Chapter Twenty-Eight #2
He hesitates. “Now,” I growl. He flinches and stumbles back, clearing the way.
I start to pull Alannah up the gangway, but she digs her heels in so hard I nearly lose hold of her. “No. No, please don’t do this.”
Men nearby stop what they’re doing and turn to watch. Any more of this and we’ll have a crowd. I lock both arms around her middle, lift her off her feet, and carry her the rest of the way up the gangway. Below deck, one of the crew points us toward a cabin, and I head straight for it.
Inside, it’s cramped, with a narrow bunk bolted to one wall, a small table, and a single porthole. The air smells of damp wood and old smoke. I kick the door shut behind us and set her on her feet.
She pulls free and stumbles back until the bunk catches behind her knees. “Don’t come near me!” Her voice is loud, sharp, edged with panic.
I start toward her anyway, hoping that if I can just get her to listen, I can calm her down. She recoils, nearly falling back onto the bunk, both hands flying up to shield herself. I stop. “Alannah…” My voice comes out rough, almost pleading. “Just listen to me.”
“No.” Her voice shakes, but there’s nothing weak in it. “You hit Finn. You dragged me here. You forced me onto a bloody boat. I’m done listening to you.”
I drag a hand over my face and bite back a hiss when my fingers brush the swollen bridge of my nose. “I know I fucked it.”
Her laugh is small and awful. “You think?”
“I know I did,” I snap, then force myself back down because shouting at her now would be insanity, even for me. “I know. All right? I know.”
She’s still looking at me like I’m something she can’t even recognize. Like I’m a stranger. Like I’ve lost my mind. Maybe I have. “I came all this way for you,” I say. “I crossed a fucking ocean for you.”
“And then what?” she fires back. “You got me in front of you again and accused me of looking for my next husband.”
I can’t defend it. I don’t even try. “I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I do.”
“No. You don’t, Ronin.” She wraps her arms around herself. “Because if you did, you never would’ve said that to me. You said it because you wanted to hurt me.”
“I didn’t know what else to do,” I say, and my voice sounds wrecked even to my own ears.
“With any of it. You standing there in your wedding dress, crying. The truth of what I’d done.
Kathleen. Danny hearing it. Your grandfather.
Everything.” I swallow hard. “That’s not an excuse.
I know it’s not. I’m just telling you I didn’t know what to do with any of it, and every time I opened my mouth, I made it worse. ”
Tears spill down her face again, and she wipes at them angrily.
“I’m sorry.” It’s all I have left.
“You don’t get to say that like it fixes anything.”
“I know it doesn’t fix it.”
“Then stop saying it.”
I let out a shaky breath. “I’m sorry,” I say again anyway, because even if she doesn’t want to hear it, she deserves to. “I know you don’t want it from me. I know I don’t deserve to ask you to believe it. But I am.”
Heavy footsteps and muffled voices carry from the deck above. Alannah looks toward the door. “Please,” she says, her eyes still fixed on it. “Please just let me go.”
I know I should let her go. I know it. This wasn’t the plan.
I came to bring her home, not drag her back against her will.
What the hell am I supposed to do when we reach Boston?
Lock her in the house until she stops fighting me?
That should be enough to make me step aside.
It isn’t. When she moves to pass me, I catch her by the arms.
“Ronin—no—”
“I love you,” I say. “I need you to know that. I always have.”
She flinches like I’ve hit her.
And then, like the complete bastard I keep proving myself to be, I kiss her. Not gently or tenderly. Desperately, like I can grab hold of what we used to have and force life back into it. My hand goes into her hair, the other still gripping her arm, and she freezes in shock.
She shoves at my chest, trying to push me off her. “Don’t—” The word breaks against my mouth. A sob shudders through her, and I feel her tears wet against my cheeks. She gives one last hard shove, and when I still don’t let go, she bites down on my lip hard enough that I taste blood.
Still, I don’t stop.
The cabin door slams open, and Conor storms in.
“What the fuck are you doing?!” He’s on me before I’ve fully turned.
One hand fists in my shirt and yanks me back from Alannah, then his other fist slams into my gut.
The air explodes out of me. He hauls me back up and slams me against the wall, screaming right in my face. “You’re fucking done!”
I hear him. I just can’t make myself care. Because behind him, Alannah is sobbing, each raw, broken sound tearing into me. Declan has her wrapped tight in his arms, holding her up like she’d collapse without him, her face buried in his chest, her shoulders shaking hard. I did that.
I’m still staring at her when Conor grabs me by the arm and the back of my shirt, wrenches me around, and forces me through the door. He keeps hold of me as he drags me up through the boat, Alannah’s cries following me the whole way.
The men on deck glance up as we pass, then quickly look away. At the gangway, the runner who let me on is still standing there, pale and refusing to meet my eye. Conor claps him on the back. “Good man.” Then he shoves me past him and off the boat.
Malachy is waiting beside his car, parked in the same spot as when I first arrived. Same calm, watchful posture. Like he’d had this whole thing planned from the minute I set foot on this island, and all I’d done was play right into his hands.
He straightens when he sees us coming and opens the back door.
By the time we reach the car, I’ve got nothing left.
My legs are barely working, and Conor has to drag me the last few steps.
He shoves me into the back seat hard enough to send pain flashing white behind my eyes, then climbs in after me and slams the door.
Malachy huffs out a short, humourless laugh. I look up and catch his eyes in the rearview mirror. “Still a stupid lad,” he says.
I turn in my seat and find Alannah standing on the quay, her arms wrapped tight around her middle as she watches us pull away.
Declan waits beside another car a few feet behind her, but she makes no move to join him.
I keep looking back until the road curves away from the harbour and she disappears from sight.