Page 73 of Dearly Betrayed

He laughs and pulls me against him. He kisses me, deep and slow. When he breaks off, he shakes his head. “Hard disagree.”

“Come on. Seriously. How much do you need? How much luxury until it’s enough?”

“Material things might have a hard cap, but not you. I can’t get enough of you.”

My ears turn pink and I can’t help the butterflies in my guts. Stupid insects driving me mad. “Alright, that was a pretty good line.”

“Thank you.” He kisses me again and we resume our walk. “You’ll like my places, even if you think they’re too posh.” He grins at the British slang. “And if you don’t, we’ll sell them and you can buy a new place.”

“Somewhere in Dublin, closer to my home?”

“I don’t know about that.” He presses his lips together.

I bat my eyelashes at him. “Pretty please? Come on, Dublin’s a fine city. Lots of history.”

“A history of you people blowing each other up in sectarian conflict.”

“I don’t think you should be talking about blowing people up to me, sir.” I jab him in the side with my knuckle.

He winces. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine. So long as you agree to move to Dublin.”

“My family’s operations are in London.”

“That’s not a no.”

“I’ll consider it, but it won’t be an easy sell.”

“Look at you.” I lean back, admiring him. “Willing to sacrifice a bit to make me happy.”

“I told you, I’ll take care of you, Fallon. That includes living in a second-rate hellhole like Dublin.”

“Oh, this man, you want a beating, don’t you?” I jab at him a few more times and he laughs as he bats me away. His arm wraps around my shoulders and he hugs me against him, pinning me so I can’t fight anymore, and our walk resumes somewhat normally.

We continue to joke and laugh. It’s a really nice morning. We stop for coffee and walk along the boardwalk on the return trip. He talks about his childhood, points out all the places where he used to get in trouble—“Like that ice cream place used to be a bar that would serve anyone, and we’d sneak in there when we were kids and get black-out drunk, until my dad went in and personally slapped around the owner to make him stop serving us.”—and I try to picture a young Jayson, carefree, happy, running around and causing mayhem with his brothers.

It’s a good thought. He was a person before the war, before the pain and guilt.

I like to imagine that boy’s still in him, innocent, happy, but I suppose that piece of ourselves never totally disappears, only gets buried under time and circumstance.

I’m in a great mood when we get back to the Sunrise. “How about we go upstairs and spend the rest of the morning in bed?” I ask, holding his hand to my lips. I kiss it gently. “You can call me some very filthy names and I’ll pretend to be insulted.”

“I’d like that very much.”

“Good, because I’m going to fight back this time, and you might have to subdue me.”

“Ah, my little wife, am I going to have to spank your lovely ass into submission?”

“Yes, please.” I laugh as he hugs me and we stumble into the lobby, feeling stupid, giddy, high on love and lust.

But those good feelings fade as Adler walks toward us flanked by several bodyguards.

“Jayson.” Adler’s voice is sharp. “We need to talk.”

“What’s wrong?” Jayson steps forward, but he doesn’t let go of my hand.

I start to shake.

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