Page 115 of Dirty Padraig: Dirty Dusters

He nods. “The plan was to tell you two months after you got back. To let you get settled….”

“And to allow the family time to decide how best to reveal the secret they’ve been keeping from me.”

“We didn’t know how you’d react.”

“You had no right making decisions on my behalf! None of you did! You had no right making assumptions that I’d behave in a certain way because I’m the emotional sibling. Do you honestly think I would have done anything to put him or Jaine in danger?”

“I’m sorry, Paddy.”

And he is. I cant tell.

“Sorry is not fucking good enough, brother. He’s two years old. Time I won’t ever get back, and for his whole young life, he’s been calling someone else Da. You tell me, Eoin. How the fuck would you feel if that were your son?” I rest my head back against the sectional, suddenly exhausted.

“We only found out after the wedding. You didn’t want to be contacted about anything. You weren’t in the right head space. We couldn’t take the risk.”

“My head was fucked because I was forced by myloving familyto do my Dusterly duty and marry the bitch from hell, and for what? It turns out it was all for nothing!”

“Paddy…” I can hear the guilt in his tone, and the silent admission makes me go straight for the jugular.

“Whereas you were forced to marry the love ofmyfucking life! Mine! And then you fell in love with her!”

Silence. He can’t deny the fact that he loves her, so he won’t.

“She told me that she loves me too, Eoin. That she never stopped. All this time, I thought she didn’t and that she never had. That right there is what destroyed me most. For three years, I’ve been struggling to make it to the end of each fucking day. She walked away without a backward glance, and I resorted to lies and deceit because I couldn’t let her go, and now, she’s decided to tell me that she fucking loved me all along. Why the fuck would she do such a thing?”

My words are strangled by sobs. “What was the point in all this torture and misery? We had been friends for years. We could have remained friends if that’s all we were ever destined to be. She took herself away for nothing, and when she did, she took away my only reason for fucking living.”

And then I weep.

And as he did three years ago, my big brother sits down, wraps his arms around me, and tries his best to comfort me.

CHAPTERTHIRTY-SIX

EOIN

Eoin's Apartment, Hudson Yards, New York

“He told me, Dyl.”I throw back the whiskey in one as I stare across the room, welcoming the burn in my throat. It’s my third one, and it won’t be the last.

I was meant to leave Paddy’s apartment and go straight to the house to talk things through with Jaine, but I couldn’t. Not with guilt clawing away at my insides. Guilt I’m now trying to drown with whiskey.

“He told you what?”

“That he’s having to get Sophia pregnant, and in exchange, Luc will allow him to annul their marriage.”

“Ah.”

“So, you already knew.” I’m not sure whether to be annoyed or not.

“I’ve known for a while, yes.”

“On what grounds can he possibly ask for an annulment?” It’s my guess he’ll go down the same route Jaine did with me. That he’ll claim he was forced into the union by his family, which he was.

“Well, right now, he currently has two routes available to him. The same one Jaine went down.”

“And the other?”

“While Paddy may have taken Sophia’s purity under the haze of a drunken stupor, an act he can’t even remember carrying out, he’s never consummated their marriage. That route will no longer be available once he does the deed, of course.”

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