35. Declan
35
DECLAN
I braced for Olivia’s anger. But it was worse than that. She didn’t look angry.
She looked disappointed.
She turned away from me to tug on the shorts and T-shirt she’d discarded on my floor last night. “I don’t understand, Declan. Without that house, there’s no summer festival. And without that festival, half the town’s businesses will close.”
“Those businesses will be fine,” I insisted, “once they pivot to a new business model.”
Olivia whirled to face me. “ What new business model? Not everyone in Ballybeith is a capitalist genius and, according to Molly, the town’s getting smaller every year. You’re killing the last thing that was bringing outsiders in.”
I threw the covers off and stood, yanking my trousers on. “Sure, blame the shrinking town on me too. Not on Mark O’Rourke, who’s been raising rents so high he’s been driving people out for decades.” I jabbed a finger to emphasize my point. “I did this town a favor, getting that mansion away from him. Now he can’t hold the festival over the town’s head. Someone had to stop him.”
“I get that.” Olivia stepped toward me, her hands spread in supplication. “I get it. You did a good thing buying the mansion. But you don’t have to raze it. Let it stand, and let people use it for the festival.” She walked closer, her hands settling lightly against my chest. “You already won. You beat Mark O’Rourke. You can stop now. You don’t have to hurt the town. You don’t have to hurt Catie.”
I flinched away from her touch. “That’s what this is about, isn’t it? God forbid I piss off the man who abandoned Sinead. The man who abandoned Catie .”
I should have known Olivia wouldn’t understand. Like everyone else, she saw Seamus’s charming smile, heard his friendly words, and didn’t look any deeper. But still, Olivia choosing Seamus over me felt like a knife to the belly.
This whole thing just made me hate the O’Rourkes even more. It seemed like the family kept chasing after me, haunting me at every step of the way. They’d killed my da, thrashed my sister’s life, drawn a wedge between me and Olivia, and…
The list was just too long.
Olivia crossed her arms. “This isn’t about Seamus. It’s about Catie. She deserves to make her own choices when she grows up. And you’ve just made it all but impossible to have a positive relationship with half of her family.”
“ They’re not her family ,” I snarled. “ They killed her family .”
Olivia stepped back under the force of my rage. Some distant part of me noticed she looked scared.
Ashamed, I stepped back, trying to get control of my emotions. “Olivia. I want you to believe me that I am doing this not despite the town, or Catie, but for them.”
“But what if you’re wrong?—”
“I’m not done yet,” I said, my voice brooking no argument. “I believe destroying that mansion, destroying the O’Rourke legacy, benefits everyone. But even if I didn’t, I’d still fucking do it. Because he killed my da. And no one in this town, this town of people you’re so desperate to save, held him accountable for that.”
Her chin quivered.
My voice dropped, deadly quiet. “If no one else will punish Mark O’Rourke, then I will. And damn the consequences.”
Olivia stared at me, eyes bright, face flushed. She started to walk out the door, then stopped and turned back to me. “I was going to stay in Ireland for you,” she said. “After last night, I thought…I thought it was okay that you weren’t brave enough to ask me to stay, because I could feel it in your touch, in your heart that you wanted me to—and that maybe we could have a future together. I thought I could be brave for both of us.”
She was going to stay? Everything in me leapt at the idea.
“But I can’t do that,” Olivia said, an awful finality in her voice. “I can’t risk my future on someone who’s so set on revenge, no matter the cost. Please , Declan. Stop living in the past.”
I felt my anger start to turn on her. How dare she tell me she was considering staying right when she was making it clear she’d changed her mind? Did she enjoy toying with me? “At least I learn from my past,” I said. “You’re so scared to look at what you’ve lost, what you want , you’ve spent your whole career running from it. Hiding in other people’s lives, in other people’s families?—”
“Stop,” Olivia said, covering her face. “I can’t do this.”
“Oh, that’s mature. Check out of the conversation.”
When she lowered her hands, I saw what she’d been trying to cover. She was crying.
I felt those tears like a punch to the gut. I wanted to fall to my knees and kiss each drop away. At the same time, I wanted to yell at her that she wasn’t the only one in pain.
“I wasn’t talking about the conversation, Declan,” Olivia said, swiping furiously at her tears with the palm of her hand. “I was talking about the relationship.”
I stopped breathing. She didn’t notice.
“I can’t do this if you’re determined to be the worst version of yourself,” she said.
Something in me snapped. “Well, I don’t want to be with someone who only wants me when I’m doing exactly what she wants. I deserve more than that.”
Olivia looked down at the floor. I could feel her withdrawing into herself. Going some place I couldn’t reach her.
I hated it. “Olivia, wait…”
She looked up, her eyes clear and certain. “I think we both deserve more, Declan. We can’t give each other what we want. It’s done. It has been for a while, I just couldn’t admit it.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I knew she’d be angry about the mansion. I just didn’t think she could walk away so easily.
But of course she could walk away. This was what Olivia fucking did . She’d made a life of living in the present and fleeing as soon as that present got hard.
“At least we’ve only got ten more days together,” Olivia said, in a hollow imitation of a joke. “Once Sinead arrives, you’ll never see me again.”
“Why wait?” I said bitterly. “Mum and I can handle Catie for ten days. We don’t need you.”
She looked alarmed. “Declan, we promised Catie we wouldn’t do this. We promised I’d stay, even if we fought?—”
“I don’t give a shit what I promised!” I said. The reality that she was leaving hurt so bad I wanted to double over and brace myself on something for support. But I’d be damned if I let her see me fall apart. I’d be damned if I’d let her spend the next ten days being lovely and professional and her while I crumbled in front of her. “Do you really think it’s better for Catie to watch the adults she loves seethe at each other for ten days?”
Olivia grimaced. “We can keep it professional?—”
“I can’t ,” I said. “Not with you. Never with you.”
She looked somewhere between touched and alarmed.
Humiliation crawled up the back of my neck. I turned away. “Pack your stuff and say goodbye to Catie. I’ll buy your ticket and call you a taxi.
The silence between us grew thick.
Then Olivia turned away and did what she was told.
T he house was quiet after Olivia left. Catie didn’t want to talk to me. Instead she lay curled up in her room, watching cartoons on my tablet. She emerged once to get a snack, defiantly meeting my eyes as she grabbed five cookies and took them back to her room.
I didn’t have the heart to scold her. I felt numb.
Olivia had left. She’d finally fucking left.
I’d poured myself a glass of whiskey, but it sat on the kitchen table next to me untouched.
I told myself it would have felt like this sooner or later. Olivia was always going to leave. This changed nothing but the timing—and I was right to end it now. I could hardly betray my principles, could I? Promise I wouldn’t raze the mansion, just for another week of bliss in her arms?
I pressed my fist to my hand and breathed. This was the real reason I’d needed her out of the house. Because I could already feel myself crumbling. I could already feel myself wanting to go to her room, and open the door, and coax her into believing this was one more crack we could patch over.
I should strip the sheets in her room , I decided. My staff normally handled that, but I needed to get every trace of her out of my life immediately. Eventually this numbness might wear off, and then I might do something weak like press my face to her pillow and breathe in that damn lavender scent.
I went upstairs and opened the door to her room. But Olivia had beat me too it. She’d stripped the old sheets off and scoured the room of every trace of her.
The only thing she’d left behind was the old sweatshirt she’d borrowed from me. She’d folded it neatly and placed it on the chair by the window.
Something about seeing that sweatshirt by the chair shattered my numbness. She was gone. She was gone. Olivia was gone. And I’d never see her again.
I’d wanted her to take that sweatshirt, damnit. She’d liked it so much, and I’d liked the idea of keeping her warm, even after we parted. But I hadn’t really said that, just made jokes about it.
Just like I hadn’t told her how badly I wanted her to stay in Ireland. Just like I hadn’t told her how I felt about her. I hadn’t told her I’d lost the ability to picture a future without her. I hadn’t told her she’d somehow become my true north.
I hadn’t told her I loved her.
I grabbed the dresser for balance. She’d told me she’d decided to stay in Ireland. And instead of telling her I fucking loved her, I’d put her on the first plane out.
I’d been too obsessed with winning the argument, with defending myself, to hear what she’d really been saying. I’d heard, You can never make me stay now when what she’d been trying to say was I was so close to staying, please give me a reason to.
“No,” I blurted into the empty, silent room. “No, this isn’t how this ends.”
I’d won her back two times already when I’d fucked up.
Third time’s the charm , I thought.
I grabbed my phone and called her, but it went to voicemail. I pulled up our message thread to text her, but I didn’t know what to say. There’d been a connection over text, but we’d only truly connected in person. Don’t get on that plane, I wrote. Wait for me, Olivia.
She didn’t respond. I had no idea if she’d see it. I had no idea if she’d wait. But I knew I had to try.
“Catie! Get your shoes on!” I yelled, racing downstairs to grab my keys. “We’re going to the airport!”
I didn’t drive nearly as fast as I wanted to, not with Catie in the car with me. But we still made the trip in record time. I parked illegally, grabbed Catie, and raced into the airport. Shannon was a small, quiet airport. One glance told me Olivia wasn’t in the departures area. She’d already gone through security.
I checked my watch. Olivia’s flight didn’t board for another half hour.
I headed to the nearest airline counter. “I need two tickets.”
“Where to?” the employee asked.
“I don’t care. Anywhere.”
“Sir, that’s highly unusual. Do you have luggage?” He looked at me suspiciously.
“Uncle Declan,” Catie said, “I don’t have my passport.”
“Are you her legal guardian?” the employee asked. “Because if not, the child needs ID.”
“She’s six ,” I said. “Never mind. We aren’t going anywhere. We just need tickets so we can get through security. There’s someone I need to talk to.”
“Sir, we can’t do that,” the employee said.
“ Please ,” I said desperately. I opened my wallet and dropped every bill I had on the counter. “I’ll buy your most expensive ticket.”
Catie tugged on my shirt. “Why won’t they let us see Olivia?”
“They will, love,” I promised. “They will.”
“I will not ,” the employee said, indignant.
I slammed my hands flat on the counter. “The woman I love is about to get on a plane and I haven’t told her…she doesn’t know… She’s not answering her phone. Please .”
The employee looked torn. “If you have a specific destination in mind, and the child has official ID, I can help you. Otherwise, there’s nothing I can do.”
I ran a hand through my hair. I wasn’t going to be able to get Catie through security. Not before Olivia’s plane took off. And I couldn’t leave her behind in the lobby while I went ahead.
“Fuck,” Catie said, like she was testing out the word. “Did I use it right?”
“You used it right,” I said. I thought through my options. “Could you get her a message? You could tell her I’m here. I’d pay you anything you want?—”
“Declan?” Olivia said behind me.
I turned toward her, my heart pounding in my chest.
Her eyes were red-rimmed, like she’d been crying, and her hair was a mess. She looked like that first day on the plane when I’d met her and her oversized suitcase. But that day she’d had a spark in her, even if she was upset.
This time, it was like that spark was gone.
“Someone said a single dad was losing his mind in the lobby and throwing money at people,” Olivia said. “After reading your text, I took a gamble that it was you.”
I cracked a smile. It felt like I could breathe for the first time since she’d walked out of my bedroom this morning.
I reached for her. “Olivia, I?—”
“No,” she said, holding up her hands. “I just came out to tell you to go home. We can’t keep doing this.”
“But I love you,” I said. The words sounded naked and stark in this gray airport. “I love you, Olivia. Stay with me. Please.” I held out my hand to her, desperate to touch her. To make everything right. “You wanted to stay with me once. I promise I can make you want to stay again.”
But Olivia was shaking her head. “You don’t get it, Declan. Of course you could make me want to stay. But it wouldn’t be good for us. We can’t keep hurting each other over and over, without ever resolving any of our actual issues.”
Honestly, that sounded like half the couples I knew. I didn’t see what the problem was, if we loved each other.
Maybe that’s the problem , all my doubts whispered in my ear. Maybe she doesn’t love you back.
Catie was looking back and forth between me and Olivia anxiously. I hated that she was seeing this.
“We just need time,” I said to Olivia, my eyes begging.
It was the only answer I had, and a part of me already knew it wasn’t good enough. But I couldn’t give in yet.
Olivia took a deep breath. “Would you consider getting your revenge on the O’Rourkes in a different way? Any other way, except destroying the mansion. Something that doesn’t hurt…” Her eyes dropped to Catie. “Anyone else.”
I swore. This again.
“You know I can’t,” I said. “I can give you anything else, but not that.”
Olivia picked up her suitcase. “Then I can’t do this. I’m sorry. Goodbye, Catie. Declan.” She turned, and I saw her wiping at her cheeks as she walked away.
I caught up to her and grabbed her arm. “Wait.”
“My plane is leaving. The one you bought me a ticket for, Declan.” She snatched her arm from my grasp. “Don’t follow me again. Let me go. It’s better for both of us.”
The devastating thing was, I could tell she meant it this time. She meant every word of it.
So I stood there, broken-hearted bastard that I was, and watched Olivia St. James walk away from me.
I didn’t move until Catie slipped her small hand into mine. “Let’s go home, Uncle Declan.”
I nodded, and together we turned around and walked toward something Olivia didn’t have—home.