Chapter 36
Chapter Thirty-Six
LIAM
There’re so many things I wanted to say. So much anger, resentment and pain whirling around inside my heart and my head that I want to let out, but I can’t.
I can’t think. I can’t move. I can barely breathe, looking at Isla’s beautiful face, how pale and thin she looks.
She sniffles, getting herself together, and slowly walks toward me.
I should step back. I should stop her, but when her small arms go around me and hug me, all I can think of is how badly I want to draw her in my arms and kiss her until all of these feelings go away.
I don’t hug her back, but she pulls away, wiping at her face, seeming satisfied.
“Now that you’re all here, I can tell you the reason I left.”
I scoff, finally coming back to myself. “As if we need a reason? You were our prisoner.”
She turns her watery hazel eyes to me. “I was, and it sucked, but still, most of the time, I didn’t feel like a prisoner.”
“Then why did you go, mo chuisle?” Cillian’s words are low and desperate, tears in his eyes.
I’ve never seen him like this. I thought he was taking it well, better than me or Dare, but it seems like he’s been as torn up about this as we have been.
I don’t know if it pisses me off or if it’s a relief.
“I’m a reporter.”
Anger rushes over me, my head pounding with it.
“A fucking reporter?”
She winces at my raised voice, and I automatically tone it down.
All we need is for different state cops who aren’t in my pocket to show up.
“So, what, this was all for some big story?”
She whirls around to face me, the green in her hazel eyes blazing. “Don’t you think if that was it, I would’ve escaped weeks ago?”
“Maybe you couldn’t. Maybe you were biding your time.” I know she’s right.
There's something else. Maybe it’s about her father, but I know she didn’t just leave for a story.
“Liam, please. Hear her out,” Cillian pleads, and I huff out a breath but stop talking, crossing my arms over my chest.
What possible reason can she have that will make any difference?
“Okay, so this is really hard to say.” She paces around in a circle.
“Just say it, Isla,” Dare pipes in, sounding tired and defeated. “Just say who you’re choosing.”
I stiffen. “Choosing?”
Isla groans. “It’s not like that. Dare is under the impression I’ve chosen one of you.”
I take a step forward, my heart flipping around in my chest. “And have you?”
Cillian doesn’t speak, looking down at the floor.
“No! Of course not.” She bites her lip, looking away so that she’s not looking at any of us. “I couldn’t if I wanted to. This isn’t about that.”
“Then what is this about?”
“I… I’m…” She clears her throat and takes a deep breath. “I’m pregnant, and I have no idea which of you is the father.”
The words fall over me like an ocean wave, threatening to take me under.
“You’re not fucking serious.” Dare’s voice is as low and dangerous as I’ve ever heard it.
“Pregnant? Mo chuisle...” Cillian sounds shell-shocked but not angry.
“I’m telling the truth.” She takes a shaky breath.
“I took a test a few days before I left, and it was positive. I didn’t know what to do, so I left because I knew you’d all be upset, and because I just didn’t know how to handle it.
Plus, I don’t want to raise a child in that life. I grew up that way and...”
She closes her mouth, sighing muffled by her lips. “I’m babbling.”
“And you don’t know whose it is?” Dare accuses. “How could you—”
“How would I know, Dare, huh? Not exactly like we kept up with my cycle, and none of you used protection.”
“Oh, Isla…” Cillian walks toward her, but I can’t speak.
I’m struck silent again, because all I can think about is a little girl with Isla’s hazel eyes, or maybe a little boy with my smile.
What if it’s mine? What if I have a chance to raise a child outside of the clan?
I could do it. Isla and I could be together, maybe put my father in a home, move far away so that Cormac couldn’t reach us. We’d be... a family.
But what about Cill and Dare? They’re my best friends, and they want her, too. One of them could also be the father.
“Liam.”
The sound of my name brings me back to reality.
Isla walks up to me, taking her hands in mine.
“Liam, you have to say something.”
“I need....” I take a breath, pulling away from her. “I need some time to think.”
I stalk out of the room, slamming the door, and head downstairs. The receptionist, a bald, fat man looks at me like I’m crazy.
I brace my hands on the desk, staring at him, and he steps back.
God knows what expression is on my face, but it can’t be good.
“Is there a bar here?”
“It’s connected to the building.” He clears his throat and points to a door on the other side of the lobby. “Just go through there.”
“Thank you.”
I walk through the door, striding to the bar instantly and sitting down.
“Double whiskey, and keep them coming.” I lie a hundred-dollar bill down on the table, and the bartender sweeps it up with his eyes raised.
“What kind of whiskey?”
“Whatever Irish whiskey you have on the shelf.”
The bartender pours me a double shot, sliding it to me.
I shoot it back like water even though I flinch afterward as it burns down my throat.
I’m not a drinker. Even after Isla left and the bottle called to me, I didn’t give in. I usually hate the way it makes me feel, numb and emotional somehow at the same time, but I’m craving something other than the awful way I’m feeling.
I hail for another, and the bartender raises an eyebrow but pours it. I shoot it back, and when she pours me another, she catches my eye.
“Are you… okay?”
“Aye,” I answer, and her face changes when she hears my accent. I have a light one, but it starts to slip into a heavier brogue when I’m upset or tired. Or drunk, apparently.
I wouldn’t know. I’ve never really been drunk, except for once in high school with Cill that I don’t really remember.
I flash her a smile and place another hundred on the counter. She gives me a bright smile and shrugs, sweeping it into her apron.
Maybe she’d be cute if I wasn’t so in love with Isla. I haven’t thought about another woman since the day I met her.
And I’ve never thought about having kids. Not once. I know what kind of lifestyle they’d grow up in, know the target I’d be putting on their back.
But with Isla—she's not in the life, but she came from it. She knows how to disappear, clearly, since even Dare had taken this long to find her, and Cormac doesn’t have anyone nearly as good as him in their clan.
If we just took off…
I can do my job from anywhere, and I make millions every month.
Everything could be good. Everything could be… different.
But what if it isn’t mine? What if it’s Cillian’s, or even Dare’s? With how crazy they both are about her… If she’s pregnant by one of them, she’ll never choose me.
And now that alcohol is finally fuzzing my brain, I know that I do want her to choose me. I want her to know how much I care about her, how I want to protect her.
I don’t even know when it happened, when I fell for her… It just did.
First, I’d just wanted her, wanted to make her come, wanted to be buried inside her. The next thing I knew, I was talking about a book series with her that we’d both read, bantering with her while I made her lunch.
I fell for Isla so gradually that it felt like breathing, and now... now it’s like I can’t breathe at all.
I look down into the pale whiskey in the glass, my vision blurring at the edges from four shots. I’m a big guy, but I don’t drink much, hardly ever more than a glass I nurse at a meeting or a gala.
I make eye contact with the bartender, and she smiles, and I shoot back another drink.
I want to forget Isla Quinn ever existed for a few hours, and then I’ll figure out what the hell to do.