their diets as they discussed the boyfriends who had broken their hearts.
The man, whoever the hell he was, was dressed to impress in a navy suit with the finest pinstripe. It was close to a silver fleck, and I could see, even from this distance, that it was hand tailored. I’d seen custom tailoring before, and only a trained eye could get a suit cut so perfectly to this man’s form.
With wide shoulders that looked like they could take the weight of the world, a long, lean frame that was enhanced by strong muscles evident through the close fit of his pants and jacket, then the silkiness of his shirt which revealed delineated abs when his bright gold and scarlet tie flapped as he moved, the guy was hot.
With a capital H.
“How can we help, sir?” Jenny purred, and despite my own awe, I had to dip my chin to hide my smile.
Even if I wanted to throw my hat into this particular man’s game, there was no way he’d choose me over Jenny. Fuck, I’d screw her, and I wasn’t even a lesbian. Not even a teensy bit bi. I’d gone shopping with her enough to have seen her ass, and I promise you, it’s biteable.
So, nope. I didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of this Adonis seeing me when Jenny was in the room.
Yet. . . .
When I’d controlled my smile, I looked over at the man, and his focus was on me.
My breath stuttered to a halt.
Why wasn’t his gaze glued to Jenny?
Why weren’t those ice-white blue eyes fixated on my best friend’s tits, which Jenny helpfully plumped up as she preened at my side?
For a second, I was so close to breaking out into a coughing fit, it was humiliating. Then, more humiliation struck in a quieter manner, but it was nevertheless rotten—I turned pink.
Now, you might think you know what a blush is. You might think you’ve even experienced it yourself a time or two. But I was a redhead. My skin made fresh milk look yellow, and even my fucking freckles were pale. Everything about me was like I’d been dunked into white wax.
But as the heat crawled over me, taking over my skin as the man looked at me without pause, I knew things had rarely been this dire.
See, with Jenny as a best friend, I was used to the attention going her way. I could hide in the background, hide in her shadow. I liked it there. I was comfortable there. Sometimes, on double dates, she’d drag me along, and even the guy supposed to be dating me would be gaping at Jenny. As pathetic as it was, I was so used to it, it didn’t bother me.
But now?
I just wasn’t used to being in the spotlight.
Especially not a man like this one’s spotlight.
When you’re a teenager, practicing with your mom’s blush for the first time, you always look like a tomato that’s been left out in the sun, right?
I was redder than that.
I could feel it. I could fucking feel the heat turning me tomato red.
When Jenny cleared her throat, I thanked God when it broke the man’s attention. He shot her a look, but it wasn’t admiring. It wasn’t even impressed.
If anything, it was irritated.
Okay, so now both Jenny and I were stunned.
Fuck that, we were floored.
Literally.
Our mouths were doing a pretty good fish impression as the man turned back to look at me.
Shit, was this some kind of joke?
Was it April 1st and I’d just gotten the dates mixed up again?
“Ms. Keegan?”
Oh fuck. His voice.
Oh. My. God.
That voice.
It was. . . .
I had to swallow.
Did men even talk like that?
It was low and husky and raspy and made me think of sex, not just mediocre sex, but the best sex. Toe-curling, nails-breaking-in-the-sheets sex. Sex so fucking good you couldn’t walk the next day. Sex so hot that it made my current core temperature look polar in comparison. Sex that I’d never been lucky to have before, so I pined for it in the worst way.
Jenny nudged me in the side when I just carried on gaping at the man. “Y-Yes. That’s me.” I cleared my throat, feeling nervous and stupid and flustered as I wiped my hands on my apron.
Sweet Jesus.
Was this man really looking for me while I was wearing a goddamn pinafore?
Even as practical as they were, I wanted to beg the patron saint of pinnies to remove it from me. To do something, anything, to make sure that this man didn’t see me in the red gingham check that I always wore to cover up stains.
And then I felt it.
Jenny’s hand.
Tugging at the knot.
I wanted to kiss her. Seriously. I wanted to give her a fucking raise! As I moved away from the counter and her side, the apron dropped to the floor as I headed for the man whose hand was now held out, ready for me to shake in greeting.
There are those moments in your life when you know you’ll never forget them. They can be happy or sad, annoying or exhilarating. This was one of them.
As I slipped my hand into his, I felt the electric shocks down to my core. Meeting his gaze wasn’t hard because I was stunned, and I needed to know if he’d felt that, too.
From the way those eyelids were shielding his icy-blue eyes, I figured he was just as surprised.
It was like a satisfied puma was watching me. One that was happy there was plump prey prancing around in front of him.
Shit.
Did I just describe myself as ‘plump prey?’
And like that, my house of cards came tumbling down because what the hell would this man want with me?
I was seeing things.
God, I was so stupid sometimes.
I cleared my throat for, like, the fourth damn time, and asked, “I’m Ms. Keegan. You are?”
His smile, when it appeared, was as charming as the rest of him. His teeth were white, but not creepy, reality-TV-star white. They were straight except for one of his canines, which tilted in slightly. In his perfect face, it was one flaw that I almost clung to. Because with that wide brow, the hair so dark it looked like black silk that was cut closely to his head with a faint peak at his forehead, the strong nose, and even stronger jaw, I needed something imperfect to focus on.
Then, I sucked down a breath and remembered what Fiona had told me once upon a time. When I’d been nervous about asking Jamie Winters to homecoming, she’d advised me in her soft Irish lilt, “Lass, that boy takes a dump just like you do. He uses the bathroom twice a day and undoubtedly leaves a puddle on the floor for his ma to clean up. I bet he’s puked a time or two as well. Had diarrhea and the good Lord only knows what else. Just you think that the next time you see that boy and want to ask him out.”
Yeah. It was gross, but fuck, it had worked. Her advice had worked so well I hadn’t asked anyone out because I could only think of them using the damn toilet!
Still, looking at this Adonis, there was no imagining that.
Surely, gods didn’t use the bathroom.
Did they?
“The name’s Finn. Finn O’Grady.”
My eyes flared at the name.
No.
It couldn’t be.
Finn O’Grady?
No. It wasn’t a rare name, but it was a strong one. One that suited him, one that had always suited him.
I frowned up at him wondering, yet again, if this was a joke of some sort, but as he looked at me, really looked at me, I saw no recognition. Saw nothing on his features that revealed any ounce of awareness that I’d known him for years.
Well, okay, not known. But I’d known his mother. Our mothers had been best friends. And as I looked, I saw the same almond-shaped eyes Fiona had, the stubborn jaw, and that unmistakable butt-indent on his chin.
At the reminder of just how forgettable I was, my heart sank, and hurt whistled through me.
Then, I realized I was still holding his hand, and as he squeezed, the flush returned and I almost died of mortification.