36. Aisling
THIRTY-SIX
Aisling
PRESENT
I have no idea what time it is when I hear the beeping of the alarm as Finn punches in the code, announcing his arrival. When I got home from the last site visit and surprise proposal, I decided to lie down on the couch and wait for him.
If the pain in my neck is any indication, it has been a while.
I crack my eyelids open just as he crouches down in front of me. He’s been working nonstop for weeks, so I expect to be greeted by the same tired eyes and a chaste kiss on the cheek before he tells me he’s off to bed.
Instead, he looks… good . Happy, invigorated. Is he high?
I sit up and face him.
“Hi,” he says with a grin.
“Hi?” I’m pretty sure frown lines are creasing my forehead as I stare at him. “Are you okay?” Wait a second; I’m supposed to be mad at him. “Where were you? You missed Shea and Torey’s engagement.”
He missed it all: every tear, every cheer and whoop from the crowd, every heartfelt word. Shea was crazy nervous, but when she finally got down on one knee, she knew exactly what to say. It was beautiful, and I’m so happy for them.
And so incredibly jealous.
Because as I stood there alone once more, I began to question whether Finn and I would ever get to that point or if we were just doomed to fail.
Over and over again.
I groggily glance at my watch and stare in disbelief. It’s nearly two in the morning. What the hell? Did he get lost? I’ve been home for hours.
“I know.” He takes my hand. “I’m genuinely sorry, Ash, and I promise that from now on, I’ll be there for the important things.”
This was an important thing , I want to say, but I don’t because we’ve got a bigger issue to address.
“I didn’t get the job.” My voice shakes with every word of the confession. “We all went to see Nora after the proposal. We wanted to find out as a group. She’s asking Shea and Niall to stay on.”
“I know.”
My brow lifts. “You know?” How does he know? Nora said she had just made the decision before she left for the event.
“She stopped by my office tonight and wanted to run it by me before she told anyone.”
“But, I thought it wasn’t up to you.”
“It isn’t. I don’t micromanage. She had free rein over whom she hired—obviously, and she had the final decision on who stayed. But—” He hesitates for a moment. “She wanted to make sure I was okay with her choices or if I wanted to shuffle anyone around.”
My eyes widen at the gravity of what he’s saying. I’m on my feet before I even realize it. “And what did you say?”
“I obviously told her no, Ash. I knew you’d never forgive me if I chose you over one of your friends.”
My eyes water at the truth of his words. It’s true. I would never ask him to do that, but at the same time, the opportunity was right there, and he didn’t take it. Does that mean he doesn’t want me to stay?
Oh my god. I’m being ridiculous. I can’t be simultaneously glad he made the right choice and mad he didn’t.
“I see those wheels spinning in your head, Ash, and I can only imagine what you’re thinking.”
“No.” I shake my head, turning away from him. “You made the right choice.
“Yeah, I do that a lot, don’t I? Ever since we met, I feel like I’ve been making the right choice—the noble choice. I don’t want to be noble anymore.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I don’t want this to end. I want you to stay. Not just for another six months or a year, but I want you here forever.” His eyes meet mine as his thumb brushes over the Claddagh ring on my right hand. “I love you, Ash.”
My eyes begin to water, and I throw myself into his arms. “Say it again.”
“Tá mé i ngrá leat,” he whispers softly in my ear, and even though I don’t fully understand his words, I feel the meaning of each one in his voice.
“I don’t have a fancy way of saying it, but I love you too. My mom brought me to Ireland hoping it might breathe life back into me. Not only did those seven days reawaken my spirit, but I also found the other half of my soul.”
“Didn’t I tell you that you were searching for something?”
“Yeah, and I finally found it,” I say with a smile. “It just took a few tries.”
He tilts his mouth over mine, and we kiss until I feel breathless. I’ve waited so long to hear him say he loves me, and now that he has?—
I pull back. “I’m still leaving in two weeks, Finn. Nothing’s changed. I could get a travel visa, but it’s just a temporary fix and only one of our issues.” I let out a breath because this is something I’ve been terrified to talk about for weeks. “I know you’re running yourself ragged, Finn. I’m worried?—”
He places a finger to my lips, silencing me. “I know,” he agrees. “I meant what I said; I’m done making the noble choice, which is why I’ve decided to step down as CEO today.”
I jerk back, my eyebrows shooting up to the ceiling. “What? Are you crazy?”
He laughs. The guy actually laughs. “I believe we’ve already established that we’re the good kind of crazy, remember?”
“Walking away from your family’s legacy isn’t the good kind of crazy, Finn. That’s just the regular kind of crazy.”
He takes my hand and leads me back to the couch. Apparently, this is a discussion that requires us to be seated. “I said I made the decision. I didn’t say I was actually going through with it.”
I open my mouth, but no words come out.
Yep, I’ve got nothing because that doesn’t bring us back to square one. If he’s still CEO and I still have to leave the country, how is any of this better?
“I’m going to start over because I can see I’ve made a mess of things.”
“That’s an understatement,” I mutter.
He shoves his hand into his pocket and pulls out his phone. He taps on it a few times before handing it to me. I look down, my brow furrowing in confusion.
“What am I looking at?”
“That is a photo album of all the photos from our tour.”
“It’s password protected.” Who has a photo album on their phone that’s password protected—that isn’t nudes, that is?
“For the first day or so after my da’s stroke, I didn’t even look at my phone. Shock, I guess. I kept thinking I was living in some horrible nightmare because this wasn’t supposed to happen. I wasn’t ready. I had plans. I had…you. When the doctors finally gave us the prognosis, I knew it was over. Everything I promised you in that lobby that night—gone.”
I hate that he went through all of that alone. I often wonder what our lives would look like if he hadn’t pushed me away, but then I wouldn’t have had that extra time with my mom. The months of travel. Caring for her. Being there until the very end.
It hurt at the time, but I was exactly where I needed to be.
“I remember sitting outside his hospital room, staring at those photos for hours, trying to memorize every single one. That’s how Rian found me, just off the plane from Seattle. He tried to talk me out of it—to convince me I was being rash and ridiculous—but I was resolute. I thought I was doing the right thing by putting the company first. I rationalized my decision by telling myself you were better off.” He shakes his head and scoffs. “In my final act of self-sabotage, I asked Rian to delete everything. Every photo, text, voicemail, and, finally, your phone number.”
I just stare at him, unsure what to say.
“But, at the last minute, I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t let you go, but I also knew I wouldn’t be able to resist the temptation. Seeing those photos would be torture, and I’d eventually give in and call you. So, I had him put everything in there”—he points to the phone still in my hand—“including screenshots of texts and even your number. And then he set the password.”
“So you didn’t delete my number, then?”
“Not in the traditional sense of the word, no.”
“Do you think—” I hesitate. “Do you think you would have ever…caved?”
He tucks a lock of hair behind my ear, his fingers trailing down my shoulder. “I don’t know. I’d like to say yes. I wanted to. Fuck, I thought about it at least once every day. But knowing the mindset I was in, I’m not sure. I was hell-bent on not making the same mistakes as my father.”
“You mean you were hell-bent on spending the rest of your life miserable and alone.”
“And I was doing an excellent job at it too.” He grins.
“Sorry to derail your plans.”
“I’m not,” he says, growing serious. “Look, the point I’m trying to make is this: ever since I can remember, I’ve had a father who was never home. He was in the office more than he was at home. He made me believe it was one or the other. So today, I decided to choose you.”
“What do you mean, choose me? I thought you said you weren’t stepping down?”
“I’m not, but I fully intended to. I would have if it hadn’t been for my mam.”
“You talked to your mom? Is that where you’ve been?”
He nods. “Apparently, I’m not the only one. She told me about your visits.” His expression softens, and his voice cracks. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You were—” Shit, now my voice is wobbling. “You already had so much on your plate, and I knew how worried you were about her. So, I just made a point to visit and call. It was good for me, too—healing, you know?”
Maggie Larkin-O’Connell is an amazing woman. Complicated. Broken, even. But, amazing. I could see that from the moment I met her in the hospital that day, but I also felt something familiar in her gaze.
Loneliness.
“Healing is definitely the right word. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw her. She was heading out to a black-tie charity event. The woman could hardly get out of bed the last time I saw her.”
“She’s doing really well, I think. It took some convincing to get her to speak with a therapist, but once she did, I truly noticed some improvement. I think she’s just grappling with her new reality. She will figure it out.”
“I hope so. She deserves happiness after all the shit she’s been through.”
“Because of your dad not being around?”
He lets out a pained laugh. “Yeah.” He shakes his head. “You know I bought this building from him. Well, Mam transferred the ownership to me after his stroke, but it was his before that.”
“I didn’t, no,” I answer.
“He used to stay here on nights when it got too late, and he didn’t want to drive back home to Blackrock.”
Pretty nice place to rest your head for the night…
“When I remodeled the place, I converted the penthouse into two units—yours and mine, thinking I could use yours as a guest unit. When I mentioned the idea to my mam, she said she wasn’t interested in visiting.”
“What? Why?”
“I never asked; I simply chalked it up to stress from my da’s stroke and moved on. It turns out this wasn’t just some city flat my da had. This was his damn love nest.”
“Your dad had an affair?”
“Affairs—plural. She’s not sure how many. At some point, my mam just stopped asking. When I asked her how he had time for all of this when he barely had enough time to come home, she just snorted and said, ‘He could have made time, love. He just chose not to.’”
“Why didn’t she tell you?”
“She thought I knew, I guess. She didn’t believe he’d keep a secret from me. Considering how I was carrying on back then, I don’t blame her for assuming. I can’t imagine what she felt when I snatched up this building the second he got sick. Little did she know, I was just sitting here, day after day, pining after you.”
“The whole time? No one else ever caught your eye or—” He kisses me, cutting off my playful words as he draws me into his lap.
“As awful as it was to learn the truth about my father, it was somewhat of a relief. It shattered the ideal image I had of him in my mind—the CEO who sacrificed everything for his company. Now, he’s just another absentee father because I know he didn’t sacrifice shit. He could have been an amazing CEO and father, but he chose not to.”
“So, is that what you want? To be both?”
“I mean, I haven’t even asked you to move in yet, so I think you’re being a bit presumptuous by assuming I’ll father your children, but—ow!” He wails as fingers pinch his side and then laughs. The smile that spreads across his face is breathtaking. “But, yes. I know I don’t have to choose. Just know, though, if I had to, I’d give it all up for you.”
“I’m glad you don’t have to. One of us should have a job.”
“Between your inheritance and my trust fund, I think we’d be okay.”
“That sounded so snobby.”
“I’m sorry, what hotel did you stay at when you first moved here?”
“Don’t make me pinch you again,” I threaten, only causing him to chuckle. “Speaking of moving…do you have any bright ideas to keep me from having to move back to the States in two weeks?”
“Actually, yes. But it can wait until morning. Right now—” His hand slips beneath my T-shirt. “We’ve got more pressing matters.”