31. Maeve #3
Dark hair falls across his forehead, disordered from the wind and the run through the woods.
The sharp lines of his face are made harsher by the tension locked into his jaw, and a faint shadow of stubble darkens his cheeks.
His black shirt is streaked with dirt, one shoulder scattered with pine needles as though half the forest tried to hold on to him and failed.
Something about him pulls at me. A flicker of familiarity that refuses to become anything solid. I have seen those eyes before.
The thought slips through the chaos too quickly for me to catch it.
But my mind cannot connect that quiet, forgettable moment to the man standing over my unconscious husband. Not now. Not while my throat still aches. Not while Ronan lies motionless between us.
He glances at my throat, and something vicious flashes across his expression before he controls it. When his eyes return to mine, his voice is quiet enough that the words barely travel between us.
“French vanilla.”
The garage tilts. I grip the SUV behind me.
He swallows, his hands still raised. “The only acceptable coffee creamer.”
The first thing he ever gave me. Not diamonds chosen by an assistant or flowers selected to match the decor. A cup of coffee made exactly the way I liked it. A tiny kindness from someone who wasn’t supposed to know I needed one.
My vision blurs, his face dissolving behind the tears that rise without warning.
I search his eyes again, no longer trying to place where I have seen them but matching them to every moment I felt someone sitting with me inside that bathroom.
Every time his dry humor pulled a laugh from me when I thought Ronan had taken them all.
Every time he reminded me that I wasn’t invisible.
“Taibhse?” The name breaks as it leaves me.
Something in his shoulders eases. Not completely. His attention still flicks toward the garage entrance, listening for movement I can’t hear.
But when he looks back, the smallest trace of a smile touches his mouth. “In person.”
A breath catches in my throat, somewhere between a laugh and a sob. This is him. Not a ghost. A man.
A real man who somehow crossed the estate and appeared inside my garage without a mask, without a plan, with dirt on his clothes and desperation still written into every hard breath.
He came here. For me. My gaze drops to Ronan. His chest rises and falls.
Relief and guilt collide so violently inside me that I feel sick.
“You killed him.” The words are barely a whisper.
“No.” Taibhse lowers his hands slowly, still careful not to move closer. “He’s unconscious. He’ll wake up.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.” There is no hesitation. No false reassurance offered because he thinks it will calm me. Just certainty.
My eyes remain on Ronan’s face. He looks strangely peaceful, nothing like the man who was standing over me seconds ago. The sight tugs at every habit I have built during our marriage.
I should kneel beside him. Check him. Apologize when he wakes. Explain that I didn’t ask for this. The thoughts come automatically, but they no longer feel like mine. They feel like rules someone else wrote and buried inside me until I mistook them for instinct.
Taibhse turns his head toward the drive.
His eyes hold mine. “But we have minutes at best. Probably less.”
A faint burst of static reaches us from somewhere outside. A radio. Taibhse’s head turns toward the sound. The change in him is immediate. His posture shifts, every line of his body sharpening as he calculates something I cannot see.
When he looks back, he extends his hand.
He doesn’t grab me. Doesn’t close the remaining distance or issue an order he expects me to obey. He simply holds it out between us. Palm up. Waiting.
“Maeve.”
My gaze falls to his hand.
There are scratches across his knuckles and dirt embedded along the edge of his palm. Tiny pieces of the woods still cling to his sleeve. He ran here. The realization lands differently now that I can see the evidence of it.
My eyes lift to his.
“I know none of this makes sense,” he says. “And I know I haven’t earned the right to ask.” His hand remains steady. “But I need your trust.”
Behind him, Ronan lies unconscious on the garage floor. Beyond him is the house where I spent months disappearing one compromise at a time. In front of me is a man I have never met before tonight. A man who knows how I take my coffee.
For one final second, I look at Ronan. At the man I married. At the life I tried so hard to make into something it was never going to become.
Leaving feels impossible. Staying feels worse.
I place my hand in Taibhse’s. His fingers close around mine with careful strength.
Warm. Solid. Real.
Relief moves across his face so quickly I almost miss it. Then another burst of static crackles outside, closer this time, followed by the low murmur of a man’s voice.
Taibhse turns toward the opening. His grip tightens. Not enough to hurt. Only enough to remind me I am no longer standing alone.
When his eyes meet mine again, the faint softness is gone. In its place is cold focus.
One word leaves his mouth.
“Run.”