Chapter Seven
Cian
I stared at my computer screen; the words staring back at me couldn’t be right. I ran through the information three times, and there was no other answer.
For weeks, I had been avoiding talking to Caity about Maddie, about our affair... about us. But if what I was looking at was true, I couldn’t avoid it any longer. Once the printer spat out the evidence, I grabbed it and ducked out the door.
“Where are you headed in such a rush?” Mac called as I slipped past him into the elevator.
“Checking on a lead,” I remarked as I pushed the button.
“Without backup?”
I nodded as the door closed between us. I didn’t need backup, not when it involved Caity.
I didn’t bother with a cab. The weather, while still brisk, had begun to warm up, but the cool wind might just lower the raging inferno running through my veins.
Eamon’s house wasn’t far from the office building where we ran things. Times had changed over the years. When Eamon was alive, he ran everything out of the house. Men came and went at all hours of the day and night.
There were no guards on the doors anymore, at least not at our homes. We weren’t like the Bratva or the Italians. We weren’t arrogant enough to believe someone was out to get us. The Irish kept to themselves.
We took care of our own shit, and if we had to move outside the family, well, there were people for that and ways to make sure it never came back on us.
Sal might have us dressing like businessmen, but underneath we were just thugs. Always had been, always would be. Lipstick on a pig, Mac called it.
I jogged up the steps of Caity’s brownstone and knocked on the door. When it went unanswered, I knocked harder until I was banging on the front door and yelling her name.
The door whipped open, and there she was. Her dark red hair piled on top of her head. The sports bra she wore under her tank top pushed her breasts up until they were almost spilling out. And the shorts she wore? They were fucking tiny. And tight.
“What the hell are you doing, answering the door dressed like that?”
She folded her arms across her chest and glared at me. “I was painting and someone was trying to break down the fuckin’ door. I didn’t exactly have time to change.”
That was when I noticed the splatters of paint on her arms and legs. She looked like an artist who’d gotten caught in a moment of creativity, forgetting about the rest of the world.
“Painting what?”
“Why are you here?” Her bark was never worse than her bite, but it was enough to snap me out of my fantasy. A fantasy of laying out a canvas, covering both of our bodies in paint and then fucking. Creating a masterpiece of the love we shared for the world to see.
Too bad I couldn’t get the infernal woman to admit she loved me.
I looked at the crumpled paper in my hand. “What the fuck is this?”
I stormed past her into the house and stopped.
Sal had mentioned she’d been redoing the house.
The lighter walls and dark accents suited her.
What most people didn’t know was that Caity was all light.
She put only the dark parts of herself forward to see if people were willing or worthy of finding the lighter side of her.
Not many had been worthy. Her sad excuse for a husband certainly wasn’t. I didn’t think I was either, but I’d seen glimpses of it.
“What is what?” she asked, closing the door behind me and shoving past me into the kitchen. I knew where she was headed. The coffeemaker. It was her go-to shield when she didn’t want to talk about something. She had no way of knowing what I held in my hand, but she knew it was bad.
I grabbed her wrist and pulled her back. “You said you didn’t fuckin’ know,” I growled.
Caity stared up at me. It was the most she’d looked at me in years. And we were alone. That didn’t happen often; there was always the risk of someone walking in and finding us staring at each other. But right now, there was no one here to stop me from dipping my head until I met her lips.
Her eyes dropped to my lips, and her tongue darted out to wet them. I watched as her teeth sunk into the corner of her mouth and, all of a sudden, I was back in that hotel room with her.
Twenty-nine years ago...
I watched as her dress dropped to the floor.
She stood in the middle of the hotel room and waited to see what I would do.
I let my eyes wander over her body, taking in every curve, every inch of silky skin.
Knowing this might be my only chance to feel her, taste her, make love to her, I wanted to memorize every bit of the woman in front of me.
“What do you want, Caity?”
“You.”
I licked my lips at the prospect of having her under me. For years I’d been dreaming of this. And now she was here. Was it a coincidence? Was it fate? I was in that bar looking for someone who had betrayed the family. I wasn’t the muscle; I was the brains, but Eamon had sent me anyway.
The man hated me. I didn’t know why, but he couldn’t deny what I brought to the table. But if I were dead? Killed in a bar fight that couldn’t be traced back to him? I didn’t think he’d be shedding any tears.
I rubbed the back of my neck. This could be a setup. Would Eamon use his daughter this way? Did he know how I felt about her?
I took a step forward, removing my jacket and laying in on the back of a chair. If this were a setup, if I were walking into a trap, then at least I would get something out of it. Because Caitlin Marie O’Malley was worth dying for.
As I loosened my tie, I said, “No one can ever know, banphrionsa.”
“I won’t tell if you don’t,” she whispered, and I knew then this was all her. She wanted this, wanted me.
I stopped in front of her, waiting to see how brave she was. Would she make the first move? Her body trembled when she removed her dress. She was as terrified of what might happen as I was.
She raised her hands to my shirt. One by one, slipping the buttons through the holes, and then she grazed her hands over my chest, letting my shirt slip to the floor to join the dress she’d already discarded.
I stared into her eyes as she reached for my belt. Once she pulled it from the loops, I removed it from her hands and placed it around the back of her neck. Using the belt as leverage, I pulled her forward and let my lips crash against hers.
She moved in closer. Her hands started at my waist but quickly roamed over my skin. Every touch was a brand. From this moment forward, she owned me. No matter what happened after tonight, Caity O’Malley owned my soul.
“Cian, please.”
“What do you want, banphrionsa?”
“I want more. More of you,” she whispered.
I dropped the belt to the floor and trailed kisses across her jaw and down her throat. My hands slid down her arms, and I felt her body shiver. My hands went to her ass, squeezing each globe as I lifted her off the floor.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Her sharp voice pulled me back to the present, but my eyes stayed on her lips. God, I wanted her.
“Maddie,” I rasped. “You said you didn’t know she was mine, but you were gonna have a fuckin’ abortion?”
Her hand moved faster than I expected, and the sound of the slap across my cheek echoed around the quiet room.
“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, Cian McCarthy. Get the fuck out of my house.”
She turned to go, and I grabbed her again. Pulling her back against my chest, I held the evidence in front of her face. “Then fuckin’ explain this.”
She took the paper from my hand and stared at it. “Where did you get this?” She looked up at me. “Are you digging into my past?”
“I’m digging into everyone, Caity. Including you and Sal.”
“This is private!”
“Why did you go to that clinic, Caity?”
“None of your business, Cian.” She moved away again, and I’d had enough. I spun her around and walked her back against the wall with my hand on her throat.
“Why did you go to the fuckin’ clinic? Were you gonna kill my fuckin’ child, Caity?”
A tear slipped down her cheek, and it took everything inside me not to let her go. I wanted to hold her in my arms and comfort her, but at the same time I wanted to fucking strangle her.
For months now, since I found out Maddie was my daughter, I had slipped back and forth from wanting to fuck this woman until she admitted how she felt or kill her for keeping the truth from me all these years.
I’d been avoiding her because I never knew which side would win out if I was in the same room with her. Truth be told, I didn’t know which side would win out in this moment.
The moment I saw her name on the paperwork from the clinic, I saw red. Knowing that she went to the clinic to abort my child had me feeling things for her I never thought I would.
She wouldn’t divorce her no-good husband because divorce was a sin. But fucking abortion? How the fuck did she justify that shit?
“Fuckin’ answer me!” I growled, squeezing her throat between my fingers. Her body trembled beneath me, and I wondered if it was fear or arousal.
“I didn’t go there to get an abortion. I went to get tested,” she hissed.
My hand dropped from her throat, and I stepped back. “What?”
“I found a prescription in the bathroom. I didn’t know what it was for, so I looked it up.
The son of a bitch had gotten an STD. I went to the clinic to get tested.
That was when I found out I was pregnant.
I was over two months along. I hadn’t been with Nolan for a few weeks because I hadn’t been feeling well.
I thought I had a stomach bug, so he wouldn’t touch me. ”
“And were you?”
“No. But they ran a pregnancy test as well, and that was when I found out I was pregnant with Maddie.”
“And you didn’t think it was possible?”
“Of course I thought it was possible. But it didn’t matter.”
“OF COURSE IT FUCKIN’ MATTERED!” I shouted.
She winced, and I turned on my heel, walking to the other side of the room to calm down. I would never hurt Caity. I might alternate between wanting to fuck her and kill her, but I’d never hurt her. I’d cut off my own fucking arm before I ever laid a hand on her.
“You would never have been her father, Cian. Eamon wouldn’t have allowed it. He’d never have let me get divorced. You know that.”
“There are ways of getting out of a marriage other than divorce, Caity.” I looked over my shoulder and smirked. “You aren’t fuckin’ married now.”
“He would have killed you!”
“He could have fuckin’ tried. Hell, he did fuckin’ try. More than once, and guess what, Caity?” I slammed my fist against my chest, and belted out, “I’m still fuckin’ standin’ here, and he isn’t. Neither of them is!”