Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Aria
Killian. There had to be a dozen, maybe hundreds of Killians in a city the size of Charleston, right? That didn’t mean—
“Killian O’Rourke.” Smiling as though they were just being introduced for the first time and he hadn’t spent the night before railing her into a mattress so hard she saw stars, the man she’d come to know as Master O held a hand out to her. “It’s lovely to meet you, Aria.”
Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit.
She’d lost her virginity to the head of the Irish Mob.
Thank god she’d been raised in ‘polite’ company so she could mask the complete and utter shock coursing through her body as she reached out to slide her hand into his.
It was just as rough and strong as she remembered from their night together, and she prayed the heat suffusing her entire body didn’t show on her face.
“Nice to meet you too… Mr. O’Rourke.” Daddy. Your name is Daddy.
Fuck.
Heat flared in his eyes, and she wondered if he was also remembering what she’d called him last night. “Please, call me Killian.”
“If you insist.”
Apparently oblivious to the tension between them, Braden beamed and slid an arm around her shoulder.
“Aria just graduated a semester early, and she’s off to law school in the fall.
She’s studying to be a corporate mediator, so she’s been spending what would have been her final semester working alongside one of my good friends, Richard Williams, to learn more about the business side of things.
Seeing how the sausage is made, so to speak. ”
Something flickered across Killian’s face. It was there, then gone, too quickly for her to make out what it was.
Probably a reaction to finding out she was going to law school. Had to be a pretty nasty shock for a fucking mob boss.
“That sounds… intriguing.” Turning to Lottie, he held out a large card-shaped envelope. “My apology for missing the wedding yesterday. I was unavoidably detained.”
“Uh-huh.” Amusement twinkled in Lottie’s pale eyes. “Did you do something crazy like buy us a yacht?”
“Nothing quite so extravagant, but I think you’ll appreciate it.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I promised Cordelia’s boy I’d have breakfast with them.
” He bowed, ever so slightly in Aria’s direction.
“It was a pleasure to meet you, Miss Aria. Braden, Lottie, congratulations again. I have no doubt you’ll make each other disgustingly happy in the coming years. ”
With that, he turned and sauntered off back toward the table he’d first approached where Cordelia was seated with her subs and other members of the club. Jacob’s face lit up at the sight of him, though she couldn’t help but notice Cordelia didn’t give him the same welcome.
She understood Cordelia’s response to his presence far more than Jacob’s and yet, her own body ached for the loss of him. Pain stabbed at her chest at the knowledge she could never give him that same welcoming smile as Jacob, knowing who he was.
And on the heels of pain came fury. Fury that she should have to grieve the loss of a man she’d thought she might be falling in love with. But more, fury that she cared so damn much.
Turning away from the sight of Killian laughing with his friends, apparently completely oblivious to the fact her entire world was shattering around her, Aria stared up at her father. “So when were you going to tell me you’re best friends with a mob boss?”
Braden shrugged, as if Killian’s business dealings didn’t bother him in the least. “It never came up.”
Anger pricked at the base of her skull. “Seriously, Dad? That’s the best you can do? Of all the fucking lame-ass excuses—”
“Aria.” As was his way, Braden didn’t shout her down. He simply pinned her with that look, the one that said she was treading on dangerously thin ice. “It’s far more nuanced than that. Killian is…” He hesitated, clearly weighing his words. “He’s a good man.”
“He’s the head of the Irish Mafia, Dad!”
Braden didn’t so much as blink. “I’m aware.”
“Oh my god. Do Uncle Desmond and Uncle Bastian know?”
“They do.” The corners of her father’s lips twitched. “They’re not thrilled with his membership at our club.”
“I don’t understand how you’re so fucking calm about this.”
“He really is a good person, Ari.” Lottie spoke up softly. “He’s the whole reason your dad and I ended up together.”
“What? I thought…” Okay, now that she was really thinking about it, they’d never actually told her how they’d gotten together. They’d always framed it as ‘one of those things that just happens’ due to their proximity to each other.
Snagging a mimosa from a passing waiter, Aria downed the entire thing in one gulp and stabbed a finger in Lottie’s direction. “Explain. Now.”
“Aria, you’re being incredibly rude.”
Lottie waved away Braden’s scolding tone. “It’s fine, Braden. You’d be pissed, too, if you found out your daughter was besties with someone you didn’t trust.”
Shooting her father a smug smile, Aria returned her attention to Lottie. “Okay, so, how did he have anything to do with the two of you getting together?”
“Ah, well… it’s complicated.” Pink colored Lottie’s cheeks. “My dad and I were in a bad spot financially, and Frankie found this underground auction online. So I sold my virginity to help pay off some of our debts.”
Of all the things she could have possibly expected Lottie to say, that hadn’t been anywhere on her radar. “You sold your what?”
Looking somewhat sheepish, Lottie shrugged. “Yeah. Maybe not the best plan, but it all worked out in the end.”
“What the hell does that have to do with Killian?”
“Ah, well…” Lottie shared a look with her husband who sighed and nodded. “Killian won my auction.”
Okay, scratch that previous thought. That was the absolute last thing Aria could have predicted would come out of Lottie’s mouth. “You slept with Killian O’Rourke?”
So did you, remember?
Unfortunately, she did remember. In horrifyingly vivid detail.
“No, no, no.” Lottie shook her head. “He insisted on meeting somewhere semi-public so we could hammer out the details of our night together, so we met at your dad’s club. Braden saw us together and… well, he kind of lost his mind.”
Smiling dreamily as if it was the most romantic story in the history of love affairs, Lottie leaned against Braden, tilting her head to his shoulder.
“He dragged us up to his office, offered to buy my contract from Killian, and Killian agreed. So if it weren’t for him buying me and wanting to meet at the club first, I don’t think your dad and I ever would have gotten together. ”
“We would have.” Turning his head, Braden pressed a kiss to his new wife’s hair. “It might have taken us a bit longer, but we were always meant to end up here.”
“Awww, you big softy.”
“Okay, hold up.” Closing her eyes, Aria pinched the bridge of her nose to ward off the coming headache. “You’re trying to convince me that Killian is a good guy by telling me the story of how he bought your virginity and then sold you to my father?”
“Well, when you say it like that, it loses some of the romance,” Lottie said with a pout.
“Because there is no fucking romance there, Lottie! Do you really think a guy who goes around buying women off the internet so he can take their virginities is a good man?”
Oh, god. Did he have some secret virgin fetish? Had he known somehow that she was a virgin?
No. Impossible. It wasn’t like women came with a stamp to certify they’d never been fucked before.
Still. The thought that she’d inadvertently fed into some mob boss’s weird obsession…
“It’s not like that,” Lottie insisted. “He told me later he never intended to sleep with me. He’d just been ‘buying’ women because he figured they needed the money and he wanted to help. I promise, Ari, he really is—”
“I swear to god, if you say he’s a good guy one more fucking time, I’m going to scream.”
“All right.” Her father’s voice, low but firm, cut through her internal turmoil.
“Clearly, this was neither the time nor the place for this conversation. Aria, I understand your concerns, but I am asking you to trust that I would never endanger my club or the people in it by inviting someone with truly questionable morals into my space.”
She knew that tone. It was the one he employed when he was done talking about something, regardless of whether she was done talking about it.
“Fine. I’m going to go mingle.”
Stomach churning with a mixture of hurt and rage, she turned on her heel and strode away, doing her best to ignore the prickles of guilt at Lottie’s tearful, “I’m sorry, Braden.”
What the hell was she apologizing for? Telling the truth?
Fuck. What if her dad was pissed at Lottie for telling the truth? Would he punish her? The thought of Lottie enduring any of those painful looking implements she’d found in his office last night because of something she’d done made her want to puke.
But before she could turn back around and demand that Braden leave Lottie alone, a hand clamped down around her upper arm.
“We need to talk.”
It took every bit of self-control she possessed to stop herself from turning around and slapping him right across his stupidly chiseled face as he guided her out of the ballroom to a secluded little alcove well away from prying eyes.
The second they were out of view, he spun her toward a wall, his arms like a cage on either side, trapping her.
Killian O’Rourke, one of the most dangerous men in the city, had her up against a wall, caged and helpless.
And she hated herself, more than a little, for finding that so fucking hot.
“You lied to me.” Fury burned in his eyes, turning the green to blazing emeralds.
Insult jabbed at her, stoking the fires of her own anger. “I did not.”
“Last night. You wouldn’t tell me your name, because you knew I wouldn’t touch you if I knew who you were.”
There was some truth to that, not that she was about to admit it to him. Instead she jerked her chin up, refusing to be cowed. “You didn’t give me your name, either.”
“That’s different. I wasn’t hiding.”
“Weren’t you? Because I never would have locked myself in a room with you if I’d known you were a fucking mob boss.”
Amusement flickered in his eyes, and it did nothing to cool the flames of her fury. “I wouldn’t have expected Braden’s daughter to be so… pious. Desmond, yes, but I thought Braden would have raised you better than that.”
“I suppose it’s a good thing my mother raised me, then.” Even as she said the words, guilt twisted in her stomach. Her father had been as present as humanly possible in her life, and here she was, painting him as some deadbeat absentee dad.
“Maybe it is a good thing,” he murmured, pulling one of his hands away from the wall to trace a finger down her cheek. “If you didn’t hate me, I’m not sure I could keep my hands off you. And I very, very much need to keep my hands off you.”
“Why?”
Why the fuck do you care?
“Because. There aren’t many people in this world I can call a true friend, and Braden Elliott is one of them. And defiling his daughter on a regular basis would put something of a strain on our relationship.”
Oh, it grated, being spoken of like a thing her father owned. “He and Lottie’s dad seemed to have moved past it.”
Again with that little twinkle in his eye, the one that made her want to plow her fist straight into his stomach.
“For someone who so clearly hates me, you seem very invested in changing my mind. Tell me, princess, do you want me to touch you again? Do you want to come screaming again with your pretty cunt stuffed full of Daddy’s cock? ”
Her pussy, traitorous bitch that she was, clenched emptily at his filthy description of what they’d done. She hated him for taking what should have been one of the best nights of her life and turning into something so crude.
But she hated herself more because it didn’t change how much she wanted him to act out every single word right there in the middle of the hallway. “You’re an asshole.”
“I am. And a criminal. So, as I said, it’s best if we simply go our separate ways and never, ever tell Braden what happened last night.”
“Agreed.” And if her chest ached at the thought of never seeing him again, it was just because she was kicking herself for not taking Cordelia’s rules seriously last night. For not properly vetting him before she let him do such filthy, depraved things to her in her father’s club.
See? If you’d followed the rules, this never would have happened.
“Good.” He pulled his hand away slowly, almost as if he truly couldn’t resist touching her. “I’ll take care of the room and the… items we used so your father never has to know.”
“Thank you. Now, if that’s everything, I would like you to step aside, please.”
Something flickered across his face, a remnant of the darkness she’d seen in him the night before, and she had to fight the urge to shrink back from it.
“Just so we’re clear, I’m not in the habit of allowing others to order me around, princess. My friend’s daughter or not, I suggest you curb the urge in the future. Unless you’d like to see exactly what kind of man I am, firsthand.”
With that, he pushed off the wall and turned, striding away with his hands in his pockets as if he hadn’t just threatened to… well, she wasn’t sure what he’d been threatening, exactly, but it had definitely been a threat.
She should follow him back into the ballroom.
Put on a smile and pretend her entire world hadn’t just been rocked in a matter of minutes.
Lottie and Braden would expect her to be there, standing up with them, not giving the world a single clue that she’d just learned her father was best friends with a mob boss.
But she couldn’t do it. No amount of training or the desire to do right by her father could keep her from losing her absolute shit on him in the middle of his wedding brunch.
Better for everyone if she just went upstairs, packed her bags, and went home. She’d have to face Lottie and her father eventually, but for now, she just needed… space.
So she dragged in a deep breath, smoothed out the front of her dress, and headed for the elevator bank.
And tried to pretend her heart wasn’t breaking with every fucking step.