Chapter 4 – One Week Later
CHAPTER 4
MAEVE
ONE WEEK LATER
H orrified, I stared into the full-length mirror. “They’ve put me in a shit-colored meringue, Em,” I cried. “I’ve got to go downstairs and eat a family dinner with the man I’m about to marry. Incidentally, the same man who looks like Henry Cavill’s better-looking brother, and I’m wearing a shit-colored meringue.”
“Take it off,” my best friend Emily suggested through my cell’s speakerphone. “Wear that green skirt and shirt you wore when you gave that lecture on the assigned gender roles of women in the eighteenth century. It was pretty.”
I collapsed on the bottom of my bed. “It’s not. Nothing I own is pretty.”
“I know,” Emily agreed gently. “But you’ll be out of there soon. You’re gonna move to a beautiful rural town in Wyoming, ride horses with your titian red hair blowing behind you, and your alabaster skin will glow with all the pure country air.”
I couldn’t help but giggle. “I think we both know my hair doesn’t move that way, Em.”
“Your hair’s gorgeous,” she insisted. “You just need to learn how to deal with it.”
“I should’ve gone to that grooming class my aunt arranged,” I murmured regretfully.
Em let out a loud snort. “The bitch arranged it on the day you had that big test. You were right not to go.”
“I know,” I whispered. “But now I’m about to see Callum ‘love god’ O’Shea wearing a shit-colored meringue, with hair that looks like I stuck my finger in an outlet. He’s gonna take one look at me and run for the hills.” My heart clenched painfully. “I want him to like me the same way I like him, Em, but he’ll just see what my aunt wants him to see. He’ll think I’m a mess, and then I’ll be even more humiliated than usual.”
“Maeve,” she murmured. “Calm down. If you get stressed, you’ll get hives, and you don’t want your husband-to-be to have to look at big red welts on your neck and chest.”
“Oh my God,” I cried, my hand pressing my hammering heart. “I’m gonna get hives. Callum’s gonna jilt me because of hives.”
“Maeve!” Em snapped. “Chill.”
“Do something, Em,” I wailed. “I’m freaking out.”
“Breathe with me,” my friend ordered. “Come on, lie on your back and breathe through your nose and out your mouth.”
I dropped onto my bed and sucked air in and out until, eventually, my heart rate slowed. “I can’t believe this is happening, Em. I’m caught between a rock and a hard place. Aunt Orla will be annoyed if I don’t wear this shit meringue, but it’s humiliating.”
There was a brief silence before Emily said, “Right. Let’s break this down. Patrick came to you a few weeks ago and said Callum had asked if he could court you.”
“Right,” I concurred.
“Then yesterday, Patrick came back to you and said the courtship’s off. Callum needs a wife, and you’re it.”
I jerked a nod, even though she couldn’t see me. “Exactly.”
“So, think about it,” Em murmured. “Callum asked for you. Callum wants you. You already said he saw you at your aunt’s birthday party, when you had to wear the snot-green frothy creation that cut off the circulation to your tits. He’s seen the goods, and he wants the goods, shitty dresses and all.”
I paused.
Emily had a point; Callum had already seen me at my worst. My interests didn’t extend to the latest fashion and makeup trends. I was an archeologist; I went on digs and sat in dark rooms, painstakingly dusting tiny mud particles from old pieces of crockery. Wearing designer clothes would not only be pointless but also uncomfortable. Welly boots, combat pants, and raincoats were more my speed.
My lack of interest in fashion gave my aunt Orla the excuse to buy my clothes, and she ensured I looked like shit. Her two daughters had the best, while I had the ugliest, most ridiculous things she could find.
It hadn’t bothered me before—I wasn’t a beautiful woman anyway, so what I wore didn’t matter to me. You could put lipstick on a pig, but it would still be a pig, so what was the point in trying? Except now, Callum O’Shea—the man that every girl in my circle would’ve scratched each other’s eyes out for—was on the scene, looking for a wife.
I would’ve loved to feel pretty and confident for him instead of feeling like the booby prize, especially since he embodied the word gorgeous.
He was over six feet tall, which appealed to me on every level. All my tentative boyfriends had been shorter, and I found with Callum that I loved tipping my head back to gaze into his dancing blue eyes. The man had something about him, an inner strength and confidence, which was evidenced by the surety in every movement he made.
I fell a little bit in love with him when I was sixteen, and he was twenty-five. Lorcan, his dad, brought him and his brothers over to the house one summer. The men had a game of baseball in the garden, and immediately, I was mesmerized.
Some of the guys took their T-shirts off—Callum included—and I couldn’t tear my eyes away from him. Even at that age, he was beautiful. His biceps bulged every time he swung the bat, and his tanned body rippled. He had muscles I never knew existed. My thighs clenched when I noticed the jut of his hipbones, pointing down toward a pronounced V, which disappeared under the low waistband of his shorts. His chest had a smattering of fine hair spreading across his pectorals that ran down his stomach in a thin line, which, again, disappeared into the waistband of his shorts.
Every girl there that day, as well as me, stared at Callum or one of his two brothers. I got talking to Donovan, who had a permanent smirk plastered across his face and the gift of the gab. I remembered thinking how he must’ve kissed the Blarney Stone because he had me giggling like the schoolgirl I was—and I wasn’t usually the giggling type. Tadhg was quieter and more watchful, with a cute, handsome baby face, but he still had an easy charm about him, which the younger girls loved.
All three boys were a hit, but it was Callum’s quiet strength that made a lasting impression on me.
The only problem was he was so far out of my league that I couldn’t even speak to him. The words didn’t form in my mouth properly, and my throat turned so dry that my voice became a squeak. He made me so nervous that I stayed away and just stared at him from a distance for the next fifteen years or so.
After that, Lorcan stopped bringing the boys around so much, but I never forgot Callum or the way he made me feel that day, as if I’d finally woken up from a long dream.
I’d had boyfriends since, mainly guys from college. Still, every relationship fizzled out before it got too serious because I found it difficult to connect. I lost both my parents young, and perhaps the trauma of it broke something inside me because the prospect of getting close to anybody made me nervous, though still not as anxious as getting close to Callum.
“He probably only asked for me because Erin and Shannon have already been promised,” I surmised. “I’m not glamorous or sexy.”
“You’re gorgeous in your own way,” she insisted. “And super smart.”
I snorted. “I love who I am, Em, but I know I’m not glamorous. I don’t know what to do with my hair, and fashion may as well be quantum physics for all I know about it. I’m not social unless it’s with you or people who love what I love. I’m crappy in social situations, and I get tongue-tied around beautiful Irish men, especially one in particular called Callum O’Shea, but I try and be pretty on the inside.”
“Do you think he sees it?” she asked. “And that’s why he’s asked for you?”
I bit my lip thoughtfully, thinking back to my aunt’s birthday party when Callum didn’t even throw me a look, let alone a smile. He spoke to Shannon, though, a lot. “He doesn’t see me. He’s blinded by what’s on the surface.”
“Then he’s not good enough for you,” she declared.
“Whether he is or not, I’m going to marry him.”
“No, you don’t—” Emily began to protest, but I cut her off.
“I owe him, Em.”
“You don’t even know him,” she sputtered.
“I mean, I owe Patrick,” I murmured. “He took me in, made sure I got an education. He kept me fed and clothed, and he made sure I stayed out of the system.”
“It doesn’t make you indentured to him,” Em pointed out. “Your dad saved his life, and you lost him because of it. Patrick owes you, Em. You’ve been asked to supervise that dig next year in England. The instant you put your name to it, you’ll have sponsors lining up. Go and make it a success, and then you can write that book you’re always talking about. You don’t need to get married to break away from that toxic house. You’ve got the world at your feet.”
“But I want a family,” I whispered. “I want babies.”
Em went silent.
“Marrying Callum O’Shea isn’t a hardship,” I pointed out. “He’s beautiful and personable. The dig sounds incredible, but it won’t give me what I really want.”
“But you’ll move away forever if you marry him,” she mumbled.
My heart jerked painfully at the thought of leaving Emily.
I met her on my first day at Yale, when we bonded over an eighteenth-century tea plate. Em was everything I wasn’t, and although, technically, she was a nerdy girl too, she was hot with it. If I ever had a spirit animal, it was Emily; we were the same person in different bodies. If she had crazy red, frizzy hair, I would’ve sworn we were separated at birth.
“You could visit,” I suggested. “If you liked it, you could move. You could do your research from anywhere.”
“Maybe,” she replied. “Or you could tell your guardian to fuck off, and we could both go to England and leave those bitch sisters and a poor excuse for an adoptive mother behind.”
My mouth curved into a smile just as a knock sounded from my door and the snippy, bored voice of my Aunt Orla called, “Maeve. Callum’s downstairs. We’re waiting.”
Butterflies flapped inside my belly. “I’ve gotta go.”
“Call me later,” Em ordered. “I want to know everything.”
I said my goodbyes and disconnected the call, grimacing as Aunt Orla screeched my name again from the hall.
“Coming,” I called out, sitting up and shuffling toward the edge of my bed.
The door suddenly opened to reveal Orla standing with her arms folded across her chest, tapping her foot impatiently and wearing a pinched expression. “Jesus, Maeve. What’s taking so long? It’s not like you bother with makeup.” Her stare swept down my outfit, and her lips thinned, though for the life of me, I couldn’t work out why she was so irritated. She was the one who insisted on me wearing it.
Getting to my feet, I brought a hand up to smooth my hair down.
Aunt Orla always tried to make me feel like I wasn’t good enough. I knew I wasn’t conventionally pretty, but I was smart and a decent person.
“He’s been here ten minutes,” she bit out. “Couldn’t you try to make a good impression just this once? Your guardian’s made a decent match for you. Can’t you show some gratitude?”
I opened my mouth to protest, but the words got stuck in my throat.
It wasn’t worth it. Orla never listened. The more I argued with her, the worse she was to me. Marrying Callum wasn’t something I asked for, but I was determined to make the most of the situation. Anything that got me away from her and her nasty daughters couldn’t be viewed as bad. If anything, it was a godsend, one I was going to embrace.
I plastered a smile on my face. “Sorry, Aunt Orla. I didn’t know Callum was here.”
She waved her hand toward the door and snapped, “Go then.”
Lowering my gaze, I hurried past my aunt and into the hallway, relieved to get away from her and her nasty mouth.
Fighting back never worked for me. All it caused was more problems. Orla had no issue going to Patrick and making me look bad, though he always understood my side. He wasn’t stupid; he knew what Orla and the girls were like. Still, he wasn’t always around to have my back, and honestly, I didn’t want him to. I was an adult, and I could look after myself, though admittedly, the opportunity to leave New York felt like I’d been thrown a lifeline.
My foot hit the top stair, and I immediately heard Callum’s rumble. It was low and rich, and a shiver ran down my spine at its deep timbre. His tone always held a hint of humor, and I loved how his accent was pure American until he spoke a certain word, and it transformed into an Irish lilt.
Slowly, I descended the stairs, my heart hammering inside my chest. The voices grew louder, and Patrick walked from the living room into the wide, opulent hallway, followed by my new fiancé and Shannon, who giggled at something Callum said while sliding her fingers across his arm.
My heart sank at the obvious familiarity between them, and a coldness slid through me as I watched her lean up and give him a lingering kiss on his cheek.
Patrick glanced up the stairs. “Maeve, there you are. Look who’s come to dinner.”
My shocked stare slid back to Callum, who had the good grace to shake Shannon’s hand off him. She glared up the stairs at me like it was my fault my fiancé pushed her away.
I glared back.
Bitch.
“Nice dress,” Shannon declared cattily. “That color’s perfect on you.”
“Funny. I thought it was more your color.” I walked down the stairs smiling sweetly. “It matches your teeth.”
Callum let out a snort.
“Girls,” Patrick murmured in warning, even though his lips twitched at my dig.
Shannon moved to the bottom step, and her lips flattened into a tight line. Her narrowed blue eyes followed me, and she watched me walk toward her.
I shot my adoptive sister a smug smile and took the last step. Then my heart lurched as my foot caught on something, and I let out a screech, going down hard on my knees while my glasses flew off and clattered across the floor.
A shockwave of pain went through my body as I lay face down on the cold tiles. I let out a low moan as a dull ache ripped through my skull. I must have hit my head somewhere because I was seeing stars.
I lay there, sick with embarrassment, trying to stop myself from bursting into tears while all hell broke loose around me.
“What the fuck did you trip her for?” Patrick roared.
I turned my head and winced when I saw Shannon laughing before she retorted, “Oh my God, it was just a joke.”
“You could’ve hurt her!” Patrick bellowed back. “Get your mean, spoiled ass upstairs. You’re not eating with us.”
“Patrick—” my aunt protested, but Patrick cut her off.
“Don’t justify that shit to me, Orla,” he snapped. “It’s your fucking fault they’re like this. Every time I try and inject some respect into them, you undermine me. I warned you what would happen, but you never fucking listen to me.”
I pulled up onto my knees, reaching out for something to grab to help me get to my feet, when a pair of thick, muscular, jean-clad thighs appeared before me.
“Here,” a deep voice rumbled amongst all the screaming and shouting.
I lifted my gaze to see Callum holding his hand out. Tentatively, I grabbed his fingers, allowing him to pull me to my feet, my face burning with shame.
“You okay?” he asked softly.
I gazed up into blurry blue eyes, and my belly fluttered. “Yes,” I squeaked.
Our stares locked—even though I was blind as a bat—and everything around us seemed to stand still.
His eyes were a blur but still as bright as stars. My heart swelled while I stared up at him, dazed, with my lips parted slightly.
“You dropped your glasses,” he rumbled, tearing his eyes from mine and moving away.
“They flew off when I landed,” I explained breathily.
He stooped down to pick them up and held them out toward me. “Here,” he murmured, the richness in his deep voice hitting me deep.
Whispering, “Thanks,” I slipped my glasses back on, but when I looked back up at Callum, the warmth faded from his expression, along with his smile.
An icy chill skated over my skin.
He took a step back, his expression turning from soft to blank. I could almost see the walls going up and his eyes shuttering his feelings away from me.
I wracked my brain, desperately trying to think about what I could’ve done to make him close down on me. Maybe he thought I was a klutz because I tripped, even though it had already been established that bitch-face Shannon tripped me.
Still, Callum seemed pissed about something. After his kindness, it was out-and-out confusing. I’d had a few boyfriends over the years, but they were as socially awkward as I was. Trying to work out Callum’s moods was beyond my capabilities, and anyway, he was a grown-ass man; he could account for his own behavior.
The argument between Shannon and Patrick came to an abrupt end when she whirled around and stomped up the stairs to her room.
I watched her go with a feeling of relief. There’d be one less person around the table who’d speak down to me. Erin wasn’t quite as rude as Shannon, and Aunt Orla usually just tossed her carefully highlighted blonde hair while looking bored.
“Shall we go in to eat?” Patrick asked us, his eyes still on Shannon as she flounced up the wide staircase.
Aunt Orla walked to his side and took his arm, murmuring, “Of course, darling.”
I went to move toward Callum’s side, but was beaten to it by Erin, who sidled up to him.
“How’s the bar business going, Callum?” she asked, fluttering her eyelashes.
His lips hitched into a small smile. “It’s good, thanks, sweetheart. If you’re ever in Wyoming, you should come in for a drink. I’ll give you a tour of the place.” He held the crook of his arm out for her and shot her a suggestive smirk, then turned his back on me and walked her into the dining room.
Mouth agape, I watched my so-called fiancé walk my adoptive sister into dinner while not sparing me a backward glance. A sharp pain shot through my heart, and I had to close my eyes to stop myself from seeing how perfect they looked together.
As Patrick ushered us all into the large dining room with its table, which comfortably sat twenty-four people, a small doubt flickered inside me as I took my seat opposite my fiancé, who sat next to Paddy at the head of the table with Erin to the left of him.
I didn’t know Callum well at all, but I did know his type. He was no doubt used to glamorous, confident women who laughed at his jokes and simpered over him every time he spoke. Callum O’Shea was the proverbial captain of the football team, the most popular guy in town, and the dude who women fell over themselves to date and men fell over themselves to be friends with.
I was the frizzy-haired nerd who was so socially inept that I made people uncomfortable with my useless knowledge that they didn’t understand.
We were oil and water, chalk and cheese, in other words, completely unsuited. Something felt off about this wedding. Why did Callum want to marry me when he could get any woman he wanted?
“So,” Paddy began. “How’s the bar business going?” A small smirk crossed his face.
My gaze fell on Callum, whose eyes were in the process of turning to slits.
A stab of unease gripped me, because nobody looked at Patrick Doyle that way.
Nobody dared.
Patrick, however, seemed to take it all in his stride. “I’ve heard your bar’s really profitable, a real small-town family business that’s appreciated by the townsfolk. The place to be in southern Wyoming by all accounts. In fact, it’s exactly the place Orla and I would look at retiring to.”
Orla’s panicked gaze darted to her husband. “Retire? Wyoming?”
“Yeah, mo ghrá . Though, if you prefer New York, you could stay here and shop, and I’ll visit you on occasion.”
My lips twitched because I knew Paddy meant it. He lived for the day he could escape Orla.
“You’d be bored in Wyoming,” Callum replied in a hard tone. “And you’ve got your own family here, and I’ve got mine .”
Patrick’s eyes darted to me, then back to Callum before he sat back in his chair. “Well, I’m glad to hear that. Does that mean we’re going to be announcing an engagement soon?”
That time, Callum’s eyes darted to me and back again, and he shook his head slightly, his lips curling as if something about Patrick disgusted him down to his very core. “Yeah,” he muttered, his tone resigned. “Looks like it.”
Patrick clapped his hands gleefully, a broad smile stretching across his face. “Good fuckin’ choice, Cal. Your athair would be over the moon. Trust me, he’s looking down on us now with a smile. He loved our Maeve. Thought you and her would be perfect for each other.” He stood, walked to Callum, and clapped him on the shoulder. “The wedding will be one week from today. Give Orla a list of guests. We’ll have the ceremony at St. Peter’s and the reception here at the house.” He waved his arm out. “What’s the point of living in a damned mansion if we can’t throw a good hooley ?”
My chest tightened.
A week? Married in a week?
Oh my God.
“Fucking A,” a deep voice agreed. “Though Ma might have kittens having to plan a wedding in a week.”
My neck twisted to see my adoptive brother, Liam, standing at the doorway. I shot him a silent plea for help.
Liam sent me a furtive wink and sauntered into the dining room, giving Aunt Orla a kiss on her hair as he walked past her. His hand rested on my shoulder, and he squeezed it reassuringly. “There’s no way you’re going to arrange a full-on Catholic wedding in one week. You’ll have to limit it to immediate friends and family.” He took the seat next to me and reached for one of the wine bottles on the table, pouring himself a healthy glass. “Plus, think of Maeve. It’ll be a difficult day for her.” The smile he directed toward me contained a hint of sadness.
Liam was right; it would be a bittersweet day for me without my mom helping me get ready and my dad not walking me down the aisle. Plus, the thought of strangers looking at me like I was the star of a freak show struck the fear of God inside me.
Shannon had already planned her cathedral wedding, which would cost Paddy the GDP of a small country. Erin, no doubt, had done the same, but I wasn’t like them. The thought of being the center of everyone’s attention made me want to call the entire shitshow off.
“I don’t want a big wedding. Just family will be fine,” I announced, glancing at Callum. “If that’s okay with you?”
“But don’t you want to be a princess for the day?” Patrick asked. “I promised your da I’d treat you like my own daughter, Maeve. So that’s what I’m going to do.”
Ignoring the pang in my heart, I murmured, “The whole big wedding thing, it’s not me, Patrick. Da and Mammy would’ve respected that. They would’ve given me the day I wanted. Please don’t make a fuss. I want the wedding to be relaxed, with the people I love the most around me.”
Paddy studied me for a moment, before sitting back in his chair and acquiescing, “Okay. If you want a small wedding, we can do that, but I insist on going to a church.”
“City Hall would suit me,” Callum muttered.
My heart sank.
Why wouldn’t Callum want to marry in a church? We were Catholic; he must have known if we didn’t wed in the eyes of God, the wedding wouldn’t stand in our community.
“No!” Paddy insisted. “It’s church or the wedding’s off.”
My eyes caught Callum’s, and I felt an urge to reassure him. “Maybe a small one. I think St. Mary’s would suit instead of St. Peter’s. It’s smaller, prettier, and more intimate.”
He looked at me blankly before jerking his head in a nod, causing a feeling of unease to shift through me.
Callum seemed angered by it all. I understood it was a family-arranged wedding of sorts, but he was the one who’d approached Patrick, so why did I get the feeling he abhorred the idea?
“We’ll keep it small,” Patrick agreed. “Just family and close friends.”
I beamed at him, all tension leaving my shoulders as I flopped back in my chair. “Thank you.”
Callum remained silent.
“We’ll do it next Friday,” Paddy went on.
Callum closed his eyes and nodded tersely again.
I blinked at him slowly, noting his defeated expression.
The doors burst open, and three staff members Paddy had hired for the dinner party filed inside, carrying trays.
Patrick grinned widely. “About time. My stomach feels like my throat’s been cut.”
Orla rolled her eyes.
Erin giggled.
Callum’s face settled into a thunderous expression.
Liam’s hand covered mine, squeezing while he murmured, “It’ll be okay, Mae. You’ll see.”
I glanced at him, my heart in shreds because right then, it didn’t feel like it.
In fact, it felt as if I was standing on the ledge of a skyscraper, and the only way down was to jump into the unknown, not knowing if something would break my fall or if I was about to splatter to my death.