Page 19 of Bargain with the Irish Devil

Jerk. I move the eggs around on my plate, losing my appetite.

Sighing,“Miranda, in the end, it’s better for her. They’ll find her a home. She will love the next person who gives her all the treats she wants.”

“Anything else before I go upstairs to clean?” Aoife asks.

“I’m sorry. I made my bed, but?—”

“No worries, dear. It’s my job.”She assures me with a smile as Declan shakes his head.

Once she’s gone, I immediately feel the air shift. My eyes find his on me without permission.

“You’re going to be mad at me now for the cat.” It’s not a question.

I shrug. “It doesn’t feel right to get rid of her when it’s not like I’m going to be here long.”

“Whether you’re here for two weeks or two days, it’s not an option for her to hurt you.” The words are quiet, almost solemn.

How can he say that about the cat when I have no doubt in my mind he’s going to hurt me far worse? Not physically. I don’t know why, but I never once feared he’d be violent with me. But he’s going to destroy me in a way that will hurt far worse than a fist ever could.

“I don’t want to hurt you, Miranda.” The words are soft—almost a whisper. How can he read me so easily? “If you think hiding from this will make it go away, you’re wrong. It will only become an itch you can’t scratch that will drive you mad with need.”

I can’t meet his eyes the way I feel him urging me to. Keeping my head down, I move eggs around on my plate. “I’m not built the wayyou are. I can’t…” I shake my head. “How could you be married to someone and not care when they died?”

There isn’t any anger the way I expect at me daring to question him. “Because I didn’t know her. I never cared for her. It was an arranged marriage. I was young and dumb at twenty-five.”

He shakes his head. “That’s not true. I wasn’t dumb. Meeting her, I knew we weren’t going to work. She was only eighteen and desperate to leave Ireland. All she talked about was coming to America, to Chicago. I thought we could grow to care for each other. My parents didn’t even like each other when they were married. Somehow, it turned to love. My mother adored my da, and she was the reason he got up in the morning… After she died, he was lost in his own world for years. I remember thinking I hope I never love someone that much.”

I fight to blink back tears. His thoughts on love were too close to my own thoughts after watching my father grieve my mother. How I was almost glad I didn’t love Michael the way my mother loved my father.

“She wasn’t in Chicago six months before the new wore off for her. I encouraged her to go to school. To do something with her day. But she wanted none of it. She went back to Ireland to visit. It was supposed to be a week. She didn’t come back until her da sent her back a month later. I didn’t have any patience with her. I’ll admit I could have been…niceror something. A few months later, she was gone again. I told her I didn’t care if she came back. Two weeks later, she was drunk in a car and ran into a fucking wall. The only thing I felt was relief she was the only person killed, and there weren’t any kids.”

“How old are you?” I eye the silver in his hair.

“I turned forty a few months ago.”

“Were you born here in the States? Your accent is barely there sometimes—other times, it’s super thick.” I’m curious of everything to do with this man in a way Ishouldn’tbe.

“Iwas born here in Chicago, in this house. They didn’t have enough time to get to the hospital. The lack of an accent is from my da’s insistence I attend private schools throughout my education. He knew times were changing and education and the connections I would make in school with children of men with money would be important. In private schools, everything is uniform, even the way you speak. When I went to Ireland, I caught it bad, the heckling for lack of an accent.” He chuckles at the memory.

“So you lived in Ireland?”

His nod is small. “When my mother passed, my da was out of it. I was sent to Ireland to live with an uncle.”

When his mom died? He said he was only ten when she died. How awful of his father to send him away like that. I understand even more why he felt that way about love—his father’s grief was so deep he cared more about it than his son’s own pain of losing his mother.

“I enjoyed the years in Ireland, but it never felt like home. By the time I finished school, I wanted to come back. I asked if I could. He agreed—with the commandment I continue on to university. I applied to Northwestern and got in. I moved back in here with my da, and we had a few good years before he died.”

“Northwestern? What did you get your degree in?”

A shrug of his broad shoulders. “Economics, I picked it on a lark, thinking I would change it eventually, but I never did. Much to my surprise, I grew fascinated.”

“A lark? Usually, when people pick a major as a lark, they don’t pick economics. They pick psychology.”

His smile appears again.“Psychology. Alas, the Irish put no stock in such nonsense. Fairies and saints carry more weight than Freud or Jung.”

Ican’t help but laugh.

An alert sounds from his phone. “Ryan is back. I need to leave. If you need anything while I’m gone, let Aoife or Colm know.”

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