Cathal
I’d gone too far. I suspected I had when we arrived, and I crashed her dinner meeting.
I knew it the moment I opened my mouth and accepted Beaufort’s invitation to join them.
The smile and tone of her voice told me that.
However, it was too late to back out. I’d have to ride out the dinner and then be prepared to explain myself to her when it was over.
I pulled out a chair on the side of the table opposite where Beaufort had been seated.
Bronagh ignored me and went to the chair next to his.
He pulled it out for her. She sat regally.
Not making a scene, I chose the one on her opposite side from him.
My guards, I knew, were amused, though they hid it.
When I looked over at Troi, he inched up one eyebrow.
Then, he mouthed, You’re fucked. He could say that again.
Almost as soon as our asses touched the seats, a waiter came rushing up.
“Good evening, forgive the wait. I’m Charles. I’ll be your waiter this evening. May I get you started with drinks? Possibly an amuse-bouche, mouth amuser?”
“Bronagh, what would you like?” I asked her.
“Charles, I’d love a glass of Malbec wine, please. You choose the brand,” she told the waiter, ignoring me.
“We have an excellent Malbec from…Maeve Cellars,” Charles said, shifting his gaze to me before saying the name. It was one of my family’s wines.
“I’ll take the same, so why not bring us a bottle. I’ll have to tell Aisling when we get home that we had one of hers,” I told Bronagh.
“I’m sure if Aisling had anything to do with its development, it’ll be wonderful,” she replied.
“Well, now I have to try it, so yes, bring us the bottle. And I think a sample of the amuse-bouche for the table would be wonderful,” Antoine ordered.
“I’ll be back with your drinks soon. I’ll be happy to answer any questions you may have about the menu.”
Charles gave us a slight bow. Before he could leave, I pointed to the table where the bodyguards were seated.
“Please make sure that everything they order is on a check that is given to me. They’re part of my party.”
“Of course, I can do that,” the waiter assured me.
He moved over to speak to Troi and the others.
I knew they wouldn’t drink alcohol, not when they were on duty, but they could get other things.
My family didn’t take our guards with us and then leave them out in the cold, hungry.
However, I knew plenty of supposedly upper-crust people who did.
They treated their employees as if they were invisible, not people.
“Antoine, I brought you the designs to see. I finished them this week. I’m sorry that I had to push the deadline by a week, but I had an unexpected issue arise,” Bronagh told him.
“No worries, you know I’ll stick around for you forever, Bronie. You’re a sly one. You breathed not a word to me when we had dinner in Tallahassee two weeks ago. How long have you two been seeing each other? And when did you get engaged?”
Tallahassee, two weeks ago. He must be the person she was with right before the wreck. Could he have had anything to do with it? Had he set her up? I filed that away. I’d have Cody or one of his people look into everything they could find about Antoine Beaufort.
Bronagh and I had talked about what to say when people asked how long we’d been dating.
Where did we meet? And when did we get engaged?
It would start as soon as it went public.
The truth was, the news that an O’Sheeran was off the market was big news, whether we liked it or not. Our high-profile lives guaranteed that.
Needing to be close to her, despite her being upset with me, I reached over and laid my hand on hers on the top of the table. Her hand twitched, but she didn’t jerk it away. Antoine’s gaze zeroed in on the move.
“We first met years ago when she was a child, and I was a teenager. We hadn’t seen each other in years, but when I met her again, after her dad asked my family to check in on how she was doing here in Florida, we hit it off.
It was a surprise. I knew the moment I saw her that she was meant to be mine.
Most people will say we rushed, but we don’t care.
We haven’t announced the engagement because we’re savoring our privacy.
And with the wedding less than a month away, we decided to wait and make the ultimate announcement then.
I hope you’ll help us keep our secret,” I told him.
“I won’t breathe a word of it,” Beaufort assured me.
“As much as I love talking about my love life, we’re here to work,” Bronagh said sternly.
I nodded. And from there, it became a game of observation.
I sat there, only occasionally throwing out a comment.
It was fascinating to watch her work. They examined the drawings closely.
Corrections were made here and there. Beaufort seemed to know what he was doing.
He pointed out potential issues, and they discussed his strategies to promote her newest line and when to do so.
The wine, amuse-bouche, and main course were all excellent. Time actually flew by.
By the time we finished dessert, I had questions I needed answered. The way Beaufort spoke to and treated her suggested they were more than just work acquaintances. He joked and teased her about things I didn’t know about.
I wasn’t happy about it, but I refused to jump to conclusions that weren’t true, such as the fact that I suspected they’d been involved in the past. It was in the casual way he spoke, the meaningful glances, and the way his fingers would brush against her.
It was never overtly sexual, but it made me want to break his hands and tell him never to touch her again.
Better yet, never to speak or see her again.
“You always did love dessert,” Beaufort said with amusement.
“I can’t help it. I saved on the calories on the front end so I could have some. The wine was a splurge, but so worth it. Cathal, I definitely will have to tell Aisling how great it was,” Bronagh told me. Her tone held more warmth than it had at the beginning of the evening.
“She’ll love to hear it. After things settle down, I’ll take you to California, to Temecula, to tour the winery and see how they make the various wines. We have a house there so that we can stay for a while, too,” I offered.
“You’ll have to see how it compares to the winery we toured and stayed in that week in the Rh?ne Valley in France. They make such spicy, bold reds and fragrant whites. And the scenery is so dramatic, though we didn’t leave our room much.”
The look he gave her was flirtatious, and his voice was filled with innuendos. It was as brash as he’d been so far tonight. The way her cheeks reddened and the quelling glance she gave him confirmed what I’d been thinking. They had been lovers.
She was having dinner and working with her former lover.
Or was he a former one? She said that she wasn’t involved with anyone, but they’d been together two weeks ago.
Bronagh hadn’t bothered to tell me that the person she was meeting was someone she’d had sex with. And she hadn’t wanted me to come along.
Fury and jealousy mixed in my gut, and I fought not to let it explode out. I clenched my fist in my lap. Bronagh’s gaze slid over to mine. She knew that I knew. I saw the wariness there. Was she afraid I’d cause a scene? Or was she upset that her secret was exposed?
I don’t know how I managed to hold myself in check to get through the last little bit of small talk and the bill, but I did. I insisted that I’d pay for everyone, but Bronagh said it was her business expense and she needed to keep things clean.
Clean, how could she worry about clean when she was working with her lover, ex-lover, whatever he was?
When we rose to leave, he placed his hand on her forearm and kissed her on the cheek this time.
I forced myself to shake his hand, then, with our wall of guards, we made our way out of the restaurant.
I held on to my composure as the cars pulled up.
Troi opened my door. He gave me a concerned look, which I ignored. I assisted Bronagh inside, then I got in. As the doors closed, with Troi being last, I issued my order.
“Put up the partition and take us home.”
Without a word, the glass partition between the front and back seats closed.
Bronagh watched it happen. Then, she closed her eyes, leaning her head back against the leather seat.
However, if she thought that was enough to save her, she was wrong.
The car began moving. I waited a whole minute, staring at her before I spoke.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.
“Tell you what?”
“Don’t play with me, Bronagh. You know damn well what I mean,” I snapped.
Her eyelids flew open as she sat straight. There was fire blazing in them.
“Why didn’t you tell me that you planned to sabotage my dinner meeting by coming along and commandeering our table?”
“That wasn’t sabotage. I came along to ensure you were safe. He asked me to join you, not the other way around.”
“You could’ve said no. You didn’t need to sit a table full of bodyguards right next to us so that they could watch us like animals trapped in a cage!
I was there to discuss business. My career is very important to me, Cathal.
You could’ve ruined it. Antoine is a major buyer for me.
His customers buy a lot of my designs!” she hotly stated.
“Maybe I wouldn’t have had to invite myself along if you’d told me who you were meeting, or why you didn’t want me to go? I’m not stupid. I know why you want to have your secret little dinner!” I snapped.
“Secret dinner! There was nothing secret about it. I told you it was for work. What more did you want me to tell you!?” she shouted.
It was a good thing the back was sound-dampened. If not, Troi and Niall would hear every word we said. As it was, they’d hear muffled sounds.
“How about telling me you were meeting your ex-lover? Or is he still a lover? Were you hoping to have a different dessert after dinner?” I half shouted.
Her mouth dropped, and then in a flash, she slapped my face. It was so sudden, I hadn’t been prepared for it.
“How fucking dare you say that to me!? I was there purely in a professional capacity, not to fuck someone. As for not telling you, Antoine is an ex-lover. Why should I? Do you plan to point out every woman you happen to have fucked if we meet them? If so, we’ll never get done saying hello,” she snarled.
“How long? How long ago did you two break it off? Was he the one you met the night of the wreck?”
“Yes, I had dinner with Antoine the night of the wreck. No, we didn’t fuck afterward, not that it’s any of your business. As for how long ago, why does it matter?”
“Tell me,” I growled.
I hadn’t put on a seatbelt. It allowed me to slide closer to her and grasp her upper arms. I didn’t grip her too tightly. But I had to get her to focus on me. I had to know. She wiggled to get loose, but I held onto her.
“Let go of me, Cathal!” she snapped.
“Just answer the question. How long ago were the two of you lovers? Why did you stop? Why work with him?”
I felt as if I were going insane. So many emotions whirling together: anger, jealousy, fear, love, and desire.
Bronagh glared daggers at me, but even then, I thought I saw hurt and desire. After a tense thirty seconds or more of silence, she answered.
“We broke up five years ago. We realized we wanted different things in life and were on different paths. Why I work with him is because he’s brilliant at what he does.
And contrary to what you might believe, we’re friends.
Now, let go of me. When we get back to the commune, I’m going to stay at the main house. ”
“Like hell you’re leaving me,” I growled.
She turned her head away from me, as if to ignore me. I caught her chin in my hand and forced her to turn back. Before she could say anything, I kissed her.
Bronagh tried to squirm away from me, but I pressed her into the seat.
Her teeth bit my bottom lip, but rather than stopping me, it fired up my desire.
I bit her bottom lip back and then sucked her tongue into my mouth.
My hands moved from her arm and chin to cup her tits through the fabric of her top.
The damn gauzy thing with that skirt had been driving me crazy all night.
When I saw her in it at home, I wanted to strip it off right then and there and fuck her on the kitchen counter.
It flowed around her body, enticing a man to see what was hidden.
And when you were like me and knew what was underneath those clothes, it was worse.
She grunted and tried to buck my half-hovering body off her, but she was trapped.
I parted our mouths long enough to speak.
“You’re not going anywhere but home, where we’ll talk this through.
You’re not using this as a reason to break the engagement.
We’re getting married. You’re mine just as I’m yours.
You gave me your body, which sealed the deal.
There’s no going back. And if any man, Antoine or other, tries to take you from me, I’ll kill the bastard. ”
Astonishment filled her expression. “Cathal, are you hearing yourself? You sound unhinged. No one is taking me away from you. But you can’t threaten to kill people just because you don’t like them. Or because we were involved in the past.”
“The hell I can’t. That bastard has been inside of you, Bronagh. He knows what you look like when you climax. He knows what it feels like to have you surrounding his cock. He’s lucky I don’t have him killed for it,” I said gruffly.
“You’re crazy!”
“No, I’m fucking jealous! I sat all night, suspecting you had been together, and then I found out I was right.
And I had to sit and wonder if seeing him makes you regret saying yes to me.
Am I about to lose you to him? Don’t leave.
I’ll take care of you. I’ll cherish you as no one else can, I swear.
Just give me time. You can’t give me heaven and make me love you and then walk away. ”
I stopped as soon as I realized what I’d confessed. She was frozen. My heart pounded like a drum as I waited for her to respond.