Page 82 of While You Sleep

It was hard, but I managed to hold my emotions in check as I said goodbye, as I walked away and checked in to my room for the night. I took the elevator to the fifth floor, found my room, and shut the door, and even then, I refused to let the pain and fear overwhelm me. Because despite what had happened, or what Danny said, or Cillian sending me away, this wasn’t over—Cillian and I weren’t done.

I could be as stubborn as he was.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Cillian

“She’s back,” Conor said, his lips curled up.

I walked to the balcony and looked out to the front gate.

“What does she want?” I asked, my chest so fucking tight I could hardly breathe.

Conor chuckled behind me. “To talk to you.”

I rubbed my forehead, a headache building behind my eyes. Why was she doing this? Fuck, this was torture. Because of me, she’d almost been fucking shot the last time she was here. Watching Danny lead her away covered in Seamus’s blood—Jesus, for long seconds I thought that blood was hers—I gripped the railing. My fucking heart had stopped in my chest.

We’d found Sally, and she’d fallen apart, terrified, spilling the truth of what really happened that night. Seamus had been using her as a go-between to make deals with Brennan and Paolo. She’d been the one to open the gates and let him in, not Sophia. She said Sophia didn’t know Paolo would be there, that she’d been scared when she’d seen him, and he’d forced her into the car. Sophia had known nothing about her father’s plans for her. They’d been feeding Seamus’s ego, had used him to get to me, to get into my house, but they had no intention of letting him live.

I realized now, when I’d carried Sophia inside my house after we’d been shot at and found Sally standing there, the shock on her face hadn’t been about the shooting but that I was still alive.

I’d failed Sophia, in every possible way. She’d said she loved me, but still, the idea that she could truly feel that way, that she could truly want me, be in love with me, the O’Rourke monster, was so fucking…foreign, seemed so truly impossible, that believing she’d betrayed me was the more logical choice.

But she hadn’t. She hadn’t betrayed me. I rubbed the ache in the center of my chest.

Sophia lifted her hand, shading her eyes from the sun, spotting me standing here. What did she want to say to me? She should be afraid. I’d accused her of betraying me, locked her up, called her a whore, then fucked her like one. Then she’d almost been shot and I’d thrown her out of my house like she was nothing.

Yet she’d shown up for the third day in a row, demanding to speak with me. Didn’t she know I was trying to protect her? From the violence of this world, from me.

“What do you want me to do?” Conor asked.

I should tell him to send her away, like I had the last two days, but after the shit I did to her, if she came here to cuss me out or take a swing, maybe I should let her in. I owed her that much. Christ, I owed her an apology, but letting her back in this house was dangerous. She made me feel things, do things—want things, I never had before. “Let her in,” I said before I realized I was going to say it.

Conor smirked. “You might wanna get the Kevlar out.” He huffed a laugh. “Though, the way she went for Seamus when she realized he was aiming for you, I don’t think you have anything to worry about.” Then he walked out.

She had done that, hadn’t she? She’d seen him turn his gun on me and she’d run at him. She’d tried to protect me. I gripped the railing tighter as the memory flooded my mind. She could have been killed for fuck’s sake. Why would she do that?

I watched as Conor strode toward the gates, then I turned away, not sure how to deal with the storm raging in my gut, the way my heart was suddenly pounding in my chest. I squeezed my fists tight and tried to even out my breathing. I was still trying to pull it the fuck together when the door opened. Conor walked in first, then stepped aside letting Sophia in.

Christ, she was beautiful.

Conor, the fucker, winked at me from behind Sophia before walking back out and shutting the door behind him.

“Sally admitted everything,” I said before she could speak. “I know you had nothing to do with what happened that night.”

She nodded. “No, I didn’t.”

We stared at each other across the room, the seconds stretching out.

“Why are you here?” I asked, breaking the silence.

At the same time, she said, “You let me in.”

“You seemed determined to talk to me,” I said.

She took a step closer. “You don’t know why I’m here? Really?”

I studied her beautiful face. “I thought perhaps you’d like to hit me.”

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