Page 188 of Forced Vows

"That might work with Band-Aids and waxing my pubes, but this isn't that. People with actual emotions take time to adjust to emotional changes. You and your brother can't just rip me away from my cousins, from my whole life and think that's okay."

"I'm not ripping you away from anyone. You can see them when you like."

"So I can leave right now and go visit my cousins?"

"You know you can't. Don't be childish."

"Let's get one thing straight, Mr. Made Man, every time you get frustrated with me or angry or whatever the heck is going on here, you do not get to accuse me of being childish. I may be twelve-and-a-half years younger than you, but from where I am standing, I am the one with the emotional maturity. You are the one with stunted growth in that department. "

It's a lot to say in one go and I feel kind of bad saying it, but if we're going to build a relationship that works, it starts with both trust and honesty. He's been working on the trust. I'm working on the honesty.

And communication.

Yeah, he's got a ways to go on that one.

He doesn't reply.

"Nothing to say?"

"I'm mulling it over. You might be right."

The admission disarms most of my residual anger and that makes me mad all over again. What is with this guy?

Love and hormones have a lot to answer for. I'm just saying.

"I need a say about the important decisions in our life," I add when the silence stretches and stretches.

"You can decorate this place any way you want. Make it our home."

That is not an answer. "Seriously? Could you be any more of a chauvinist? What if I don't want to decorate this place?"

And no amount of interior design can fix the basic flaw of the apartment's isolation.

When I tell him that, he says. "We have barracks two floors down for the single soldiers on our elite teams."

"Barracks?" I practically screech. "That is no better than offices. It's not like I'm going to spend time with mafia soldiers chatting over coffee. Or watching movies."

"You sure as fuck won't!"

"Are you being deliberately obtuse?"

"You're not going to be isolated, Róise. You can have your friends over. Your cousins can come to stay. Your grandmother too. They just won't live here with us."

Which is exactly the problem. "I'm going to do this whole place up in every shade of pink I can find."

He laughs. Not a chuckle, but a freaking belly laugh.

He's so different like this, I sit entranced watching him until he grabs me and kisses me like he can't get enough of me.

I'm dazed when he lifts his mouth from mine. "Make it as pink as you want, as long as you are the one doing it."

"You better watch out or I'm going to think you like me."

A lot.

Does he? I never had the high school crushes my friends did. It just wasn't an option in my situation. I couldn't bring boys to the Shaughnessy mansion because I was going to school as Rosy Aisling.

For my own safety, I couldn't socialize a lot away from home either. So, yeah, I'm attached to my cousins. Sue me.

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