27. Declan
27
DECLAN
T hree days after our fight, things still felt off between me and Olivia. It wasn’t anything I could put my finger on—we were just more careful with each other. And it wasn’t the same. I missed the way her personality took up the whole room when she was genuinely relaxed and happy. I didn’t like seeing her so uncertain, almost diminished.
I sat in my office and stared blankly at my email inbox.
After my initial apology, I’d tried wooing Olivia out of her shell with family movie nights, skinny-dipping in the pool after we put Catie down for the night, and—of course—plenty of sex. For a moment or two, I’d have her with me entirely, like it used to be. And then she’d draw into herself and slip away from me. It felt like there was something on her mind she couldn’t tell me.
If I were in a cheesy romance like The Deer and the Warrior , I would have grabbed her by the shoulders, shook her, and demanded she tell me her secrets. Then I could have given her a punishing kiss and crushed whatever demons were haunting her.
Unfortunately, Olivia didn’t want me to slay her demons. She wanted me to be civilized .
Damn it.
I grimaced. Then I dug around in my inbox until I found the most recent missive from Seamus O’Rourke. If Olivia needed me to meet with Seamus to prove I was the bigger man and not some raging beast she needed to fear, than I could do it.
I would meet with Seamus, he’d be an arse like always, and then I could hate him for being an arse instead of solely for his last name. I hoped the distinction would be enough for Olivia.
I dashed out an email telling Seamus I could meet him in three hours at a hotel bar in Galway, but only for fifteen minutes. It was mostly frequented by travelers and tourists, so I doubted anyone from Ballybeith would see us.
Seamus’s confirmation was embarrassingly grateful. He used three exclamation marks.
“Have some dignity, man,” I muttered.
Three unfortunate hours later, I stepped into the hotel bar. It was a historic hotel, with low ceilings, dark wood tables, and unremarkable oil paintings on the walls. I spotted Seamus sitting at the bar, twisting a pint of beer nervously in his hands. He’d already drunk over half of it.
“Fuck it,” I muttered, and headed over to him.
Do it for Olivia, I told myself.
When Seamus spotted me, he nearly fell off his stool in his enthusiasm to stand and greet me. When he found his balance, he held his hand out to me to shake. “Declan.”
“O’Rourke.” I didn’t shake his hand. I sat down at the bar next to him.
“Can I get you something to drink?” he asked.
As if this was a bloody social call.
“What do you want, Seamus? Are you here to warn me away from interfering in Mark’s efforts to sell your buildings?” I asked.
“What?” Seamus shook his head, confused. “This isn’t about business. It’s personal.”
I laughed, the sound cold and callous even to my own ears. “There’s nothing personal between us. Nothing.”
Seamus twisted his glass nervously, but stubbornly. “How’s Sinead?”
I all but growled. “Keep her name out of your mouth.”
Seamus held up his hands in surrender. “Jesus, you’re jumpy. I meant no disrespect. It’s just that she hasn’t been answering her phone.”
Because she’s in rehab, your arse, I thought. But what I said was, “That probably means she doesn’t want to talk to you, Seamus. And if you think I’ll put in a good word for you with her, you’re dumber than I thought.”
Seamus clenched his jaw. I could see my taunts were getting to him. He was flushed.
Go on, I thought. Show me your true colors.
Seamus met my gaze squarely. “I wanted talk to Sinead and you because I’m Catie’s dad. And I want to be a part of her life.”
“You what ?” I could feel the blood rushing in my ears. It wasn’t true. It wasn’t possible . I simply couldn’t believe that Sinead would have ever taken up with this bastard.
On the other hand, it suddenly made sense why she wouldn’t want to tell me. And it was completely in fucking character for Seamus O’Rourke to abandon my sister and leave Catie to grow up without a dad.
And now he wanted to be involved, after all these years?
That was fucking rich.
“You bastard,” I snarled, lunging for him, and he ducked away from me, falling off his barstool and landing hard on the ground.
He scrambled to his feet and backed away from me. “It’s like I told Olivia. You don’t need to tell Catie she’s mine if you don’t want to. I just want to spend some time with her, while she’s here…”
But I’d stopped listening. I was hearing his first sentence on loop.
It was like I told Olivia….
I didn’t want to believe that Olivia would betray me like this. That she’d talk to Seamus behind my back and keep a secret this big from me. I’d trusted her. She knew what the O’Rourkes meant to me, what they represented.
But my stomach was sinking. Now I knew why she’d been so dead set on me talking to Seamus.
“Stay away from my family,” I ordered. “Or else.”
Seamus flinched.
I stormed out of the dark bar and out into the sunlight. Outside, people were walking up and down the narrow streets like nothing extraordinary had happened. But my whole world felt like it had been turned upside down.
Sinead had trusted an O’Rourke, and he betrayed her.
I’d trusted Olivia, and she betrayed me.
The part of me that had begun to open up, begun to fucking hope , the more time I spent with Olivia, closed down like a gate slamming shut. I needed to remember the truth—if I didn’t keep my guard up, people would hurt my family. Even the good people could be manipulated and twisted by the horrible ones.
I couldn’t trust anyone to have my back. Not really.
I jumped in my car and drove back home, my rage burning hot and mean.
I slammed the front door behind me and stalked through the house until I found Olivia. She was playing outside in the backyard with Catie.
“Olivia. Inside. I need to talk to you.”
“One second,” Olivia called. “Let me finish this up…”
“Now,” I barked.
Her eyes widened.
Olivia patted Catie on the shoulder and gave her some instructions, then followed me into the house.
“Declan, what’s wrong?—”
“How long have you known Seamus was Catie’s dad?” I demanded.
She flinched. “Five days.”
I hadn’t realized how badly I wanted her to say What are you talking about? Seamus is obviously lying until she spoke.
“I was going to tell you,” Olivia rushed to explain. She reached for my arm, but I yanked it out of her grasp and stepped back. Olivia’s presence—Olivia’s touch —always made me feel more at peace with myself, and that wasn’t what I needed right now. I couldn’t let Olivia soften the anger I’d spent more than a decade sharpening into a weapon.
She swallowed and tried again. “I thought if you could see him as a person, instead of just an O’Rourke, then you wouldn’t react like this. You could see the good side.”
“What good side?” I demanded.
“Catie could get to know her father. And maybe you…” She bit her lip.
“What? Spit it out,” I demanded.
“You could participate fully in this town, in your community, without feeling like you have to block yourself off from everything in order to avoid the O’Rourkes all the time,” Olivia said. “I don’t want you to go back to being alone in this big, empty house when I leave.”
The reminder that she was leaving felt like whiskey poured on an open wound. It killed any last instinct I had toward tenderness.
I’d been blind. Stupid, even.
I’d allowed my heart to distract me from what really mattered.
“You’ll never understand me, Olivia. You’ll never understand what my family went through. And you’ll never understand I why I hate them .” I shook my head. “And if you don’t get it, I can’t trust you.”
“I understand more than you think.”
“You didn’t even understand how to turn on the fucking shower until I told you.” I turned away from Olivia because I couldn’t stand to look at her right now and stared out the window to where Catie played peacefully in my garden. When I spoke again, my voice was deadly quiet. “How can you understand what it’s like to grow up mere kilometers from the man who slaughtered your father? With everyone around you bowing and scraping toward him, because even after he kills someone, they don’t dare stand up to him?”
At first Olivia didn’t say anything. Then she spoke, her voice was shaky. “You didn’t tell me how to work the shower. @DBCoder did.”
Her words sent a bucket of ice water down my back.
Fuck.
I turned to face her, not sure what I was going to say, if I could still explain it away.
But she saw the truth written all over my face. “You’re him. You’re @DBCoder.”
I tried to swallow the words down, but it was useless. I couldn’t lie to her.
“I am,” I said.
She backed up, getting as far away from me as she possibly could.
I took half a step toward her, my hand outstretched toward her. “Olivia, please, don’t be scared?—”
“I’m not scared,” Olivia said. Her cheeks were flushed. “I’m fucking furious .”
I could feel the foundation of our relationship crumbling. But I didn’t know what to do to stop it. I didn’t know if I wanted to stop it, after what she’d done to me.
“How long have you known?” Olivia demanded.
So I told her.