Chapter 3 #2
I was a sucker for the way her Boston accent tweaked the vowels in English. No matter how I tried, I had yet to successfully reproduce it.
“You know me best.”
“How much have you had to drink already?”
“Not nearly enough for this conversation.”
“I’m guessing he’s not with you.”
“Ha, he couldn’t bolt away fast enough.”
“Are we happy about this?”
“Oh yeah, because he’s such a dreamboat. Exactly what I wanted out of a husband.”
“You know what, good riddance. I’ve heard his family is a bunch of literal psychopaths. There are even rumors going around that they kill off their wives and girlfriends.”
I laughed, finally getting my buzz on with my third, no, fourth glass of chilled wine in hand, ready for consumption.
That wasn’t damaging information. Rumors always clung to people in the underworld.
If only she knew about the number of men my dad laid to rest in the Mediterranean Sea or the number of hits my brother, Adrien, and his partner-in-crime, Erel, killed off, ever since they opened their business.
She knew enough to keep quiet, but not nearly enough to get scared off.
Four years ago, we met during our respective holidays in Croatia.
She’d paddled out of the authorized swimming zone at the Skradinski Buk waterfalls, tried climbing onto an algae-infested rock, slipped, and slammed her head on the way back down.
There were dozens of people nearby, but I was the only one to rush to reach her, drag her unconscious body to the rocky shoreline, and perform CPR until she purged a fountain from her lungs.
We then bonded over being kicked out of the national park by rangers and fined enough to feed a small island, followed by drinking our way through the bars in the nearby town over our petty problems.
I’d been escaping the pointless redundancy my life had become, always wanting but never getting my father’s approval—the latest being his condemnation of the perfumery I’d just opened.
Maeve had been avoiding her mother, who’d been hassling her to adhere to the family traditions, regardless of her wishes. The rest was history.
I shook my head and mashed the numb tips of my lips together. “I doubt that’s the real story.”
“Did he say something to you?”
“Like what? I don’t think he said…” I counted on my fingers. “…more than three dozen words to me. At most.”
“I mean, was he a dick? That why you’re alone? I’ll be churning a fresh batch of cement this afternoon, for the new construction site we just broke ground on. Want me to make some nice boots and take him for a swim in the Boston Harbor? I’d do it for you, babe.”
“You read that in a mafia how-to?”
“If it works.”
I chortled a sigh and waved the comment away. “Do not pull out the big guns just yet. He just lost his wife. I knew not to expect much. I’ll get over it.”
“You shouldn’t. You shouldn’t let this stand.”
“I’ll make the best of it. With a little time, who knows? We might be the typical arranged-marriage couple you read about in romance novels.”
“That what you want?”
I swirled the rest of my wine and peered through the liquid. It tinted everything pink. The cement tiles, the square’s statue, the cars, the buildings, the sky, and the clouds. A perfect rendition of looking through rose-colored glasses. I snorted. So much for my na?ve optimism.
“I don’t know. I’ve got my business to build and my degree to finish.
Maybe this is for the best. I don’t have to move continents.
It also means I don’t have to deal with an emotionally constipated man who can’t get over the woman he did love.
And no popping out babies I’m not ready to handle.
” I sat up. “Yes, you know what? This is actually the best thing to come out of today. I’ve done my part, paid my dues, and now I can be who and what I want, not what my family needs. ”
“Good for you, babe. Stick it to them all.”
I raised a fist to the air. “Exactly. Yes.”
“But what about what comes after? You’re still married.”
“After?”
“You can’t expect to live separate lives forever.”
“That sounds horribly, terribly lonely. No.” I tossed my head from side to side, a pleasant tingle flushing my face. “Non, I do not want that.”
“Just don’t expect love, babe. People like him don’t really seem made for it.”
My parents’ relationship proved that wasn’t true, but I bit my tongue to avoid arguing with her.
“I’ll deal with it one day. Just not yet. Not today. Right now, I’m getting drunk and forgetting this day ever happened to begin with. Tomorrow, I push my life forward. On my own terms.”
Because there was no one left for me to please or disappoint, except myself.
I was a married woman, and as far as my family was concerned, they didn’t need to know more than that.
I was formally attached, yet blissfully not.
This was a good thing. At least it would be, once I managed to drown this swirl of hurt blistering my insides with more wine.
For the first time in my life, I could focus on myself.
Cillian O’Leary wanted nothing to do with me.
Great, because the truth was, I didn’t want, need, or choose him.
I chose myself. I chose the woman who had always been overlooked for her traumatized brothers.
I chose the woman who bent over backward to learn six extra languages to be noticed and useful, only for it to be considered trivial.
I chose the woman who grew up learning how to charm a roomful of businessmen to gain an advantage but wanted to be more than a pretty face wrapped in silk.
And I chose the woman who was forced to manage her own anxiety and panic attacks growing up because her trauma was the lesser of evils compared to her siblings’.
So in a way, I owed Cillian O’Leary. He freed me from the constraints tying me down. His rejection allowed me to take flight and spread my wings.
I just never thought our wedding day was going to be the first and last time I’d talk to him for the next seven years.