Chapter 23
LIAM
“Ready?”
Rowan tugs her bobble hat lower over her ears and nods.
She’s wary, and who can blame her? I haven’t exactly covered myself in glory since I snatched her in London, left her languishing in a warehouse before bringing her to Ireland where I locked her up for several days.
She used to look at me with adoration, and now her eyes flit away from mine, unwilling to lock gazes.
It’s either the Erin persona she’s clinging to with the tips of her fingers, or the feisty no-nonsense woman I used to know is gone for good.
Fuck, I hope to God it’s the former. That I can break. That I can make disappear with the right strategy and enough time to knock out every brick in the wall she’s erected.
Sorcha’s words have been circling my mind all day. I cannot think of a single scenario where another man is scarier than I am, to Rowan at least. I doubt it’s true, but she believes it, and until she shares what it is she’s so scared of, there isn’t much I can do.
There’s barely any wind tonight, so although it’s cold, we’re not battling a force nine gale and wind chill that shears the skin off your face. There’s a direct route to the pub, but I’m taking the indirect route. There’s somewhere I want to take her first.
We’re both out of breath by the time we reach the top of the hill. The moon illuminates the lake below, casting white streaks over the water.
She’s shivering, and before I can stop myself, I reach out to tuck her scarf tighter around her neck.
The wind bites at my face, making the sensitive scar tissue on my cheek ache with the cold. It’s a dull, pulsing reminder of the gap between the younger me who used to come here and the broken man standing here now.
My knuckles graze the sensitive skin beneath her ear, and she doesn’t flinch, she stills.
I focus on the way her eyelashes sweep against her cheeks, the tiny crystals of frost clinging to her hair, how pink the tip of her nose is.
Here and now, under the Irish moon, there is no kidnapping and no betrayal, no lies or pretense.
There is only the response of her skin jumping under my touch, and the way my heart beats for her.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
She pulls in her lips and nods. I study her profile. The slight bunching of skin around her eyes, the muscle twitching in her cheek, the way she’s locked her jaw to stop a sliver of the truth from spilling out.
“I used to come here with Rowan. We’ve had sex right here in the spot you’re standing on.”
She kicks at something invisible on the ground. “I thought you believed I was Rowan.”
“Oh, I do. But you don’t.” I exhale through my nostrils, my breath swirling around me in the bitter cold. “I was thinking about your amnesia.”
“I never said I had amnesia. You said that.”
Irritation crawls into my bloodstream. I don’t have the patience for this, but as the aggressive approach hasn’t worked, tamping down my anger at this fake fucking story is worth a shot. Won’t be easy though.
“Okay, let’s assume for a second that your name is Erin, how do you explain the fact that you look exactly like my former girlfriend Rowan? And I don’t just mean resemble. I mean exactly. And before you try that doppelg?nger shite again, don’t.”
“I-I can’t explain it.” She turns to me and briefly meets my gaze, then shifts her attention slightly off center. “Look, you have to let me go back to London.”
“Why?”
A one-note laugh bursts out of her. “Why? Let me see. Because kidnapping is illegal.”
“In my world, laws are only obstacles to climb.”
“Well in my world, breaking them can land you in a whole heap of trouble.”
“Good thing we’re in my world then, isn’t it?”
She covers her nose and mouth and blows into her hands. “This is insane.”
I heave a sigh. We’re getting nowhere, and for one of the rare times in my life, I don’t know what to fucking do. “How about that drink? It’s pretty cold out here.”
“You don’t say,” she mutters, giving me another brief flash of Rowan. My chest aches, and my heart is in constant pain. Somehow, I have to find a way past her story and get to the truth. It’s the only way I’ll have a chance of getting her back.
Yes. Fine. I admit it, if only silently and to myself. I still love her. I never fucking stopped. But I will be damned if I let my feelings get in the way of the truth. It doesn’t matter what it costs me; the truth is a price worth paying.
The warmth hits me the second I open the door.
The pub is packed, but I’m a Mahoney and these are locals, which means the couple sitting in the two armchairs on either side of the roaring fire get up and move the second they clock me.
Curious eyes scrutinize Rowan, but less than thirty seconds later, their interest wanes and they return to their companions.
I place my hand on her lower back, easing her farther inside. She doesn’t flinch, but she does shift to the side, a silent “your touch is not welcome” message that feels like a blade to the heart.
“Liam. Twice in less than a week. I’m honored. What can I get ye?”
“What do you want to drink?” I ask her.
“Do they do hot chocolate?”
Fuck knows. I arch a brow at Jack. There’s a petrol station down the road. If he doesn’t have hot chocolate, he can send one of the bar staff to get it.
“Aye, love. I can make that for ye. Whipped cream?”
“No. Thank you.”
I jerk my chin at the vacant chairs. “Go and sit by the fire. I’ll bring them over.”
She side-eyes me, waiting for the punch line that doesn’t come. Frowning, she walks to the fire and sits in the chair on the right, pulling on the fingers of her gloves to remove them.
“Whiskey for me,” I say. “Large.”
“Nice girl.”
“And if you want to keep your eyes, that’s the one and only time you’ll look at her.”
Jack chuckles, unperturbed by my threats.
I glare at him. “I fucking mean it. This one is not for staring at.” No, she’s for getting on my knees and fucking worshiping—which I will as soon as she admits who she really is.
He mutters an apology and fetches our drinks. I carry them over to the fire and set them on the table. “Here you are. Hope that’s okay.”
Her eyes narrow. “I’m sure it’s fine.” But she doesn’t touch it.
“I promise there’s no arsenic in it.”
I smile. She ignores me, staring into the fire.
“So, Erin, tell me about your life in England. Did you like working in a pub?”
The words sound stilted even to me. Small talk is not something I’m proficient in. Nor do I have any interest in becoming proficient. But if putting myself through this fucking charade gets results, I’ll suck it up.
“Yes.” Her voice is small, eyes down. Erin is back in the fucking room. “I liked talking to the customers.”
“Those customers?” I feign surprise. “In that pub?”
The faintest smile curves her lips. It’s only there for half a second, but it punches a great fucking hole in my chest. I got a smile out of her. Better than winning the fucking lottery.
“They were a little rough around the edges, but they were nice to me.”
Just as well. If she’d said they were cunts, I’d have found out who each and every one of them were and jammed a knife between their ribs.
“What did you do outside of work?”
“Read, mostly. Went for walks along the Thames. Nothing earthshattering. Just a normal life.”
Sounds boring as fuck to me. It also sounds like someone trying to make themselves small.
“What about friends?”
She studies me for a long moment, eyes calculating. “Wondering if anyone will miss me and raise the alarm?”
“Not in the slightest.” I pick up my whiskey and take a sip, keeping my eyes on her. She looks away first. How disappointing. These flashes of Rowan are like drops of poison. Each one accumulates in my bloodstream, slowly killing me.
Finally, she picks up the hot chocolate and blows across the top before drinking it. She keeps her hands wrapped around the mug and sets it in her lap. “I had one friend, Willow. But I don’t really have a big social circle.”
At last. A sliver of truth. Rowan didn’t have a big social circle.
She was content with it only being us. We were enough for one another.
Anyone else would’ve been an intrusion, someone to draw our attention away.
Just as well she didn’t have tons of friends.
Disappearing when you have lots of buddies wouldn’t be easy.
With her mother dead and her father a cowardly bastard who ran out on her mother before Rowan was born, the only person who’d have missed her was me.
And I did. Fuck, how I did. Even with that letter, I still looked for her, hoping that one day I’d stumble upon her. But never in my most outlandish dreams did I think that this is how we’d reunite. With her pretending to be someone else for reasons she won’t tell me.
That girl is terrified, Liam. Whatever is going on with her, she is barely holding it together.
A rush of sorrow hollows out my chest. If what Sorcha said is true and she disappeared to protect me, yet can’t tell me why, then I failed her. I fucking failed her, and it kills me.
I want to scream at her to just fucking tell me. That whoever she’s scared of, I am not. That whoever is keeping her playing this part should fear me, not the other way around.
“You didn’t eat much at dinner. How about a slice of that pie I told you about.”
Her eyes light up. The pleasure I see there doesn’t last long, but it burns itself into my memory.
“I would like that.”
We eat pie and order another round of drinks, but as much as I try to get Erin to talk, she only answers with one or two words, and I’m not skilled enough to charm more out of her.
“Are you done?” I jerk my chin at her mug, my voice harsher than I meant it to be. “It’s okay if you’re not. There’s no rush.”
“No, I’m done.” She stands to put on her coat, but her arm gets stuck.
“Here, let me.” I hold it out for her, and she slides her arm inside.
As I pull the coat up, my finger brushes her skin.
She gasps, but unlike earlier when she moved away, this time she doesn’t.
I hold back a groan. The temptation to kiss her there gnaws at me, but if I do, I risk pushing her further away rather than pulling her close.
Christ, I want to pull her close.
We scythe through the now-crowded pub. A guy making his way to the bar shoulder barges Rowan. I catch her elbow, steadying her.
“Watch where you’re fucking going,” I snap.
“Sorry, love,” he mutters, but instead of carrying on to the bar, he stops and stares at her. It’s only for a second, but it’s enough for all the blood to drain from her face.
“Keep looking at my girl and you’ll lose both your fucking eyes,” I snarl.
He almost sprints the short distance to the bar. Jack smirks and leans closer to say something to him, probably telling him he just got lucky. Meanwhile, all I have rolling around my mind is my girl. My girl. My fucking girl.
Rowan grips my arm. “I’d like to go, please.”
Without hesitation, I catch her hand and tow her outside. After the warmth of the pub, the cold air hits me like a blast from a deep freeze. The wind has picked up, too, cutting through my coat like it’s made of paper rather than wool.
Rowan stuffs her hands deep in her coat pockets, hunching against the wind. She’s trembling.
“Did you know that guy?”
She shakes her head. “He… he reminded me of someone. That’s all.”
“Who?”
“It’s not important.”
“Then why are you shaking?”
“Because it’s freezing. Can we please just go?”
More lies, but this time, it’s not anger I feel. It’s a burning need to protect the woman I once loved from whatever she’s terrified of. And the only way I can do that is if I earn her trust.
Rowan goes straight to bed when we get back. I pour myself a drink and try to make sense of the evening. There was a subtle shift tonight, small and possibly insignificant, but my gut tells me it was more. Something to build on, to show her I’m on her side.
But her reaction in the pub was telling. Whatever she’s terrified of, it’s catching up to her.