Page 100 of Dearly Betrayed

“I thought you were sleeping.”

“Eh, I woke up when you got up and I couldn’t get back down. So here I am.”

“I’d offer her to you, but I’m selfish.”

“That’s okay. Watching you with her is pretty damn good.” She sips the coffee and smiles, and my world is complete. My beautiful wife, my beautiful daughter. The sun coming up over the city, the ocean in the distance, the smell of salt in the air, gulls in the wind.

“I booked the private plane last night.”

Her eyebrows raise. “Sorry?”

“To Dublin, with Adler’s blessing.”

“Really? Seriously?”

“We can stay as long as you like.”

“Oh, Jayson, this is perfect. I can’t believe it.”

“We’re leaving in a week. I’ll take care of the logistics. We’ll bring Candy along?—”

“Do you really think she’ll need a nurse? My whole family’s going to be obsessed with the baby.”

“Then it’ll be an easy trip for Candy.”

Fallon grins and shakes her head, but doesn’t argue. It’ll be nice to have some extra help on an ocean-crossing flight and she knows it.

“Alright, fine. But what then? Are we finally moving to London?”

“Once we’re done in Dublin, we’ll swing through my old haunts and take a look at my house. You can decide if we should live there or buy a new place.”

Her excitement is palpable. She sits up straighter, her eyes shining. “You’re serious? It’s really happening?”

“I’m going to make frequent trips back here,” I warn her. “And Neve will come with me.”

“I’m coming too. Casey would never forgive me if I didn’t.”

“I was thinking we’d live eight months of the year in London, the rest here. But we’ll work it out.”

“Perfect.” She leans her head on my shoulder. Neve stirs a bit as if she’s aware of her mother and begins drinking from the bottle again.

I hold my baby tight to my chest, my wife on my shoulder, smiling out over the vast ocean. The world is right.

Chapter46

Fallon

Neve disappears into a sea of family the moment we step into Rian’s house. It’s incredible how at ease I feel all of a sudden, the long trip forgotten, the time away like it never happened. “Look at you, skinny as a fucking twig like always,” Aunt Mary says and jabs at my stomach. “You’re lovely though and so is the baby. Congrats to you.”

“Thanks, Aunt Mary. Did you meet Jayson yet?”

There’s some tension. We can’t pretend like it doesn’t exist. The people in this house lost friends, cousins, children to the war. But that was over a year ago now, and Jayson has the good sense to ingratiate himself with these people, acting friendly and humble as he’s introduced to person after person, ignoring the occasional cold look, returning every small kindness.

It helps that there’s a baby to distract everyone.

“You two look happy,” Rian says in a rare private moment. We’re in the kitchen together, over near the sink, as three of the aunts and two of the cousins busy themselves getting dinner together. There’s laughter in the other room. The house is bursting apart, stuffed full of at least forty people, but I missed this kind of family gathering.

“We are, Chim,” I confirm. “I never thought we’d end up at this point when you told me about my new husband, but hey, it worked out.”

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