Page 73 of Irish Reign

Iworked until 9:30 tonight. It’s getting harder and harder to draft updates for all the freeport clients. I’m running out of fishing hooks I can bait to lure in Russo.

Now, I’m lying on my bed, staring at the ceiling. When someone knocks on my door, I’m so tired I don’t bother sitting up. Instead, I just call out, “Come in.”

Mary pokes her head around the door, as if she’s afraid of what she’ll find. I try to picture the space from her perspective. There’s nothing to complain about. I haven’t put anything on the walls. My clothes are hidden in the dresser. If I weren’t lying on this bed, no one would ever know I live here.

She frowns as I force myself to swing my legs over the side of the bed.

“What?” I ask.

“Nothing.”

“It’s something, or you wouldn’t have knocked.”

She sighs and steps into the room, closing the door behind her. “We’re friends, right? I’m talking to Sam, my housemate. Not Samantha Mott, Esquire, General Counsel of Diamond Freeport?”

“Of course,” I say. But her words make me sit up straighter. I’m certain I don’t want to hear what she has to say, but I’ve never run from a fight before. “What’s wrong?”

She twists her hands like she’s wringing out a dishrag. “I… You…”

“Mary? Keep this up, and Iwilldock your pay.”

She laughs, a nervous little hiccup, which is what I intended her to do. But she also stares at the dresser, throwing out words like she’s afraid they’ll set the house on fire. “I know that when you came here, I called Mr. Kelly a bastard, and said you were better off without him. But it’s been a month now, and nothing is getting any better. You aren’t happy at home. You aren’t happy at work. You’re like some sort of ghost, or maybe a robot. There isn’t anySamthere anymore. And I see when you’re thinking about him, when your face gets all soft and dreamy and I wouldn’t say this to just anyone, I definitely wouldn’t say it to someone who wasn’t strong and determined and just plain kick-ass the way you are, but I really think you should try getting back together with him. You should try going home.”

She inhales a huge breath and then she stares at me, biting her lip, and I can’t tell if she’s trying to keep from saying more or regretting everything she’s already said.

I sigh. “You’ve been thinking about that for a while.”

She nods. “You deserve to be happy.”

“Braiden Kelly won’t make me happy.”

“You say that, but…”

Imeanthat. “I can move out by Monday,” I say.

“I’m not asking you to move!” It’s the first time she’s ever raised her voice to me, and I don’t know which of us is moresurprised. She goes back to twisting her hands. “You’re welcome to stay as long as you’d like. As long as you need. But you aren’t getting better.”

“I’m not sick.”

She ignores me. “What have you got here? You go to work. You come home. That’s it. That’s not a life.”

“I’ll help out more around the house.”

“I’m not asking for more help!” I suppose it’s easier to shout at me again, now that she’s already done it once. And this time, she’s frustrated enough that she paces my small room with tight, measured steps. “When you lived in Philadelphia, you smiled. You relaxed. It was like you went from those opening scenes inThe Wizard of Oz, from life in black and white, to the part where everything’s in color. You deserve that, Sam. Not for me. Not for Braiden Kelly. But foryou. Because you’re worth it.”

I’m mugged by a memory, hit so hard I actually gasp. Ifeela flowered skirt beneath my fingers, the silk sliding over my thighs, light and airy and alive.

“I’m sorry,” Mary says. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“No. I appreciate your looking out for me.”

“I’m sure you know what you’re doing.”

I wishIwas sure. I wish I could read the Wikipedia entry for my life, so I could understand everything that’s happened. I’d settle for being able to hear a musical score in the background of a film calledThe Samantha Mott Story, something, anything to let me know if this is a thriller or a horror movie, an Oscar-worthy epic or a love story where the hero and the heroine finally work out their differences and laugh like fools over all the time they wasted, not being together.

Braiden Kelly won’t take back what he said, just because some script says he should.

Pick up your fucking collar.

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