34. Declan
DECLAN
Ibraced for Olivia’s anger. But it was worse than that. She didn’t look angry.
She looked disappointed.
She turned away from me to tug on the shorts and T-shirt she’d discarded on my floor last night. “I don’t understand, Declan. Without that house, there’s no summer festival. And without that festival, half the town’s businesses will close.”
“Those businesses will be fine,” I insisted, “once they pivot to a new business model.”
Olivia whirled to face me. “What new business model? Not everyone in Ballybeith is a capitalist genius and, according to Molly, the town’s getting smaller every year. You’re killing the last thing that was bringing outsiders in.”
I threw the covers off and stood, yanking my trousers on.
“Sure, blame the shrinking town on me too. Not on Mark O’Rourke, who’s been raising rents so high he’s been driving people out for decades.
” I jabbed a finger to emphasize my point.
“I did this town a favor, getting that mansion away from him. Now he can’t hold the festival over the town’s head. Someone had to stop him.”
“I get that.” Olivia stepped toward me, her hands spread in supplication.
“I get it. You did a good thing buying the mansion. But you don’t have to raze it.
Let it stand, and let people use it for the festival.
” She walked closer, her hands settling lightly against my chest. “You already won. You beat Mark O’Rourke.
You can stop now. You don’t have to hurt the town. You don’t have to hurt Catie.”
I flinched away from her touch. “That’s what this is about, isn’t it? God forbid I piss off the man who abandoned Sinead. The man who abandoned Catie.”
I should have known Olivia wouldn’t understand. Like everyone else, she saw Seamus’s charming smile, heard his friendly words, and didn’t look any deeper. But still, Olivia choosing Seamus over me felt like a knife to the belly.
This whole thing just made me hate the O’Rourkes even more. It seemed like the family kept chasing after me, haunting me at every step of the way. They’d killed my da, thrashed my sister’s life, drawn a wedge between me and Olivia, and…
The list was just too long.
Olivia crossed her arms. “This isn’t about Seamus. It’s about Catie. She deserves to make her own choices when she grows up. And you’ve just made it all but impossible to have a positive relationship with half of her family.”
“They’re not her family,” I snarled. “They killed her family.”
Olivia stepped back under the force of my rage. Some distant part of me noticed she looked scared.
Ashamed, I stepped back, trying to get control of my emotions. “Olivia. I want you to believe me that I am doing this not despite the town, or Catie, but for them.”
“But what if you’re wrong—”
“I’m not done yet,” I said, my voice brooking no argument.
“I believe destroying that mansion, destroying the O’Rourke legacy, benefits everyone.
But even if I didn’t, I’d still fucking do it.
Because he killed my da. And no one in this town, this town of people you’re so desperate to save, held him accountable for that. ”
Her chin quivered.
My voice dropped, deadly quiet. “If no one else will punish Mark O’Rourke, then I will. And damn the consequences.”
Olivia stared at me, eyes bright, face flushed.
She started to walk out the door, then stopped and turned back to me.
“I was going to stay in Ireland for you,” she said.
“After last night, I thought…I thought it was okay that you weren’t brave enough to ask me to stay, because I could feel it in your touch, in your heart that you wanted me to—and that maybe we could have a future together.
I thought I could be brave for both of us. ”
She was going to stay? Everything in me leapt at the idea.
“But I can’t do that,” Olivia said, an awful finality in her voice. “I can’t risk my future on someone who’s so set on revenge, no matter the cost. Please, Declan. Stop living in the past.”
I felt my anger start to turn on her. How dare she tell me she was considering staying right when she was making it clear she’d changed her mind?
Did she enjoy toying with me? “At least I learn from my past,” I said.
“You’re so scared to look at what you’ve lost, what you want, you’ve spent your whole career running from it.
Hiding in other people’s lives, in other people’s families—”
“Stop,” Olivia said, covering her face. “I can’t do this.”
“Oh, that’s mature. Check out of the conversation.”
When she lowered her hands, I saw what she’d been trying to cover. She was crying.
I felt those tears like a punch to the gut. I wanted to fall to my knees and kiss each drop away. At the same time, I wanted to yell at her that she wasn’t the only one in pain.
“I wasn’t talking about the conversation, Declan,” Olivia said, swiping furiously at her tears with the palm of her hand. “I was talking about the relationship.”
I stopped breathing. She didn’t notice.
“I can’t do this if you’re determined to be the worst version of yourself,” she said.
Something in me snapped. “Well, I don’t want to be with someone who only wants me when I’m doing exactly what she wants. I deserve more than that.”
Olivia looked down at the floor. I could feel her withdrawing into herself. Going some place I couldn’t reach her.
I hated it. “Olivia, wait…”
She looked up, her eyes clear and certain. “I think we both deserve more, Declan. We can’t give each other what we want. It’s done. It has been for a while, I just couldn’t admit it.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I knew she’d be angry about the mansion. I just didn’t think she could walk away so easily.
But of course she could walk away. This was what Olivia fucking did. She’d made a life of living in the present and fleeing as soon as that present got hard.
“At least we’ve only got ten more days together,” Olivia said, in a hollow imitation of a joke. “Once Sinead arrives, you’ll never see me again.”
“Why wait?” I said bitterly. “Mum and I can handle Catie for ten days. We don’t need you.”
She looked alarmed. “Declan, we promised Catie we wouldn’t do this. We promised I’d stay, even if we fought—”
“I don’t give a shit what I promised!” I said.
The reality that she was leaving hurt so bad I wanted to double over and brace myself on something for support.
But I’d be damned if I let her see me fall apart.
I’d be damned if I’d let her spend the next ten days being lovely and professional and her while I crumbled in front of her.
“Do you really think it’s better for Catie to watch the adults she loves seethe at each other for ten days? ”
Olivia grimaced. “We can keep it professional—”
“I can’t,” I said. “Not with you. Never with you.”
She looked somewhere between touched and alarmed.
Humiliation crawled up the back of my neck. I turned away. “Pack your stuff and say goodbye to Catie. I’ll buy your ticket and call you a taxi.
The silence between us grew thick.
Then Olivia turned away and did what she was told.
The house was quiet after Olivia left. Catie didn’t want to talk to me. Instead she lay curled up in her room, watching cartoons on my tablet. She emerged once to get a snack, defiantly meeting my eyes as she grabbed five cookies and took them back to her room.
I didn’t have the heart to scold her. I felt numb.
Olivia had left. She’d finally fucking left.
I’d poured myself a glass of whiskey, but it sat on the kitchen table next to me untouched.
I told myself it would have felt like this sooner or later. Olivia was always going to leave. This changed nothing but the timing—and I was right to end it now. I could hardly betray my principles, could I? Promise I wouldn’t raze the mansion, just for another week of bliss in her arms?
I pressed my fist to my hand and breathed. This was the real reason I’d needed her out of the house. Because I could already feel myself crumbling. I could already feel myself wanting to go to her room, and open the door, and coax her into believing this was one more crack we could patch over.
I should strip the sheets in her room, I decided. My staff normally handled that, but I needed to get every trace of her out of my life immediately. Eventually this numbness might wear off, and then I might do something weak like press my face to her pillow and breathe in that damn lavender scent.
I went upstairs and opened the door to her room. But Olivia had beat me too it. She’d stripped the old sheets off and scoured the room of every trace of her.
The only thing she’d left behind was the old sweatshirt she’d borrowed from me. She’d folded it neatly and placed it on the chair by the window.
Something about seeing that sweatshirt by the chair shattered my numbness. She was gone. She was gone. Olivia was gone. And I’d never see her again.
I’d wanted her to take that sweatshirt, damnit. She’d liked it so much, and I’d liked the idea of keeping her warm, even after we parted. But I hadn’t really said that, just made jokes about it.
Just like I hadn’t told her how badly I wanted her to stay in Ireland. Just like I hadn’t told her how I felt about her. I hadn’t told her I’d lost the ability to picture a future without her. I hadn’t told her she’d somehow become my true north.
I hadn’t told her I loved her.
I grabbed the dresser for balance. She’d told me she’d decided to stay in Ireland. And instead of telling her I fucking loved her, I’d put her on the first plane out.
I’d been too obsessed with winning the argument, with defending myself, to hear what she’d really been saying. I’d heard, You can never make me stay now when what she’d been trying to say was I was so close to staying, please give me a reason to.
“No,” I blurted into the empty, silent room. “No, this isn’t how this ends.”
I’d won her back two times already when I’d fucked up.
Third time’s the charm, I thought.