Chapter 7
One second, I was falling, my arms wheeling, legs somehow both airborne.
The next, warm arms wrapped around my waist, halting my fall but dragging my skirt to my upper thighs.
My head thumped against a hard chest. Long, thick fingers dug into my rib cage, along the underside of my breasts.
I gripped onto that arm, dense and sinewy, even above his coat, as my legs fumbled for balance.
“Watch yourself.”
That voice. I recognized its harsh brass and no-nonsense attitude with a touch of hoarseness from the back of his throat like he rarely spoke, glazed with an Irish lilt woven with Bostonian charm. My gaze snapped up.
Cillian O’Leary’s face loomed overhead like an ominous warning. The sound of his voice was just as spine-tingling as I remembered. I’d only heard it seven years ago, and somehow never forgotten it. It still sounded like every word was both a reward and a promise of pain.
Drizzle showered down on my face and eyelashes, misting his features into a blur of dark-copper hair and harsh angles, but it was him.
I could have guessed it from his cologne alone.
A familiar mixture of leather, musk, and cardamom clung to his clothing, with an added hickory smokiness.
I never forgot a scent, and apparently, he was a creature of habit. Seven years, same cologne.
I wiped my eyes, the back of my head still against his chest, his arm tight against me.
Water sluiced down his temples, dripping onto my face like blood from fingertips.
Set against the stormy sky and his vibrant hair, his dark-blue eyes pulsed with apathetic severity and deadly secrets, ones I could spend a lifetime trying to decode.
They made me want to rip open his mind and devour the monster pacing behind his callous glare.
“Well, this is dramatic,” I said.
He grunted and jostled me upright.
The years had been kind to him. His shoulders were broader and thicker, outlined under his trench coat.
More tattoos peeked out from his sleeves and up his neck around his ears, and the block lettering along his fingers particularly stood out, which spelled láidir abú, Gaelic for strength to victory.
His face had hardened since our wedding, features sharpened and prominent, with small crease lines along his forehead and the corner of his eyes, but it suited him.
If only he didn’t look half bored to death.
I swept off the raindrops clinging to my clothes, tugged on my skirt, and adjusted my glasses. My hair was probably a sopping mess at this point, but I tried puffing some semblance of volume back into it. We were still close enough that I could count the freckles speckling his nose and cheeks.
“This was not how I expected us to meet,” I added.
“Oh?” He gazed down at his watch with complete detachment.
Now, I wasn’t overly vain, but men generally found my features attractive: blue-gray eyes, natural curls to my brown hair, high cheekbones, a narrow nose, and pouty lips, with breasts that could comfortably fill a pair of strong hands and a rounded butt that looked fantastic in a skirt.
No man I met had ever forgotten my face or name.
This man though—my legal husband—looked straight at me without a glimmer of recognition.
“You have no idea who I am, do you?”
“Should I?”
“Naturally.” I tossed my wet hair.
He cocked a brow and stepped past me. Guess that answered whether or not he’d looked me up over the years. I had no place in his life, and he’d never wanted me to.
I caught his arm.
“We’re not done here.”
“I say we are.”
Maybe that asshole tone worked on other women, but not me.
“Is that how your mother taught you to treat a lady?”
“You’re no lady.”
“Be that as it may, this is how it’s going to go.” I gave his arm a squeeze, and his eyes flicked to our connection. “You’re going to take me inside and let me buy you a drink.”
His lips twitched, which almost felt like winning an Olympic medal.
“Am I?”
“You are.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because you’re no knight in shining armor, and you’ll prove that by not buying me the beer, but letting me buy you one.”
“I’m inclined to say no.”
“But you won’t.” I sauntered closer until our chests were mere centimeters apart. I pushed up on the balls of my feet to whisper in his ear. “Admit it, you’re curious.”
“About?”
“How a woman like me just took charge.” I pulled back to look into his eyes. “Giving even a millimeter of control isn’t your thing. But somehow, beyond all reason, you like it.”
His jaw twisted from side to side. “You’re playing with fire.”
“Maybe I like getting burned.” It was better than freezing to death in this tundra he’d dropped us in, in the last seven years.
He thumbed my chin. “You a spoiled little rich girl looking for a thrill?” He clicked his tongue and pinched my skin. “Trust me, sweetheart, I’m not the kind of man you want to mess with.”
“Men like you stand behind a woman like me, not in front.” I raked my nails up and down the arm that connected us. Two of us could play this game. “You have no idea what I can handle.”
“That so?”
“It’s a promise.”
The intrigue that flickered behind his gaze took no prisoners, promised no shelter, and gave no amnesty. The corners of his eyes crinkled as his thumb trailed down my neck.
“You always this brave? Or is it recklessness?”
Maybe it was the dichotomy of his touch, both light yet dangerous, that sparked something low in my gut, like I was chasing a high before a fall. He wasn’t nicknamed the Claw for nothing, yet I still offered up my throat to this Irish mobster, under the rain, in the middle of a Boston sidewalk.
“A little bit of both chases the demons away.”
“Some demons never leave.”
“We talking about metaphorical ones or the one in your pants?”
His lips thinned. “I don’t like an easy catch.”
“Why are you convinced you’re catching anything?” I challenged, one brow raised.
He scoffed, the quick burst of emotion softening his face, before the emptiness settled back in place. He made a gesture, and a shape detached itself from the pub wall, grabbed my umbrella off the ground, and handed it to the intriguing mobster before me.
I tried not to flinch at his guard’s sudden appearance.
There was another on the other side of the doorframe.
Plastered to the wall as they’d been, like human decorations, I hadn’t even noticed them.
It was not my finest moment, but something about Cillian O’Leary grappled all my attention with both hands and squeezed.
He was larger than life, sucking away all the air around him until we all suffocated under his presence.
If I glanced away, I was sure he would rip his claws into my soul and drink down my life’s essence like a good whiskey.
He certainly looked like a good challenge, a deadly one if he bested me, but that made him appealing in a way he’d never been before.
“That drink, then?”
He lifted the umbrella above our heads. Rain battered a rhythm against its cloth to match my pumping heart.
“Tell me where you’re from.”
“Europe. Couldn’t you tell?”
I could fake a West Coast American accent if I tried, but it took effort that the shock of our encounter had made impossible. My natural accent was mixed from the number of languages I knew, but my r’s and slight nasality still gave my heritage away.
“Evasion’s not a good tactic with me.”
“But you don’t really care where I’m from. So ask me your real questions after…” I sauntered past him and his guards and opened the door. A soft bell trilled. “I’ll get myself a drink. And one for you, if you want it.”
His jaw clenched, but there was a spark of curiosity in his watchful gaze.
We each loved our control—only ten minutes in his presence, and I already knew that much about him—but there was something in him that enjoyed having it taken away too, in small doses at least. I wondered how much I could play with that, how much he would let me.
From his suit jacket, he removed a pocketknife with a ring on one end to fit his finger through and a short but thick curved blade on the other.
Huh, it made sense why they called him the Claw now.
He spun it around his thumb, eyes trying to pin me in place.
I smirked and turned away from him. Bad luck, husband dearest, I’d been immune to men’s glares and poorly veiled threats since my father forced me to watch my first torture session when I was ten.
“Give me your name.”
I chuckled over my shoulder. “That’d be too easy.”
I walked through that door and let the warmth, the loud chatter, and the smell of liquor, wood, and beer bundle me up with anticipation. Snaring targets, investors, and donors was, after all, my specialty.
With the sound of his boots thumping behind me, my lips curved up. I pulled out my phone and texted Erel.
Alizé
Get Franc to delete any video footage of me here today.
My distant cousin was a tech wizard who normally worked for my brother. That didn’t mean I hadn’t given him an odd job or two before.
Erel
It’ll raise red flags. And take time.
Adrien won’t approve.
Don’t care. Just do it.
Safety first, remember?
And do us all a favor.
Call Maeve, have a quickie, and come back zen.
For my sanity and yours.
I imagined him cursing me profusely for treating him, my brother’s second-in-command, like an errand boy, while Tessa giggled from the back seat. That stretched my mouth wider.
My inner villain rubbed her hands together.
I was starting to get an idea of the type of man my husband dearest was, beyond the file I’d reviewed and analyzed over the last couple of months.
One thing I now knew for sure, a direct confrontation with papers out would have backfired.
I needed to go at it from a different angle, and one idea sparked to mind.
Goodbye Alizé, the spurned wife. Hello Alizé, the femme fatale businesswoman.