Page 19 of Fix You

I hoped rather than believed he was right.

Chapter Three: Maeve

One Week Later

Despite wanting to be thousands of miles away back in Dublin, I found myself en route to Callum’s wedding reception in Boston. My reluctance wasn’t about not wanting to see him or his new bride. It came more from my loathing of being surrounded by people from my past.

Turning my attention from my troubles, I focused on the dapple dachshund puppy on my lap. “Murphy-Boo, are you excited to meet Callum and Caterina? Will you be the bestest boy ever when you meet them?” I cooed.

“This is fucking torture!” Eamon groaned in the seat beside me.

Cocking my brows at him, I teasingly asked, “Do you seriously have a problem with me praising my good boy?”

At my praise, Murphy’s tiny tail began wagging so furiously it looked like an airplane propeller. At any moment, I expected it to launch him right off of my lap.

Eamon snorted next to me. “That dog is a menace. He hasn’t been good a day in his life.”

Covering Murphy’s ears, I shot back, “Don’t you dare insult him like that. He’s just a baby.”

“Not only did he chew up one pair of my shoes in the hotel, but he pissed on another one,” Eamon countered.

“Like you weren’t destructive when you were a kid.”

Crossing his arms over his, Eamon argued, “I highly doubt there was ever a time I pissed on one of your shoes.”

I grinned at him. “You peed in my face when I changed your diaper.”

He laughed. “So that makes us even?”

“Maybe.”

“Bullshite,” he grinned.

“Listen to the lot of you,” Mam harrumphed from the front seat.

Eamon and I exchanged a look. Mam had been in a mood even before we’d gotten into the car. It had started a week ago when we’d received word of Callum’s unexpected marriage. Since he hadn’t been seriously dating anyone, we were intrigued, but considering how arranged marriages worked in our world, it wasn’t overly shocking.

While Mam was incensed that she hadn’t been able to attend the wedding of her first child, the true horror came in the manner of how Callum had acquired his bride from an enemy family: He, along with Quinn, Dare, and Kellan, had brokeninto a religious order and kidnapped her. Then a few days later, Callum had married her somewhere in Sicily. By the time we heard about the unexpected nuptials, Callum and Caterina were back stateside.

Although Mam had insisted on flying immediately to Boston, Callum had asked that she give Caterina a few days to get used to her new home in a new city before she was bombarded by inlaws. So, we’d been staying at the Parker House hotel while Mam and a horde of female relatives helped plan a proper Irish wedding reception for the newlyweds, which we were currently en route.

Mam’s anxious mood for today was specifically about meeting Caterina. She was so afraid Callum’s actions had poisoned his new wife against our family. After years of strife, she had great hopes for the next generation.

More than anything in the world, Mam desired grandchildren, and she didn’t want any stumbling blocks from spoiling them rotten. Therefore, she hoped Caterina didn’t despise us.

As the bulletproof SUV carrying us pulled in front of my brothers’ luxurious Boston mansion, my jovial mood shifted with one glance out the tinted window. My stomach twisted so harshly that I fought to breathe.

Over a year had come and gone since I’d been raped in the Kavanaugh crypt by Oisin O’Toole. Despite the days, weeks, and months that had passed since that horrible night, I still found myself entrenched in an emotional battle.

All the people streaming in and out of the brownstone sent my emotions into a tailspin. My skin shriveled over my bones at the thought of their intense stares.

The whispers.

The pitied looks.

And sometimes even the looks of disgust.

I could deal with crowds anywhere that I was unknown. I managed to live in a teeming city like Dublin and attend a large university like Trinity. I could bump into strangers in crowds of people, and it didn’t bother me at all.

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