Page 21 of Irish Fire and Forbidden Love
Oh, that hurt. It was an ache that started in my heart and clawed its way up my throat. I only just managed to ask, “What happened?”
“She left him. He wasn’t the same afterward. At least not for a while. Funny you’d have the power to do that to him.”
I swallowed hard, then turned back to the door. “The thing is, you’re wrong. He doesn’t care about me. I was just a tool for him. So you won’t see him around here. Like I said, you’d be better off waiting at your hotel.”
I opened the door. He stood up slowly, achingly slowly, then he moved right in front of me. Him towering over me like an elephant to a mouse, and I smelled his sour breath, one of long plane rides and too little sleep.
Then he gave me that smile again—that one without bringing in his eyes and said in a soft, subtle tone, “Maybe you’re right, but a bar is much more fun than a hotel room. I think I’ll stay here for a while.”
He stepped around me, opening the door, then closing it softly. It was only then when he was gone that I could breathe, though his scent still lingered.
I could have left it at that. Stayed in my office until it was my time to sing, if that ever happened. I could have devoured tax forms and sifted through bills, but my hand reached for the phone instead and the sticky note I still had placed on the receiver. A sticky note with Rory’s phone number. I dialed it and placed the phone up to my ear.
A man picked up, but it wasn’t Rory.
“Hello?” the man said, then in the background, someone was shouting about switching the phone off, and the phone went dead even before I had a chance to respond.
I called the phone again, a third, a fourth— each time it went straight to voicemail. It probably meant nothing. If anything, Rory might have gone to a pub after our fight. He probablygot drunk and left his phone. It happened plenty of times here, but something about the voice hadn’t sat right with me, or the person yelling in the background.
Because I was pretty sure I recognized that voice.
I left the office with more than just a little spring in my step.
Eliza noticed, watching me as I crossed around the pub, only saying something when I reached the door, then she said, “Is everything alright?”
“I’m going to find Rory.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “What? No, Maeve, come on. That’s a bad idea.”
“Trust me,” I said and left the bar.
Chapter 8
Rory
“The Anchoring Pig,”Eliza said into the phone. There was music in the background, a swell of laughter and cheers that seemed almost surreal given my situation. I could imagine Maeve there, applauding with the rest of them, caught up in the moment.
Ian and I had been driving in his old beater truck for two hours, the engine groaning along the highway. We were close, less than ten minutes away.
Maybe I should’ve waited to call. Or maybe I should have just shown up there. Probably should’ve. But the truth was, I needed to hear Maeve’s voice first. To know if there was still a chance before I walked into whatever storm awaited me.
“Hey, Eliza, it’s Rory.” Silence on the other end. I pressed on. “Look, can I talk to Maeve? Is she there?”
Another long silence. Then she hissed, “You’ve got some nerve calling here.”
“Eliza…”
“Go to Hell!” The line went dead.
I lowered the phone, staring at it like the answer might materialize if I willed it hard enough. If I could just talk to Maeve —give her a better explanation now that I had the words— maybe she’d understand. Or at the very least, I could warn her about Frank.
Frank had a talent for grinding people down to their rawest selves. Some folks welcomed it, called it clarity. But those who didn’t? They left as husks, missing pieces they never meant to part with. That was why Frank and I could never see eye to eye anymore. We’d destroyed too much together —businesses, lives— and I couldn’t keep pretending it didn’t bother me.
“You alright?” Ian asked, his hands steady on the wheel.
I chuckled dryly. “Not really.”
We drove on in silence, the highway giving way to dirt roads flanked by sprawling fields. The landscape was peaceful, almost soothing, despite the weight in my chest. For a moment, I let myself wonder what life might’ve been like if I’d stayed on the farm my parents had built before they went bankrupt. A quiet life, growing corn, selling it at markets. Maybe I’d have been content.
