Page 62 of With One Kiss

Cillian shrugged, the smile still on his face. “Is that a yes?”

“It’s funny,” I said. “There was a moment back there where I wished for a fairy godmother to sweep in and make the impossible possible. I just never had you down as being that person.”

“That’s a yes, right?”

“I’d be stupid to turn it down, so yes.”

I barely got my reply out before Cillian pulled a phone from his pocket and made a call. “You can come in now.”

I steeled myself for Mac, but it was a diminutive Indian woman who entered the room. Her trousers and top were of a Western style, but the colors weren’t, the bright turquoise and magenta, and the embroidered flowers reflecting her heritage. “Laurent, Amrita. Amrita, Laurent,” Cillian said with accompanying jerks of his head in the appropriate direction.

I revised my opinion of her as diminutive as she turned her gaze my way. Small in stature, she might be, but there was something in her brown eyes that warned me she wasn’t somebody to be trifled with. And it wasn’t often I thought that about somebody. Her grip was as firm as any man’s when she shook my hand. Finn had once described Cillian’s PA as his secret weapon. I’d thought he was prone to wild exaggeration. Now, within ten seconds of meeting her, I could tell this was a formidable woman.

“I’ve heard a lot about you,” I told her.

She cocked her head to one side and, in flawless French, asked, “What percentage of it was bad?”

I responded in kind. “That depends on your definition of bad.”

She laughed. “Sounds about right.” She held up a folder and switched to English. “So… yours truly has done all the research on rehab facilities and narrowed it down to three possibilities. There were five, but when I called, the earliest space the other two had was a week from now, and we’re looking at immediately, right?” Both Cillian and I nodded.

Amrita opened the folder and read from a piece of paper. “Okay. So, first up, we have the Betty Ford clinic. It’s renowned for being the best, with an eighty percent recovery rate, but that would involve a flight to California.”

I liked the sound of the eighty percent recovery rate. I did not, however, like the thousands of miles that lay between here and there. “It’s too far.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Amrita said. “Which is why I kept looking. The next candidate is the Clinic Les Alpes in Switzerland. It specializes in individual treatment plans and boasts panoramic views of the Alps.”

“Sounds expensive,” I said.

Cillian waved it away. “The cost doesn’t matter.”

“The third one?”

Amrita checked her piece of paper again. “Delamere Health in Cheshire, England. Plenty of amenities and activities, including equine therapy and yoga. It has excellent reviews.”

“There,” I said. “I think my father would rather like to return to England.”

She looked to Cillian, and he nodded. “Set it up for however long they advise. And organize a flight ASAP. We’ll need to come up with someone to escort him, but we can sort that out once we have a flight time.”

She pulled a mock salute and left the room to leave us alone again. “She seems like quite the woman,” I said.

“She is. I wouldn’t be where I am today without her in my corner. The only person I trust more than Amrita is Finn.”

I tried to find something cutting to say and came up short. Cillian smirked like he’d read my mind. “Thank you,” I said instead.

His smirk grew into a full-blown smile. “Was that difficult to say?”

“It was,” I admitted.

“Good.”

An awkward silence followed. “I should go and tell my father what we’ve decided. Keep him in the loop.”

“You should,” Cillian agreed. “And talk to Mac, please. Tell him you understand why he did what he did.”

The man in question had his arms braced on the back of the sofa when I left the office. He jerked upright when the door opened, his expression one of concern. “Are you okay?”

“I will be.” I didn’t offer him anything more before returning to the spare bedroom where my father still sat to impart the news.

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