Chapter 34
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
EMMA
There are so many reasons why Seamus O’Malley-slash-James and I should not be a couple.
He is, after all, my brother’s brother-in-law. Everyone knows it’s a bad idea to date an in-law.
He is also a man with a secret that could crush us and destroy my legal career.
And it must be said that he is deeply obnoxious about thirty to forty percent of the time. To be fair, the same is true of me.
A divorce attorney would probably give us less than a ten percent chance at making it work. But I’ve decided to leave that kind of negativity in the past. Maybe it’s stupid to take a chance with him, knowing everything I do. But most of the people in Jeffrey Nichols’s life trusted him. He had the reputation of being a just, good man.
As a lawyer, my job has been to make cases seem simple and straightforward, as if there is only one view of a situation that is correct and viable, but life is never so straightforward. It’s dirty and dangerous and exciting , and there are more important things than logic. Like Seamus’s ability to make me laugh, no matter what’s happening.
Or his sweet streak. I see it everywhere now—from his limitless patience with Chuck to how he always goes out of his way to make people laugh.
Of course, he is still very, very naughty.
Then there’s his irrepressible charm. Animals grovel for this man. Carrot and Shadow are both obsessed with him, and he’s even Pied Piper-ed them into liking each other. Women are drawn to his charm, too, of course, but I don’t mind. I can’t blame them for wanting him, and his attention never strays from me.
Even now, he’s watching me as we sit at the parlor table in Smith House with Nicole and Damien, Rosie and Anthony, Claire and Declan, their friends Lainey and Jake, and my mother and Chuck. I lift my eyebrows and change the direction my legs are crossed, making sure to give him a good look at the flask attached to my thigh. His grin widens, and I flash him five fingers to indicate we’ll be leaving in five minutes.
I have plans for this man of mine.
It’s been a month and half since Jeffrey Nichols broke into my mother’s house. We’re all here in the Smith House parlor to drink champagne, eat treats made by Claire’s bakery, and celebrate the success of Operation Love Destroyers. Chuck was the one who planned this party, so there are plenty of earnest touches like heart-shaped balloons and cookies. Seamus and I already broke one together, smiling at each other over it.
It feels good to celebrate.
Jeffrey was arrested the night of the home invasion. My mother did, in fact, get him on camera. While the security system was usually only turned on at night, she’d recently switched on the motion-activated function. She claimed it was because she suspected the children next door of gallivanting on her lawn and wanted proof, but I’m guessing she wanted to know if Seamus and I were having more late night visits. Her interfering served us well, because we caught Jeffrey on camera, climbing the wall and using the key he’d illegally had made to enter our house.
But that’s just the start.
Ellie had plenty of collectibles on that thumb drive, enough to thoroughly ruin his career and credibility. Evidence of legal malpractice. Evidence of embezzling. Evidence of bribery. We’d released the contents to the press and the police.
Speaking of Ellie…
She took to her social media accounts to tell everyone the true story of Jeffrey Nichols. Including how he’d knowingly ruined me to keep evidence of his embezzling from becoming public. And how he’d roped her into his “throne of lies.”
She has twice as many followers as she did a month ago, and a new turtle sidekick, who hopefully doesn't have to be drugged to look calm for the camera, although Seamus and I did make an anonymous tip to a local animals rights group just in case.
Jeffrey’s lawyers must have advised him to drop his complaint against me, because he did.
I can go back to my profession.
I could also have gone back to my life in Charlotte. Admittedly, Jeffrey’s practice is burnt toast, but I own an apartment there. I have connections. And suddenly all of the people who’d turned their back so on me were in my inbox, wanting to get coffee or a drink to hear the whole story.
“Animals,” my mother had said when I’d told her. “Wanting their taste of carrion.”
For a woman who’d always loved gossip, it was an interesting sentiment, but my mother was fiercely loyal in her own way. My former friends were not.
She’d also lifted her chin and said, “You know, your work on the house is not complete. There’s still that enormous hole in the wall. Your young man seems like he’s doing well. I’m thinking of knocking his rating down to a four if it’s not completed within the next week.”
Seamus and I knocked it down together. It felt fantastic to break the wall down with him, putting to rest that final part of my past. He and Anthony are going to do the rest of the renovations together. They even have a Google Doc with all of their plans, started by Anthony of course.
Staying in Marshall was an easy decision. I’d meant what I’d said to Seamus the night of the break-in. I want to leave the past behind, even to destroy it. But that doesn’t mean I can’t carry pieces of it into the future with me.
I am the girl who grew up in Smith House. The debutante who’d burned another deb’s dress in the bathroom after she spread false rumors. The little child who was never acknowledged by her father. The woman who was duped by a man who’d claimed to love her. Those different versions of myself are all a part of me, and I’ve reached a place of peace with that.
But I feel more motivated than ever to protect women who need it. I’ve decided to go into legal aid work and, shockingly, Nicole set me up with a local friend—a woman named Mary who is twice as Type-A as I am and has been interested in setting up a legal aid practice for a while.
Now, we’re going to do it together.
And then there’s Seamus. He recently started a new job at a garage that specializes in restorations. He told me, my mother, and Chuck the story of meeting Hank, and the look on Chuck’s face was so priceless, I took a photo of it on the sly.
“Fate had a plan for you, son,” he said with a broad smile, and even though Seamus always insists he doesn’t believe in “things like that,” he grinned back and said, “You know, I think you might be right this time.”
Truthfully, I think he does believe in things like that, and getting that job and then arriving at exactly the right time to help me has finally convinced him that the universe isn’t conspiring against him because of what he did.
My mother claps her hands, engaging our attention.
“We’re all here today to celebrate the downfall of one of the worst miscreants to ever walk this earth. He is singlehandedly responsible for the destruction of my best bottles of alcohol.” She smiles at me, because this is my mother’s sense of humor at work. “And, of course, he mistakenly thought he could take a Rosings Smith woman down. That is usually the last mistake a man makes.”
I catch the fond glance Seamus and Chuck exchange and feel that now-familiar hot butter feeling. It doesn’t scare me the way it used to. There’s nothing to stop a woman from being strong and loving. My own mother is, even if she sometimes has questionable ways of showing it.
She lifts her glass. “To Jeffrey’s downfall. May he spend the rest of his life eating tasteless prison food and reading forty-year-old books while we feast on Claire’s delicacies and drink champagne.”
Smiling at her and then Seamus, I remove the flask and take a small sip. But only a small sip, because our plans for the afternoon involve driving.
A sly smile crosses his face, and he lays one of his hands across my thigh, rubbing with his fingertips.
“Hey, Emma, is that Dad’s flask?” Rosie asks, the question surprising me so much that I nearly drop it. It’s still bedazzled, with a few rotating stickers on it.
“It really belonged to your dad?” I ask Seamus, eyes wide. “You told me you were joking.”
He lets his hand ride higher on my thigh. “I wanted you to keep it. I liked knowing it was with you.”
“Still believe people can only think they’re in love, Shay?” Declan asks him.
“Oh fuck off,” Seamus says.
I feel a little flustered because we still haven’t said those words to each other.
“We were having a nice moment,” my mother says pointedly, and Seamus lifts his hands.
“My apologies, Mrs. Rosings.”
My brother and I exchange a smile. No one other than Chuck has been invited to call her Dahlia.
Nicole, who’s dressed all in black, taps her glass with a fork. “Well, Operation Love Destroyers is officially complete. Jeffrey Nichols is toast, and Seamus and Emma are a thing. Job done.”
“I didn’t hire you to find her a boyfriend,” my mother says pointedly.
“No,” Nicole responds, “and I’d love to say I went above and beyond, but there’s no denying I fucked up with the whole exhibit thing. Who would’ve thought that Jeffrey would duck out on the trash.”
Her friend had thought she’d had eyes on him, but she’d been watching the wrong middle-aged, silver-haired man.
Damien takes her hand and kisses the knuckles. “Next time we’ll sneak a tracker onto our mark.” He glances at me. “Sorry, Emma, but I’m glad you got to tap him in the balls. Sometimes revenge needs a personal touch.”
I couldn’t agree more.
Chuck beams at us all from his position beside my mother, who is, of course, at the head of the table. “I’m just as pleased as punch we’re all here together, kids. What do you say to a game of Charades?”
“Dad, no one feels like playing Charades,” Claire moans.
“Are you kidding?” Nicole says, popping a chocolate covered cherry from one of the dishes arranged on the table. “I’m a beast at Charades. Tell them, Damien.”
He watches her fondly. “On this one topic, my wife is not prone to exaggeration.”
“Then we will be playing Charades,” my mother announces.
“Who are you and what did you do with my mother?” Anthony asks, but he’s grinning. We both are. It’s been a joy to watch her and Chuck grow closer.
“I’ve been considering something,” she says slowly. “I’d like all of you to call me Dahlia.” Turning to Anthony and then me, she says, “Not you two, of course. I’ll be in my grave before you call me Dahlia.”
“Mother, we’re not going to spontaneously start calling you by your first name after you die,” Anthony says dryly.
It’s a nice moment, a perfect moment. Part of me would like to stay here for Charades. But I also can’t wait for Seamus to see what I have in store for him.
Grabbing his hand, still on my thigh, I turn toward him. “It’s time for us to go.”
“Thank God,” he says. “You’re terrible at Charades.” He’s messing with me, of course, which we both do as regularly as if we were paid for it, but there’s a twinkle in his eyes. “Am I going to like this surprise?”
“You’re going to love it.”