Chapter 22
Rhiannon
It’s time to face the music. We’ve been back on Irish soil all of two hours, long enough to go home, drop our bags off, and have a quick shower. It’s Sunday, which means the weekly Morrigan family dinner is looming.
Robert tried to wrangle his way out of it, but I’m not facing the entire Morrigan crew all by myself. Fuck that for a laugh. Even if they are my crew. I’m not sure if it’ll be better or worse to have him in tow, but I’m hoping that my family will behave themselves better while he’s there.
A girl can dream.
“This is a bad idea.” Robert echoes my thoughts as we drive up the road to my parents’ house. “A really, really bad fucking idea, RhiRhi. Illegal, one might say. They’re going to take me out back, kill me, and feed me to the lurchers.”
That’s the second time he’s used a nickname in private, but I’ll let this one slide too considering what is about to befall him.
I smile at him remembering one of the little snippets of information I gave him on my fake honeymoon. I shift in my seat. I swear, if my parents don’t kill us both off over Mum’s Sunday roast, I might spontaneously combust. Sleeping in bed next to Robert for a week was a special kind of torture.
I didn’t wake up draped over him every single day of the holiday, but I was pressed against his warm body most mornings, like he was some kind of magnet and drew my body to him overnight no matter how far away from him I started.
Then seeing him shirtless either in the hot tub, sunbathing, or in the pool made my blood as hot as my sunburned skin.
Add that to the fact he’s actually a fun guy to be around… well… whatever assumptions I’d made about the asshole investigating the doping scandal in the rugby world were blown well and truly to pieces.
And whatever emotional fence I’d built between the two of us, because he’s the paparazzi enemy, may have wobbled a little.
I’ll be fine now we’re back in our regular lives. Or at least, I fucking hope so. A couple of nights humping the hell out of my new vibrator collection will help me get him out of my system, and it’ll be back to our regularly scheduled frenemy programming.
God, I hope so.
He touches my thigh as I drive, making me squeak and pull my hand away from my collarbone. “Sorry. You seemed a little distracted. I said your parents will feed me to Sherlock and Watson.”
“They will be too full from eating me to be hungry for you.”
He grunts. “Then at least they’ll have a taste for stubborn women. I’m not taking chances. I can’t afford to lose my other leg, Rhiannon.” His voice is light, filled with humor neither of us probably feel.
I pull the car up onto the street outside Mum and Dad’s house. “It’ll be fine.” I’m not sure if I’m convincing him or myself, but from the way my voice lifts at the end like it’s a question, I’m not doing a very good job either way.
“It will be. And if things get derailed, I’ll make inappropriate jokes to diffuse the tension. It’ll get so weird they won’t know if I’m being serious or not.” He wiggles his eyebrows.
I blow out a heavy breath. “We’re never getting out of here alive, are we?”
He picks up my hand from the gear stick, probably hating me for dragging him along to face his death. “We are, in fact, getting out of here alive, all remaining limbs intact, and our stretch goal is to make them not hate the idea of us being together.”
“Ha!” The word bursts from me before I can stop it. “Snowball’s chance in hell, my friend. But I might get a decent food picture for my socials if nothing else. Mum makes a great feed.”
At first, the idea of posting pictures of Robert and me sounded like a chore, but he’s surprisingly good for engagement.
Whether it’s a picture of him holding a beer or trying a new food, a selfie of the two of us, or he’s taken a picture of me by myself, people loved my content over the week we were away.
My follower count is ticking up more than it has since I started posting, and I’d say only a fraction of the comments are cunty. I expected far worse, if I’m honest. I expected to be decimated by the internet trolls who hate even the idea of love.
“What?” Robert’s looking at my face with an intensity I’m growing to expect from him.
I shake my head. “I feel guilty for what’s about to befall you.” A tight knot sits heavily in my stomach. I know Robert dug his own grave with my father and brother, but the last seven days with him have shown me he’s actually not a bad guy.
“I made my bed.” He shrugs. “I’d do it again, you know.
” His admission is quiet. I want to press him for more, ask him what amount of money he could possibly have gotten that would have been worth the violation of our privacy, but the front door to my parents’ house opens, and my stomach tightens even more.
I nod at Robert, paste a smile on my face, and try to reassure him with my eyes.
“Rhiannon, you look fucking unhinged. Just take a breath.”
“Says the man who panic-blinks like he’s trying to Morse code for help. That’s my resting face, thanks. Yours, however, is giving constipated penguin. Keep talking and I’ll show you unhinged.”
The corner of his mouth flickers. “Promises, promises.”
“I asked Mum to get Dad to remove the restraining order. I have no idea if he did or not. I don’t think he’d have you arrested because it would blow back on him.
It adds fuel to the fire and keeps the story alive.
He wouldn’t risk the bad PR of having you hauled off.
His silence is a strategy, not grace.” I surprise myself with how removed I sound from the situation, how little emotion wells in me as I tell my very fake boyfriend that my very real father is emotionally manipulative.
Has he always been this way, and I’ve just never noticed?
When we step into my folks’ house, it’s eerily quiet, and not at all how our normal Sunday dinners start.
Typically, there’s a background din, and everyone’s pretending to be busy, so Mum won’t give us jobs to do.
But other than Mum giving me a thumbs-up through the window—that I’m taking to mean we’re good over the injunction on Robert—today there’s just… silence.
It goes from bad to worse when we make it into the kitchen, the smell of roast chicken wafting through the air. The heat of the oven makes the room warm, but the reception is chilly at best; in fact, it’s verging on Arctic.
Dad and Taranis are standing, butts braced against the worktop next to the sink. My sisters are already sitting at the dinner table, and Mum’s hunched over a cutting board slicing carrots.
I clear my throat, knowing damn well they all know we’ve arrived. “Hey, everyone.”
Dad and Taranis somehow glower harder, Mum gives me a brittle smile, and my sisters throw casual waves in my direction while widening their eyes and tipping their heads toward Dad.
I swallow, but my mouth is so dry that I’m afraid to try to speak again. “Mum, Dad, this is Robert.” I clear my throat, needing another moment. “Robert, this is Michael and Thelma, my parents.”
He eyes my father, and despite knowing there’s no fucking way he’s going to shake his hand, Robert steps forward, right hand outstretched. Balls of fucking steel. Most men would cower in front of my imposing dad, but not Robert, not even after everything.
In his left hand, he’s got a small NearyNógs gift bag with Mum’s favorite gin-flavored, chocolate truffles tucked inside.
Dad stares at Robert’s hand like it’s on fire, and instead of taking it and shaking like a fucking grownup, he grunts. Taranis smirks.
Balls of steel or not, I’m about two seconds from fake-coughing “alpha showdown” just to break the tension.
Changing tactic, Robert gives Mum a warm smile. “Mrs. Morrigan, you have a lovely home. Thanks for letting me come to dinner.” He offers her the bag.
“You brought truffles?” Clíodhna is impressed. “Bold move. Mum loves anyone who brings food. Rhiannon once brought a boy who forgot dessert—he never stood a chance.”
“Clíodhna,” I groan.
“What? I’m helping.”
Robert smiles. “If I’d known you were a fan of plants, I’d have brought you a few cuttings from the house.” Of course he’s clocked the fauna on the way into the house.
“Maybe next time.” He glances at the counter where Mum’s laid out a plate of buns. Before Sunday dinner? She’s clearly trying to impress. “Are those fifteens? Haven’t had them since school.”
Her face brightens. “You like them?”
“Like them?” His smile grows. “If you’re trying to win me over, you’ve already done it. Bribery with marshmallows always works.”
“I’ll remember that,” she says, smiling properly now. “Tea? Or are you one of those coffee people?”
“Depends,” Robert says, lips twitching. “Is this builder’s tea or the fancy herbal shite that tastes like regret?”
She snorts, delighted despite herself. “Strong enough to put hair on your chest.”
“Then aye, I’ll have a mug.” He nods toward the window. “You’ve a good hand with plants too, by the looks of it—are those shamrocks?”
He hooks a thumb toward a pot near the window. “I don’t mean to overstep.” He flicks a cautious glimpse at my father and brother who are still somehow both ignoring Robert and keeping an eye on him. “But that purple shamrock’s a beauty. They’re surprisingly sensitive, though.”
He strides across the kitchen, putting his fingers under the triangular leaves.
I have to hand it to him, he’s playing it so cool I’m not sure my family quite know what to do.
“She’s going a bit limp.” He turns back to Mum.
“I think she might be too warm here. Somewhere cooler and a smidge more shaded will perk her right back up.”
Mum crosses the room to him, lips pursed. “I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it. I thought they liked heat.” She moves to lift it, but Robert gets there first.
He nods. “In moderation. But too much heat stresses it out. And she looks a little on the dry side, too.” He turns toward the door. “Where am I taking it?”