Page 6 of The Irish Arrangement

The Murrays. It sounded so formal. Official. Like they were strangers—and he was one. Shane Murray knocked up my mother and ran. He’d run straight into Keira’s arms and stuck with her when I was just a toddler. While I was the unwanted and tossed-aside daughter born of the woman he hadn’t wanted to stand by, my stepmother and stepsister formed a “real” family with my sperm donor.

“Tomorrow!”

For fuck’s sake. I rubbed my brow, thinking through the list of things to get done before the next day.

My phone beeped with an incoming email. “Hold, please.”

I muted the call and glanced at the incoming message.

It was another reminder of the fees to secure a place on the waitlist for Mom’s surgery.

Feeling trapped, I sighed and resumed the call.

“Fine. I’ll see them tomorrow.”

3

DECLAN

Right after Ian and I spoke with Dad, I contacted Shane Murray. He answered, confused about the direct call. His first stupid reply was why I hadn’t gone through his assistant, as though I were some plebeian who had to go through channels to reach a self-important asshole like Shane.

Then, once I identified myself, he wizened up to a proper degree of fear that I was reaching out to him at all.

When I told him under no uncertain terms that I expected Saoirse as my bride in exchange for his debt, he reverted to shock.

He hemmed and hawed, too stunned to answer with the obvious right answer to my demands, that of, yes, Mr. Sullivan, I will tell my daughter to prepare to marry you within the week. Instead, when I dictated that I wanted arrangements agreed upon within one day, he’d alternated between clamming up and stuttering, saying he’d have his “people” get back with my “people” to iron out the details.

That was forty-eight hours ago.

As if he could count on dealing with anyone but me. Ian pinned down one of the doctors who said he estimated that Dad would live for maybe a few more months at the most.

Time was of the essence. I wasn’t going to wait around for Shane’s “people” to contact my staff. It was time to escalate to a man-to-man understanding.

I would prove my father wrong. He would not die without knowing an heir stood in line to take over the Family after me.

Ian looked me up and down, inspecting my appearance as he waited near his car. I didn’t need him to come along, but having backup never hurt. I’d found that Ian could speak more diplomatically than me, anyway.

His lips twitched, but he didn’t share his thoughts.

“What?” I furrowed my brow, glancing at myself.

“You clean up… nice.”

“Shut up.” I did clean up nice. Not a spot of blood showed on my hands for once. I couldn’t do anything for the bruises, and I wouldn’t try, anyway.

“You could try smiling,” he suggested as we got in the car.

“Fuck off.” I sighed, closing my eyes for a moment as I tried to relax in the passenger seat. Last night, I'd slept like shit, and I felt every bit of my almost forty years today.

“I’m just saying,” he replied good-naturedly, used to taking shit from me. “If you’re going to meet your bride now, it wouldn’t hurt to look friendly.”

“I won’t be friends with my wife,” I deadpanned. All I needed her for was to pop out a baby.

“Try not to scare this one off before you marry.”

I shook my head. “Funny.”

“Do you think he’ll try to back out of the deal?” he asked, serious now as he drove toward the Murrays’ home.

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