7. Ciara
CIARA
I know that sound now. Not a ringtone, just a single soft buzz against the nightstand or in his pocket. My body reacts before my brain even catches up, a tight little twist in my chest that I’ve come to hate.
It’s happened four times this week. Four times I’ve watched Cillian go still mid-sentence, glance at the screen, and shut down behind that cold, distant look he used to save for everyone else.
Tonight it happens right in the middle of dinner.
It’s just the two of us in the kitchen, the rest of the house quiet and empty.
We’re barely two bites into the trout the chef left for us, neither of us really tasting it, when the buzz cuts through the silence.
His whole posture shifts instantly, shoulders tightening, fork pausing halfway to his mouth.
That familiar wall slides down over his face, and just like that, he’s somewhere else.
Somewhere I’m not allowed to follow.
“I have to go,” he says, already standing.
I bite the inside of my cheek. “Right. Of course you do.” I try to keep it light, but it doesn’t quite land that way.
He leans down and kisses the top of my head, quick and absent, the kind of kiss you give when your mind is already out the door. “I won’t be long.”
He’s wrong. I know better by now, it’s two hours at minimum. Sometimes even closer to four before he arrives.
I used to fight it. Now I just let it happen.
For a while it felt like we were winning.
Quiet dinners in the kitchen, just the two of us, laughing over stupid things, stealing bites from each other’s plates like an actual couple.
For a few precious days it almost felt normal, like maybe we could keep stealing this life together without the rest of the world crashing in.
But lately he’s been slipping away more and more. Distracted. Tense. The second that phone buzzes, I lose him. And all I can do is wait here like some pathetic little wife, curled up in his bed with a book I can’t focus on, counting the minutes and hating how much I miss him the second he’s gone.
The worst part isn’t even the waiting anymore. It’s the version of him that comes back through that door, distant and closed off. Like he’s carrying secrets I’m not allowed to touch.
It’s almost eleven when I finally hear him. Not the door opening but his footsteps. It’s heavier than usual, moving fast down the hallway like he’s trying to outrun whatever is chasing him.
The second he steps into the room my stomach tightens. His jaw is locked tight, a muscle ticking under the skin, and his eyes look wild. Dark and flat and burning all at once.
“Cillian?”
He doesn’t answer. In three long strides he’s across the room, hands grabbing me, hauling me up off the bed like I weigh nothing.
His mouth crashes into mine, hard and desperate.
There’s nothing soft about it. No careful check-in, no gentle start.
Just raw hunger, like he needs to burn something ugly out of himself using me.
I kiss him back just as fiercely. I don’t know what is tearing him up inside tonight, but the way his body is shaking against mine makes me want to hold on tighter instead of pulling away.
He breaks the kiss only long enough to growl against my lips, ragged.
“Turn around. Now.”
I do.
For a second his words hit me hard. The raw possession in them shocks me, but the ache of missing him all night drowns it out fast. I want this. I want him to take me exactly like this, desperate and rough, so I turn around without another word.
He walks me straight to the edge of the bed and bends me forward, hands firm and impatient on my hips. I could ask him to slow down. I could ask what is wrong. I don’t. I need to be the place he unravels tonight.
He pulls my knees onto the mattress and yanks my hips back against him. One big hand presses down on my spine, pinning me right where he wants me. When he pushes inside me in one deep stroke, I gasp sharply. He groans, low and rough, like this is the only thing that has mattered to him all night.
“You’re mine,” he growls against my ear, voice thick and commanding as he starts thrusting hard. “Say it. Tell me you’ll always be mine and you’re never fucking leaving me.”
“I’m yours,” I moan. “Always yours.”
He fucks me harder at my words, hips slamming against me with punishing rhythm.
His hand slides around to cup my breast, fingers squeezing with that perfect pressure that makes warm milk spill over his palm and down my skin.
The steady pull on my nipple sends sparks through me even as he drives deep.
“You feel that?” he rasps, chest pressed tight to my back, breath hot against my neck. “I want you full of me. Swollen with my kid. Carrying my baby for everyone to know you’re mine. I want it right now so no one can ever take you away from me.”
I don’t fully understand the storm behind his words.
I don’t ask. I just let my body answer him, pushing back to meet every thrust, letting the slick heat between us and the warm pull on my breast take over everything else.
I don’t need to rationalize why he holds me like I might disappear at any second.
I only need to feel him, to give him this, to lose myself in the way he claims every inch of me.
When I come it tears through me so violently that my arms buckle.
He follows right after, burying himself deep with a broken groan that sounds like both relief and pain at once.
For a long moment we stay locked together, breathing hard, his hand still gently kneading my breast as the last drops of milk coat his fingers.
Afterward he pulls me tight against his chest and holds me like he’s afraid I might disappear. His arms are locked around me, almost too tight, like loosening them even a little would let me slip away.
“Cillian,” I whisper, turning just enough to see his face. “Are you okay?”
He doesn’t answer. He just buries his face in my hair and breathes in deep, slow pulls, like he’s trying to steady himself.
“You’re scaring me a little.”
Still nothing. He isn’t cold. He’s just...
gone somewhere. Like part of him is still stuck in whatever happened earlier tonight and hasn’t made it back to me yet.
I stop trying after the third stretch of silence.
Pushing never gets me anywhere with him.
Some nights all I can do is stay right here and let him hold me as hard as he needs to.
He falls asleep before I do. That’s new.
Usually I’m the one who drifts off first, safe in his arms while he stays awake longer, watching over me like the world might steal me the second he closes his eyes.
Tonight his breathing slows and evens out fast, exhaustion dragging him under while I’m still trying to settle against his chest.
I lie there for a while, my cheek pressed to his chest, listening to the steady thump of his heartbeat.
It should comfort me. Instead it makes me think about how much has changed, my mind drifts back when he mistook me for someone else entirely, to that first night on the stairs, how we have grown so comfortable with each other.
Now I dread whatever that phone keeps pulling him into, whatever is eating him alive that he refuses to share with me.
It lights up again just after midnight. The soft glow hits the ceiling above the nightstand. I try to ignore it. I really do. But the light catches my eye and I glance over before I can stop myself.
The name on the screen makes my stomach drop.
Maura.
Just her name. And underneath it, a preview of the message that lingers for a second before the screen fades to black. Something about meeting her for dinner on Thursday.
I don’t move. I stay perfectly still with my head on his chest, staring at the dark screen like it might light up again and explain itself. A cold, heavy feeling settles low in my gut. It’s nothing like the usual ache I have grown used to when he leaves. This is sharper. Uglier.
The name echoes in my head again and again until it clicks.
Maura. The woman from the gala. Poised, polished, and elegant in that effortless way that screams old money and perfect breeding.
She’s exactly the kind of woman who looks right standing beside a man like Cillian in every photograph that matters.
I remember how carefully Declan made the introduction that night, like it already meant something. They’d fit. No secrets, no shame, nothing to hide from anyone. He could take her anywhere in public without a second thought.
I can’t say the same about us.
The insecurity hits hard and fast, twisting low in my stomach. What we have will always be hidden. Stolen moments behind closed doors. But Maura could be the one he shows off. The one he’s allowed to keep.
I tell myself it could be nothing. Business, probably. Some family obligation or distillery event neither of them can avoid. Cillian has never said her name to me, not once, not even in passing. I squeeze my eyes shut and try to push the thoughts away, but they cling anyway, cold and stubborn.
I could wake him. The thought sits there as my hand hovers an inch above his chest. I almost do it.
But he’s finally still, finally breathing easy, like whatever tore him up tonight has let go for now.
I don’t have the heart to pull him back into it.
Not tonight. Not when I don’t even know what I would say. So I let him sleep.
I stare at the ceiling while the questions turn over and over in my mind.
The way some of those businessmen stare at him, cold and calculating, like they own a piece of him.
The shipping numbers Declan keeps repeating like they are code for something bigger.
The way this phone keeps stealing him away for hours and returns him to someone different. And now Maura.
I keep telling myself I’m imagining it, that I’m just being paranoid because of what we are. But deep down I know something is off.
I think about asking my mother tomorrow, keeping it casual over coffee like it’s no big deal.
Just slip Maura’s name into the conversation somehow and watch her reaction.
See if she knows her, if there’s any history there I’m supposed to already understand.
I won’t let on how much it’s actually eating at me. I never do.
Instead I settle back against Cillian’s chest and let his arm tighten around me in his sleep.
Even unconscious, he pulls me closer like some part of him refuses to let go.
I want to believe it means everything. I want to believe it’s stronger than whatever is waiting in that phone with her name on it. I’m not sure if it’s anymore.
Thursday… dinner. The words keep circling in my head, quiet and persistent.
Whatever it means, I have a feeling I’m going to find out one way or another, and something tells me I’m not going to like what I will discover.