Page 79 of A Ryan Recollection

“But you know she’s not.”

“Yeah, I do. But, I dunno, Con,” I shake my head. “I needed him to know it. I needed him to see how much she trusts me. I would have fucked her too, but I knew you’d be watching.”

“Fuck,” Conor says with a sigh, his anger at me seeping out of him as his shoulders drop. “Who the fuck was he?”

“Some guy she met when she was eighteen.”

My younger brother listens intently as I tell him everything Jessie told me about Jason Donegan.

“You should have killed him,” he snarls.

“I know,” I admit.

“She asked you not to?” he says with a faint smile.

“Yup.”

“Simp,” he laughs and shakes his head. But he would have done exactly the same and we both know it.

“Besides, I half expected you to come down there and kill him yourself.”

“You seemed to have it handled,” he says with a shrug.

I smile at his trust in me. He never undermines me even when he doesn’t agree with my methods. He backs me one hundred percent and then argues with me about it later. Just the two of us. It’s the way it’s always been.

“You want a nightcap or shall we just go to bed?” I ask, looking at the door a few feet away from us where she and our younger brothers are sleeping. I’m still on edge and I won’t be able to sleep yet.

“Whiskey or Jessie?” he says, sucking on his top lip as though he’s deep in thought.

I think about which of those two things is going to make me feel better about what happened tonight. There is only one answer. She’s the answer to everything. “Bed then?”

He nods his head and puts an arm around my shoulder and we head back to the bedroom.

ChapterFive

JESSIE

Three days before Christmas

Ipress a soft kiss on Finn’s cheek as he sits contentedly in Mikey’s arms sucking on a chunk of pineapple, before bending and scooping Ella up for a cuddle. She grabs my hair and pulls with an excitable squeal before wriggling to get back down to the floor where she can continue crawling around and causing mayhem. I place her back down and she gives me a beautiful smile in return.

“Our little girl is gonna turn us all gray by the time we’re thirty, Red,” Mikey whispers.

I crouch down on my heels and take Liam’s sneaker from her, just before she sticks it into her mouth. “She is not!” I insist. “She’s just spirited, aren’t you, baby girl?”

“Spirited? That’s what we used to call Mikey, and look how that worked out,” Conor laughs as he comes up behind me, picking Ella up from the floor again. She doesn’t resist him though. She giggles as he hoists her high up into the air. Such a Daddy’s girl.

“She’s gonna be a warrior princess, aren’t you, baby?” Conor says and she squeals in delight.

Meanwhile, her twin brother looks on, happily eating his pineapple. They have such different temperaments.

Conor tucks Ella into the crook of his arm and gives Finn a kiss on the head too before he focuses on me.

“Where are you going?” he says, looking me up and down. I usually don’t wear shoes, or many clothes in the apartment, but I am bundled up ready to brave the New York winter.

“Going to collect my dress for tomorrow night from Callie,” I say with a grin.

I am so excited to see it and even more excited to wear it tomorrow night for the masked ball. Callie owns a boutique in Manhattan and she is an artist when it comes to clothes. She knows what suits me and my coloring way better than I do.

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