CHAPTER 3
Roxanne
The plane dipped through a ceiling of grey clouds as the city emerged below. Ireland greeted me the way it always did—wind that felt personal, damp cold that slipped beneath clothing like it belonged there, and skies that never fully decided to be day.
I stepped out of the airport and pulled my coat tighter, breath fogging the air. The cold slid beneath my clothes and settled into my bones, immediate and bracing. Foreign. Necessary.
Like a place that didn’t care who you were, only whether you could endure it. Harsh enough to quiet everything else.
Ireland always did this. Stripped things down to stone and weather. I muttered under my breath, tugging the collar higher. Of course. Cold, damp, and unapologetic.
My phone vibrated before I reached the car.
A smile tugged at my mouth.
I huffed softly, sliding into the backseat.
I shook my head, warmth blooming somewhere behind my ribs. His words carried the same mix of authority and tenderness that always wrapped around me. Let me go without letting go. It was his way of loving me—never chains. Just the assurance that someone would always be waiting when I came home.
I caught my reflection in the darkened window as the car pulled away—tired eyes, familiar face—a woman who looked steadier than she felt.
I thought of the morning I’d left—his hands warm and certain at my waist, the way he’d taken me slow and then urgent before dawn, still hummed in my body.
The way he’d kissed my temple instead of my mouth, like he knew I needed grounding more than fire.
Romano’s sleepy arms around my neck, clinging like he’d never let go.
And Kyra already buzzing about Sophie and everything they needed to “discuss.”
Leaving hadn’t been easy. It never was. Even the monthly trips to Ireland were hard. I was already starting to miss them, miss him. But he knew how important my work was to me. It kept me moving when my thoughts became too crowded.
My work wasn’t a distraction. It was proof.
Proof that I still existed outside love. Outside motherhood. Outside survival. Designing was the one place I didn’t feel split into pieces. It was where progress could be measured in beams and plaster instead of words unsaid.
The cottage sat tucked against the edge of a hill—a fifteen-minute drive from the manor. It smelled faintly of woodsmoke and old pine, low beams, and amber light spilling from the windows like honey across the floorboards.
Quiet and intentional.
Marcello had arranged everything. Of course he had.
Still, I double-checked the locks out of habit.
Some instincts never left once they learned how to live inside you.
Marcello had never been the kind of man who hovered.The men who watched me—if they existed—never followed close enough to be seen. They never interfered. Never made themselves known. They stayed where they always had. Far enough to let me live. Close enough to make sure I kept breathing.
Or maybe that was just what I told myself so I could sleep.
I unpacked slowly, methodically. Lining things up. Folding and refolding. Small rituals of control that kept my thoughts from scattering.
The stillness here felt different. Less loaded. Not watchful. It didn’t press against my ribs or wait for me to fail.
By the time I reached the manor the next day, the weather hadn’t eased. Neither had the work. Ritu met me at the gates, her grin wide, her energy infectious, hair in a messy knot and tablet already in hand.
Together we walked the halls, my brain automatically slipping into designer mode.
Blueprint. Sightlines. I surveyed the unfinished plaster, the rooms where wallpaper and colour would temper the austerity.
I imagined how the light would travel at dusk, light fixtures warming corners that still felt skeletal.
The upper floor still needed work. Recent rains had collapsed one of the old support beams.
I could already see velvet in the west wing. Ash wood floors. Lamps that would make the stone feel like skin instead of bone.
Rooms always told you what they needed if you listened long enough. Not in words, just in the way light avoided corners, in the way sound fell flat or bloomed.
The place smelled faintly of peat smoke and old polish. Like generations had tried to warm it and only ever managed to soften it. Some spaces begged for warmth. Others demanded temperance. And sometimes I trusted spaces more than I trusted people.
From the outside, the manor stood proud, its symmetry untouched, its walls still standing. Inside, shadows lingered in corners that refused to give up their secrets.
I understood that kind of architecture. Looking whole while something darker lived silently beneath the surface.
“You came at the perfect time,” she said, looping her arm through mine as we walked the grounds. “If we push hard this month, we’ll still make the deadline.”
The manor rose around us—old stone, stubborn lines, history etched into every surface.
Wind scraped across the stone like it was trying to sand it down into dust. Salt lived in the air this close to the coast—faint, metallic, clean in a way that made everything else feel temporary.
Beautiful in a way that demanded respect.
I slowed near the main staircase, running my fingers over the bannister.
“I still can’t believe your uncle left this to you.”
Ritu snorted, like the word uncle left a bad taste in her mouth.
“It’s the least he could do,” she said. “After spending most of his life treating me and my mum like we were… temporary guests.”
I glanced at her. She shrugged, eyes scanning the ceiling like it bored her.
“Thank God he never married. Never had kids. Because honestly?”She huffed a dry laugh.
“Those kids would’ve been all shades of fucked.”
I exhaled slowly, looking up at the high ceilings again.Some inheritances were apologies. Some were ghosts dressed as property.
We talked logistics, furniture, timelines. Problems with solutions. With every measurement, every sketch, my shoulders loosened. Work steadied me—it was rhythm, structure, something I could fix with my own hands.
That evening, Ritu leaned against her car, eyeing the sky like it had personally betrayed her. It was already dark even though it wasn’t that late—clouds swallowing whatever sunlight Ireland had bothered to offer that day.
“You realise you’ve landed during the worst week, right?” she said.
I arched a brow. “Rain?”
“Halloween,” she corrected, grinning. “Most of the workers will be off tomorrow. Which means”—she clapped once— “we’re going out.”
I laughed. “No.”
“Oh, don’t start,” she waved me off. “Bar hopping. Then a club. A friend owns it. Loud, harmless, the kind of night that promised forgetting.”
“Didn’t you say you wanted the handover in a month?”
“There’s always more work to do. Let’s let loose,” she looked at me with puppy eyes. “Please.”
Ritu met me at the cottage the next evening, with coffee and a sinful dress.
“I got you something hot, mommy.”
“Ritu.” I gasped. “Damn woman, what do you think I’m twenty?”
“Age is just a number,” she said, waving her hand in dismissal. “Now get out of those shorts and doll up for me, will you. I’ve got us some fake blood too for makeup.”
She winked and swatted my ass as I went to change.
The black dress clung like a second skin, hem grazing my thighs, neckline dipping low enough to remind me I was still a woman before I was a mother. I’d pinned my hair up with a black satin bow, letting the rest fall in loose waves to my back.
The gossamer lace sleeves slid over my arms like smoke, fragile, whispering around my fingers, delicate as breath.
“What’s taking you so long—” Ritu stood stunned in the doorway.
“Fuck Roxy, I’d hit that ass in a dress like that.”
Heat warmed my cheeks. I had Marcello to thank for that. His relentless “training sessions”—equal parts defence and desire—had toned my body in ways no gym ever could. I was soft where I wanted to be, still curvy, but stronger now. Firmer.
Ritu had dressed as a vampire’s bride, her makeup done with fake blood dripping from her fake fangs. She quickly did my makeup to look like my throat was slit and blood spilled over to the mounds of my breasts peeking through the neckline.
“That’s for you.” She handed me a black laced masquerade mask. “The last club we head to is throwing a masquerade party.”
I took it and tucked it in my purse, applied my strawberry lip gloss over the bright red lipstick Ritu had plastered on my lips. I sent out a quick text to Marcello.
I was grinning ear to ear. Heat curled low in my stomach.
I slipped the phone into my purse and followed Ritu out into the Irish night.
The wind had sharpened.
Somewhere in the city, music pulsed.
And for reasons I couldn’t explain, a strange anticipation settled beneath my skin. A restless feeling I hadn’t experienced in a very long time. Like some forgotten part of me had just opened its eyes.