Page 24 of Stolen Mafia Vows
Maybe we’re subconsciously heading away from reality, eking out our time together until we’re forced to acknowledge that this bubble we’ve formed around ourselves has to pop. But neither of us wants it to end.
After Dublin, we keep driving with no destination in mind. Several days later, Emily announces that she wants to quit college and stay in Ireland. It’s raining, and we’re sitting by the window of a pub restaurant drinking black coffee, Emily wearing the green pantsuit I bought for her.
“Emily.” I smother her hand with mine. “I would love for you to stay, but you should discuss this with your family first. I haven’t even met them yet, and they’ll blame me for corrupting you.”
She smiles. “You have.”
I raise both hands in a gesture of surrender; she has a point. “I might want to spend the rest of my life ravaging your body, but I don’t want to be responsible for you dropping out of college. It’s your future we’re talking about.”
“I know what I want, Eo.”
“Tell me again.”
I’ve heard it before, but the more she says it out loud, the more convinced I’ll be that she understands what she’s doing and is making the right decision. Because, although she knows that I work for my family’s business, I still haven’t told her that we’re basically glorified thugs in expensive suits.
“I want to open an animal sanctuary. I can use my trust fund and open it here.”
I’ve already told her that I’ll help her. I can buy her the land, appoint an architect to design the sanctuary, and fly all around the world with her rescuing animals if it makes her happy. But none of this will come to fruition if her family hates me.
I stand up. “I’m taking you home tonight, Emily.”
The disappointment in her eyes tears me in two, but if we’re doing this, we’re doing it with her family’s approval.
5
EMILY
I feellike a different person when I let myself back into the family home in Ireland.
I guess I’m not the same person I was when I walked out of here after Sienna and Kyle’s wedding. It feels like a lifetime ago. It feels like the world has altered while I’ve been gone, spinning a different way to how it worked before and tilting everything onto a new trajectory. The house looks different too, even though nothing has changed.
Apart from me.
Eoghan wanted to speak to Kyle and Sienna with me, but I convinced him that it would be better if I speak to them alone to begin with.
I know what I want. But I also know they’ll try to convince me that I’m wrong.
Which makes me so fucking angry every time I think about it.
My brothers all work for the Murray corporation, but that was their choice. My dad works for them too, which is great, butwhy do they get to choose while I’m supposed to stay on at college in America when my heart is here in Ireland?
The house is quiet, apart from the rain hammering against the windows.
“Sienna?” I walk through to the kitchen at the rear of the house, and it’s empty too. “Kyle?” I call up the stairs, feeling like Kevin inHome Alone,when he wakes up and realizes that his family has disappeared.
“Emily!” Sienna appears from the conservatory wearing a long white shirt, smeared with paint, over bare legs. She’s holding a paintbrush in her right hand, and her long red hair is fastened into a messy bun on top of her head.
Sienna is an artist, but she hasn’t painted since the gallery that my brother Caleb funded for her was broken into and all her artwork was trashed.
“You’re back,” she says, at the same time as I say, “You’re painting.”
The tears come from nowhere. Literally. One moment I’m smiling at my beautiful sister-in-law, happy to see her painting again, and the next… Well, the next I’m a soggy mess being guided towards the kitchen by a woman with a belly so huge it prevents me from bumping hips with her.
She pulls a seat out from under the table, sits me down, and flicks the coffee machine on. Then she grabs another seat and turns it around so that it’s facing mine and hands me a box of tissues as she sits down opposite me, legs spread wide to accommodate the baby inside her.
Once I’ve finally dabbed my eyes enough to bring her into focus, I note with a startling jolt the concern in her eyes.
“What happened?” She narrows her eyes, clenches her jaw. “Did he hurt you?”
