8. Cillian
CILLIAN
Maura’s hand sits on my arm. She puts it there like it already belongs. Light. Easy. The way she always does when people are watching. I leave it like that. That’s the job tonight, and if there’s one thing I’ve always been good at, it’s doing the job.
The ballroom is packed again with the same faces from the gala.
Same men who hold my hand too long while they think about shipping contracts and who gets the inheritance.
Tonight is worse. A banner hangs over the bar with the MacCarthy crest on it.
It marks forty years of the family name.
In the next hour my father will stand up in front of all these people and announce that his son is marrying the woman beside me.
I never told him I’d do it. He’d already made the decision for me.
A silver-haired man I half recognize as one of Maura’s uncles claps me on the shoulder before I can step away. He’s grinning like someone already told him the news. “Good match, this one. Smart for the family.” He says it right in front of Maura, like she’s just another deal he’s signing off on.
“Glad you approve,” I say. I don’t even flinch. That’s the part that scares me.
Across the room, Ciara stands near the terrace doors in deep blue. She holds a glass of champagne she isn’t drinking, loose in one hand. She isn’t looking at me. That’s worse than if she were. I know exactly what it costs her not to.
“You’ve barely said a word all night.” Maura’s voice is light and amused, the same practiced warmth she used at the gala. “Should I be offended?”
“Long week.” It comes out smoother than I feel.
Maura studies me over the rim of her glass. There’s an edge under all that polish. “I can’t decide if you’re bored or planning your escape.”
“I don’t have that luxury.”
She doesn’t push. She just gives me that small knowing smile she saves for moments like this and looks back out at the room like she’s already put the answer away.
My father finds us before I can say anything else. Declan’s in his element, whiskey in one hand and satisfaction all over his face. He sets a hand on my shoulder with the same weight he’s used my whole life to push me where he wants next.
“Your grandfather and her father have been circling each other over that shipping line for twenty years. This ends it in one night.”
He says it low, just for me, the smile never leaving his face for anyone watching.
“One announcement tonight ends it. Territory settled. Routes settled. MacCarthy Distillery stops bleeding money into lawyers over those routes.” He squeezes my shoulder once, hard. “This is bigger than you and me, son. This is the family.”
“I know what it is.”
I keep my voice even. The deal’s already made in his head. It always is.
“Good man.”
He’s already turning back toward the room, searching for the next hand to shake, the next investor to charm.
As far as he’s concerned, the conversation is over.
It always is. He decides. I follow. That’s how it’s been for as long as I can remember, long before I understood what having a choice even meant.
Tonight, the weight of it settles over me all over again.
The hardest part isn’t the marriage he’s demanding. It’s pretending I can walk away from Ciara when every day away from her has only driven her deeper into my head. One decision stands between keeping my family and losing the only woman I’ve never been able to stop wanting.
Across the ballroom, I catch Ciara’s eyes for the briefest moment before she looks away.
That single glance lands harder than everything my father just said.
The distance between us is there now, plain as day. I see the hurt she’s trying to hide. I know exactly who put it there.
I find an excuse within ten minutes, something about air, about needing a minute away from the noise, and Maura waves me off without much interest, already deep in conversation with one of her cousins.
Nobody stops me on the way out. Nobody ever does.
That’s the strange privilege of being the heir.
You can walk out of any room you want as long as you walk back in eventually.
I don’t make it to the terrace.
Ciara’s already in the barrel room when I get there, arms crossed tight over her chest, standing between two rows of old oak casks in the dim amber light. She must have slipped out before me. She’s waiting.
“Ciara.”
“Don’t.” Her voice is low, and it shakes in a way that scares me more than if she’d shouted. “Don’t say my name like that’s supposed to fix something.”
“I wasn’t trying to fix anything.”
“Then what were you trying to do?” She wraps her arms tighter around herself, like she’s holding something in.
“I watched you stand next to her all night. Perfectly matched. Completely in public. And I stood on the other side of the room like I wasn’t even allowed to look too long, because I’m not, am I?
I don’t get to look at you like that. Not where anyone can see. ”
“Ciara—”
“I don’t even know what I’m asking you.” Her voice cracks, and she hates it, I can see her hate it.
“I have no right to be jealous of a woman I don’t even know.
I have no right to anything. That’s what this is, isn’t it?
I’m the part of your life that stays in barrel rooms and locked doors. She’s the part that gets the ballroom.”
“That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it?” She looks up at me, eyes bright, furious at herself for how much this is costing her to say out loud.
“Tell me I’m wrong.” Her voice doesn’t waver, but her eyes are begging me to.
“Because I know there’s something you’re not telling me.
I’ve known for days. I just didn’t want to be right. ”
A beat of silence. I don’t fill it fast enough, and she reads that silence for exactly what it is.
“There it is.” Something in her breaks quietly, no shouting left in it now. “That’s my answer.”
“I didn’t know for certain until tonight.”
“But you knew something.” She steps closer, close enough that I can see her hands are shaking.
“You’ve known something for awhile. I felt it every time that phone buzzed and your whole face changed.
Every time you went quiet and wouldn’t tell me why.
” Her jaw tightens. “You didn’t lie to me, Cillian.
You just stopped talking and shut me out. Turns out that works just as well.”
I don’t have a defense for that. She’s right, and we both know it.
“Tell me the truth,” she says. “All of it. Right now.”
So I do.
“My father’s marrying me off tonight.” I say it plain, no easing into it, because she’s earned better than a slow version. “To Maura. It ends a shipping feud between our families that’s been bleeding both sides for twenty years.”
“This isn’t the first time my father’s tried this. Three other women before this, over the years, and I never really fought any of it. I didn’t care who they picked. Some stranger off a list, it never mattered. That’s just how this family works.”
“This time it’s real.” I hold her gaze, steady. “He’s had it decided for some time. He just hadn’t told me the date yet.”
She goes very still.
“That’s what this whole night is,” I keep going, because stopping now would be worse.
“The announcement. The banner. Maura. All of it. If I refuse, I lose the company, the inheritance, my place as heir. Everything Declan’s ever handed me comes with strings, and this is the string he’s finally pulling. ”
“So it’s real.” Her voice is barely above a whisper. “It’s actually happening.”
“It was supposed to.” I close the distance between us, my hands finding her face, careful, deliberate.
“I’m not doing it. I don’t care what it costs me.
I’m not marrying Maura Kelly. I don’t want the whole empire if the price is losing you.
” My thumb brushes her cheekbone, and something breaks loose in me, wide and sudden, something I’ve been holding back for weeks without letting myself name it.
“I love you, Ciara. I don’t know when it happened.
I just know it did, and I’m done pretending all of these things matter more than you do. ”
“But….” She doesn’t move.
For one long second neither of us breathes. Her eyes search mine like she’s looking for the catch, the way out, the part where I take it back. There isn’t one. I let her see that.
She kisses me instead of answering. Hard and sudden. Both hands fist in my coat like she’s afraid I’ll vanish the second she lets go.
I catch her by the waist and back her into the space between two casks, out of sight from the doorway.
Everything I’ve been holding together all night comes apart at once.
The forced smile for Maura. The handshakes.
My father’s voice in my ear telling me how much this event matters.
All of it cracks open the second her mouth is on mine.
I’m already hard against her, aching from hours of watching her across the room and not being able to touch her.
“Someone could walk in,” she breathes against my mouth. She doesn’t stop. She doesn’t pull away.
“Let them.” I don’t mean it, not really.
Some careful part of my brain is already tracking the door, the distance to it, the noise from the ballroom, calculating exactly how much time we don’t have.
But everything else in me has stopped caring.
I’ve spent the whole night performing a life I don’t want in front of two hundred people while she stood across the room not looking at me.
I need this. I need her. I need the proof that something in this night still belongs to us.