35. Chapter 35
Grace
“So they couldn’t hold you for anything?” Nellie asked from her spot curled up in Ronan’s lap. Since he’d gotten home, she’d been as close to him as she could get. He chuckled.
“You say that like you wanted us to go to jail, sugar.” She gasped in probably-mock offense when he said it, burrowing her face against his neck to hide the red blush on her cheeks.
When she looked up at him, she wasn’t as amused as the rest of us—maybe relieved he was home, but also definitely annoyed about his too-casual-for-the-situation attitude. “You know that’s not what I mean. But, like, they had evidence, and now they just…”
“Mistrial.” Ronan wrapped his arms around her and squeezed until she quietly squealed and the worry left her face. “Just be grateful for it.”
“I am.” She must’ve decided to stop questioning it. Suddenly, she looked serene—like the last couple weeks never happened.
“Can they come back?” Aurora asked, sliding into the tension and away from Giaco’s side.
He nodded, grabbing her waist and pulling her back to him more gently than his face would ever let you believe. “Yes, they can. And they will, but they’ll have to have new charges.”
“And we’re always safe,” Ronan added. Giaco nodded, preparing to add to the point when a knock at the door interrupted the moment. For a second, Ronan’s face doubted how safe they were.
“Giaco, wait,” Aurora pleaded when he went to answer the door. He held his hand up, opening it anyway.
I recognized Connor’s voice instantly, and my heart jumped while my stomach turned. “Is she here?” he asked.
“Yeah, she is.” Giaco nodded, and I stood. The sight of him in the doorway felt like relief. When he looked past my brother and saw me, his eyes lit up. Then, he felt like comfort—like I was happy to see him.
“Hi,” I said, stepping around Giaco. He stepped to the side and let me, no longer interested in his fight to keep us apart.
Connor slowly looked me over, his eyes hovering over my hand and the soft spots on my skin that had been covered in light bruises.
He exhaled a breath he maybe held for a couple weeks that felt like a year.
“Can we talk?” My whole family watched as I stepped outside, closing the door behind me.
“Are you okay?” he asked, searching my body like a checklist.
“I’m okay.” I nodded, shivering slightly when a breeze brushed over us and filled my senses with the comfort of him—his warmth, his presence, the clean, leathery scent of his cologne.
“Are you sure?” he asked, stepping closer. I nodded again.
“Thank you. For—” I waved vaguely at the house, as if everything that happened in that courtroom could be summed up in my mom’s living room.
When Connor reached for my hand, I didn’t pull away. “I told you I’d do anything. I meant anything.” Quit your job. My heart sank.
“Wait…you…anything? Connor.” Guilt started to burn my eyes and well up along my lash lines. He pulled me to him gently, and I drifted without hesitation. One step, then the next, until I floated into his body—close enough that I could feel the golden intensity of his stare in my toes.
“Anything.” He smiled so genuinely.
I sniffled. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Tell me you’re willing to give me another chance because I just quit my job after the biggest arrest of my career.” Connor wiggled his brows like he didn’t make a potentially life-altering mistake.
“What if you change your mind?” I took a small step away, but he only pulled me back to him.
Connor chuckled, feeling obviously less weight than I had sitting on my chest. “You know me better than that.” He wrapped his arms tighter around my waist.
“Do I? I thought I did, but…I don’t know.” I chewed nervously on my lip while the butterflies in my stomach danced around the warnings. “I don’t think I know you at all. I’m scared you’ll regret it and resent me.”
“Regret what? Resent you? Grace.” He loosened his hold to move his hands so they framed my face.
“That’s not possible. The only regret I could ever have would be losing you—not loving you hard enough.
You are everything. Don’t you see?” Connor lowered his forehead so it rested against mine.
“You are the air I breathe, and without you, I cease to exist. Resent you? I want nothing but you. I love you.”
My tears painted lines down my cheeks. “You promise?”
“I promise.” He took a breath so deep, it was like it pulled the air from my lungs. “Grace. Little pearl. Please forgive me. Give me a chance.”
I wrapped my arms around his neck. I stopped, my lips hovering over his. “Don’t ever break me like that again.”
“I’ll walk in front of the Moretti firing squad myself if I ever hurt you again.” I believed him. He brushed his nose against mine, weaving his hand in my hair. Then, he took a deep breath and paused just long enough for my heart to skip beats, anticipating his next move.
When he kissed me, regret clashed with forgiveness until the only sensation was dizzying need.
His tongue danced across my bottom lip, requesting the control my body was eager to give him.
I melted into his arms, resting against his chest while he explored my mouth with an apology that made me forget my family was standing on the other side of the door—and that the door had windows.
Connor cradled my head in his hands gently, but the urgency of his kiss overwhelmed me.
I whimpered, stretching onto my toes and tightening my hold around his neck.
I kissed him deeper, swirling my tongue with his and inhaling every soft sigh from his lungs.
When I moaned and my knees buckled, he broke away, but he kept his fingers laced in my hair.
My eyes lazily drifted open when my lips stopped tingling, and an involuntary whine slipped from them, quietly begging for more. I needed a kiss like that for every moment over the last few weeks I felt like the world was crashing down and nobody would find me in the rubble.
Once the jelly in my legs went away and I was no longer relying on Connor’s hold for support, I hummed.
Then, I glanced over his shoulder, gasping when I remembered my entire family was less than ten feet away—and they were watching every minute of this through the front window.
My cheeks warmed with embarrassment until Connor looked behind him.
His laugh rolled through my body, and he took my hand.
“What do you say we get out of here?” He nodded behind him to his car, and I looked again at my family, half-expecting one of my brothers to burst through the door and exercise their self-given control. When they didn’t, I nodded.
“Where do you want to go?” I asked, letting Connor take my hand and lead me down the front porch steps. The porch light cast a small shadow over his face when he turned back to look at me, tightening his grip.
Then, he winked. “I’ve got a surprise for you.”
“Okay, really. Where are we?” I asked when Connor turned down another dark street I didn’t recognize. We had left the North End and were on the south side of town—the area my brothers worked hard to keep me out of, claiming it was unsafe for a single woman.
He smirked in the driver’s seat, and when the light caught the corner of his smile, the butterflies that had calmed themselves in my stomach woke back up.
Connor pulled over in front of an old house with the porch light on, but none of the lights inside were on.
“I grew up here,” he said before I could ask why he was putting the car in park.
“What?” I looked around the dark neighborhood, taking in the shadows of old houses that had seen better days.
Connor nodded to the house we sat in front of. “I want you to know everything about who I am.” He reached over the console and took my hand. “Let me show you.”
My heart climbed into my throat and sat there, making it difficult to swallow. I nodded as fresh tears blurred my vision. “Show me everything,” I said, squeezing his hand back.
“That window right there was my room.” His face looked distant while he stared at the dark window. Then, he put the car in drive again, pulling back onto the street. “We lived there before I moved in with my grandparents.”
I brushed the back of his hand with my thumb while he drove with the other. Turning slightly in my seat, I rested his hand on my thigh. “How old were you?”
“Nine.” He pulled to the side of the road at the end of the block.
We were parked in front of a cemetery that lacked any lights—one you likely didn’t find people in after dark.
There was no reason to be scared. I think.
“I was only there for about four years before they sent me to a boarding school. I guess I was too much for them to care for. I can’t blame them. Come with me.”
Connor got out of the car, quickly rounding the front and opening the passenger door. I took his hand, and it felt like he was trying to comfort me while he pulled me from the car. Shouldn’t I be the one comforting him?
The further we went into the cemetery, the darker it got. I was about ready to ask Connor if we could go back, maybe come back in the morning, but then, we stopped. He looked down, drawing my attention to the names on the marble headstones.
Connor Murphy Sr.
Amelia Murphy
“Your parents.” I slid against his side, pulling his arm around me while a cold breeze covered my arms with goosebumps. Connor nodded.
“My parents,” he said. “They were in an accident one night. Drunk driver. They were on their way to pick me up from a birthday party, but they never made it. A few hours later, my grandma came.”
Warm tears rolled down my cheeks while my chest swelled with empathy. “I’m so sorry.” I sniffled, and Connor pulled me tighter to him, wrapping his other arm around me and squeezing.