Chapter 13
13
SAMANTHA
I stand in the bedroom—Braiden’s bedroom now—in front of the open dresser. The velvet box sits alone in the top drawer, like it’s on display in a museum. Like it’s something precious.
My hands shake as I open it. Framed against the jet-black background, the emerald is even darker than I remember—a gateway to a secret world, a door to a hidden dimension.
What is my collar worth? Twenty thousand dollars? Thirty?
If I sell this necklace, I can use the money to escape. I can travel all the way across country, safe in the anonymity of cash. I’m sure I can find a forger in California, same as I did years ago in New York.
A new name. A new identity. One without paparazzi following me like velociraptors. One where I’ll never practice law, never have to worry about my license being revoked. A new life, where I’ll never have to figure out who tried to kill me at the freeport .
Where I’ll never have to be chained to a man like Braiden Kelly, just to survive.
Because there’s one thing I just learned, downstairs in the ballroom: I will never belong in Braiden’s life.
My heart knew it, even before my brain caught up. That’s why I was so uneasy, walking into the party in the first place. That’s why I downed three glasses of champagne before saying a word to a single guest. That’s why I drank Fiona’s whiskey.
Madden’s a deluded ass, but he’s succeeded in making me understand one thing. He’ll never trust me. I could stay at Thornfield for a hundred years, mastermind a thousand illegal deals for Braiden, endure a million drunken parties with the Fishtown Boys.
But I can never erase the fact that I was born Giovanna Canna. That Russo claimed me before Braiden ever could. That my family was Cosa Nostra, my blood is Mafia, drenched in the citrus-and-wood Acqua di Parma cologne all of Russo’s lieutenants wear to imitate their don.
I’ll always be the enemy.
I could go to Braiden with Madden’s threats. Braiden’s still enough my husband that he would defend me, same as he rescued me from the freeport shooter.
But every night when I try to fall asleep, I see that waiter’s blood. I hear the explosion as the gun takes off the back of his head.
I don’t want to be the reason another man dies. Even a man as infuriating, as disgusting, as downright unhinged as Madden Fucking Kelly.
A roar of laughter billows up the stairs. The men in the ballroom are howling some chant, joining in another bonding ritual.
Why couldn’t I come up with a stupid limerick?
It’s easy to blame the alcohol. Champagne blurred all the edges, made it hard to pretend, impossible to think.
When I stood in the center of the room, in front of Fiona, surrounded by men, I could barely remember my own name. A million words scrambled in my head—nursery rhymes and Christmas carols and every poem I ever had to memorize in school.
Fighting for a limerick was like trying to net a goldfish in a pond. The words just floated away.
I panicked.
But Braiden didn’t. He stepped up to save me with a grin and a filthy rhyme.
Even then, I could have laughed. I could have teased him, in front of all his men. I could have kissed him—like Fiona did.
I’m not made for this life. Not the heavy drinking. Not the raunchy humor. Not the raw, male power of it all.
Not the Irish Mob.
I pluck my collar from its velvet bed and shove it in my pocket. It’s mine. I’ve earned it.
Turning to escape, I find Aiofe standing in the doorway. She’s wearing her pajamas—soft pink fleece with a pattern of turquoise puppies. The slippers on her feet are huge lumps of purple fur that make her look like a baby sasquatch. She’s carrying a worn stuffed animal, a bunny with one ear permanently crimped into a fold.
“Hey there, little one,” I say. My hand is still in my pocket. I close it around the necklace, like I’m afraid she’ll try to take it away.
She comes into the room cautiously, as if the Big Bad Wolf might leap out from any corner. When she reaches me, she studies my skirt. She finds one of the tulips—brilliant pink against the black silk background—and she folds her hand around it.
“That’s right,” I say, when she looks up at me. “Just like the flowers you brought me.”
She smiles. Her teeth are tiny and perfect, like the “after” picture from an ad for orthodontia. Her grin lights up her entire face, and she finds other tulips on my skirt—purple ones and gold ones and more deep pink, scattered across the cloth .
“There you are!” We’re both surprised by the voice in the doorway. I don’t know what Aiofe thinks, but my mind automatically registers that it’s wrong. It’s too high, too English, too not-Braiden.
Fairfax claps his hands, as if he’s just discovered an overlooked present under his own private Christmas tree. “My two favorite girls, both in one place.”
Aiofe beams again. I try not to look like a thief as I drag my hand out of my pocket.
The noise from the party surges again. Fairfax glances over his shoulder before he shakes his head. “I hope you two can help me out.” He lowers his voice so we have to step closer, have to become part of his conspiracy. “I made too much food for the party downstairs. I have a pot of tea left over, and a plate of biscuits that will just go to waste. Will you let me bring them to you? A bedtime snack in the nursery?”
Aiofe claps her hands, her whole body wriggling with excitement. When she looks at me, her face is full of hope, as if I’m the only person in the world who can grant her fondest wish.
Fairfax is looking at me too. “Himself would be pleased if you stay,” he says.
He isn’t talking about tea and cookies.
“I don’t think I can do that,” I say.
Aiofe’s face crumples. Fairfax says, “Have a cuppa, and then make your decision.”
“I don’t like tea.”
“It’s chamomile,” he says. “Soothes the soul.”
Aiofe doesn’t need words to plead with me. Every line of her body is a breathless, desperate prayer.
“My soul is fine,” I lie to Fairfax.
“Of course it is.”
Another shout rises from the party. Fiona distinctly says, “You Fishtown Boys—” I can’t make out the rest of her declaration but the roar of male approval billows up the stairs like sewer gas .
Aiofe’s shoulders slump. So I say to Fairfax, “One cup.”
“And a couple of biscuits,” he urges.
I nod.
“I’ll be back in a tick.”
Aiofe positively dances as she leads me down to the nursery. There’s a table in the corner, where I know she does her schoolwork. The chairs are sized for a child. I take the one closest to the window. Aiofe sits with her back to the door.
She sets her stuffed rabbit on the edge of the table, taking care to arrange his head over his floppy paws. “Does the rabbit have a name?” I ask.
Her eyebrows meet in a frown. I can practically see the gears turning inside her head as she fights to make herself understood. I think about the child I met three months ago, the one who simply stared at me when I greeted her, seemingly deaf as well as mute.
She reaches under the table and slides open a drawer. Her sketchpad is inside, along with a box of crayons. She turns to a blank page and prints her letters with care: C-O-I-N-í-N.
“The rabbit’s name is Coinín?” I pronounce it like it looks—coin-in.
Aiofe’s lips twist in a frown, but she gives a nod. That must be her way of saying I’m close enough.
I think about Braiden’s pet name for me— piscín . Kitten. The name he called me as I fled the party. It has the same ending as Aiofe’s word. “What does it mean?” I ask. “Coinín?”
She taps the rabbit.
“I know it’s his name. But does it have a meaning?”
She taps the rabbit more emphatically, raising her eyebrows as if I’m a very slow student. “Oh!” I finally say. “It means rabbit?”
She nods happily, and then she starts to draw on the page above her precise letters. Coinín’s round body quickly takes shape, along with his four legs. It only takes me a moment to realize she’s making a portrait. She pays extra attention to the ears, capturing the folded one perfectly.
When she’s finished, she catches her bottom lip between her teeth. She leans over the sketchbook like she’s peering into a microscope. Her fingers move very carefully, separating the page from the book. When she’s done, she hands me the picture.
“It’s mine?” I ask, surprised and truly touched.
She nods vigorously.
“Will you sign it for me? Like it’s a painting in a museum?”
I’m pretty sure she’s never seen a painting in a museum, but she takes the picture back and adds her name to the lower right corner: Aiofe Máiréad Mason.
“Thank you,” I say. “Thank you very much.”
Fairfax clears his throat from the doorway, and I wonder how long he’s been standing there with his tray. “Here you go,” he says. “Tea and biscuits.”
He’s rounded up formal china and delicate lace napkins. He pours for us like he’s a butler, placing a silver strainer across Aiofe’s cup first, then mine. The tea is a grassy yellow, and it smells like apples rolled in straw.
The delicate cookies are homemade—shortbread and lemon snaps and ginger cakes. I can’t imagine him serving any of them to the brutes downstairs.
As if my thought has summoned them, there’s a shout from the ballroom. The chant of “Drink, drink, drink!” trembles through the floor.
“What do you have there?” Fairfax asks, as he steps back from his pouring duty.
“A picture of Coinín,” I say. “Aiofe drew it for me.”
“You’re a lucky one,” Fairfax says. “It’s not everyone who gets a signed portrait of Coinín.”
Cuh-neen. Swallowing half the first syllable. Lesson delivered without a fuss, without a hint of condescension.
“It’s not everyone who gets a Fairfax, watching out for her,” I say .
He simply nods, then says to Aiofe. “Finish your tea, love. Then brush your teeth. I’ll be up to tuck you in in half an hour.”
She shakes her head and sets her face in a dull frown, a remarkably accurate portrait of Grace Poole.
Fairfax says, “Grace is with Miss Birte tonight. They’re upstairs, away from the noise of the party. You’re stuck with me, lass. Now, drink up.”
Aiofe starts to nibble on one of the ginger cakes.
I take a sip of my steaming tea. It looks like a melted jewel, but it tastes revolting.
I look up to find Fairfax staring at me expectantly. I shake my head, just a little. “Nope,” I say. “Still tastes like dirt.”
He shrugs. “Can’t blame a lad for trying.”
Lad .
He’s not talking about himself. He’s talking about Braiden. He’s asking if I can make room in my heart for a man with good intentions.
The collar is heavy in my pocket. I could get so far… I could build such a new life…
“Maybe tomorrow,” I say. “You might find a tea I’ll drink tomorrow. Or the next day. Or the one after that.”
“Himself will be pleased you’re trying.”
“I’m not doing it for Braiden.”
I’m doing it for me. For me, and for Aiofe, who’s eyeing my ginger cake, having polished off her own.
“Of course not,” Fairfax agrees. Then he says to Aiofe, “Half an hour now. I’ll be back.”
I return the collar to its velvet case before I sneak back to the pool house.