Page 23 of The Irish Rogue

Leaning his shoulders against the hallway wall, he stared up at the ceiling, his jaw clenching for a long moment. Then he said, “I met a woman.”

Both men appeared unconcerned.

“You meet women all the time,” Levi asserted.

Matteo frowned thoughtfully and shook his head. “Actually, he hasn’t taken anyone up on their offers lately.”

Sean’s lip curled and he glared at the Spanish man. “How the hell do you know anything about my sex life?”

Matteo chuckled. “Because Lisa Delaworth approached me three nights ago. She asked me why you’ve been such a pain in the ass lately.” He shrugged one shoulder negligently. “I put two and two together and figured that you hadn’t had sex in a while.”

Levi’s eyes widened at the ring of truth, plus Sean’s slightly guilty expression solidified the assumption.

“Is that true?” Levi demanded, horrified at the possibility of going without sex for so long.

Sean stood there, seething with fury. “What if it is?”

“Was there a woman in Georgia?” Matteo asked, his voice a bit less accusatory now.

“A freaking year?” Levi asked, going back to the original issue. “You’ve gone an entire year without sex?”

Sean rolled his eyes. “Sex isn’t as necessary as oxygen,” he snapped.

“Yes it is,” the other two replied in unison.

Sean simply shook his head and pushed away from the wall. “Well, as delightful as this little chat has been, I have work to do. Those membership applications won’t get approved if you two don’t back off.”

Levi and Matteo stood their ground. “We’re worried about you. More so now that we know you haven’t…uh…taken up with anyone in over a year.”

“I’m fine!” he replied with authority.

“Who is she?”

“And why the hell don’t you get your ass back to that place,” Matteo asserted, leaning forward, “and exorcise her from your mind? Then you can hurry back here and be a normal human being again.”

Sean thought about that, but the possibility of seeing Kennedi again…!

“I’m fine,” he asserted, more firmly this time. “Now I’m going to review those damn applications and then I’ll get out of the club. You won’t have to worry about me.” With that, he walked into his office, slamming the door behind him. He never closed his door. Not here at the club nor at his headquarters. But today, he just…he couldn’t handle anyone else asking him why he was acting like an ass.

Chapter 9

“What the hell am I doing here?” Sean asked himself as he stepped onto the tarmac. Slipping his dark sunglasses on, he looked around. Not much had changed. The airport was still out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by trees and farmland.

He hurried over to the luxury rental sedan that his assistant had arranged to be delivered. She’d also reserved a house, but not the same one. He wasn’t returning to that lake house. The memories had haunted him for the past year.

However, when Tom had called to say he wanted to discuss the sale of the brewery, Sean hadn’t been able to stop himself from coming down here again.

Dumping his leather bag into the backseat, he moved to the driver’s side and…froze. Was that movement in the woods?

A memory from the last time he was here in Newnan flashed into his mind. A red dress, or shirt, or something…in the woods. At the time, he’d thought it was his imagination. But now he saw another flash of red. This time, the red was just lingering, almost as if someone were hiding behind the tree.

Or was he imagining things? Sean knew that his father had been on his mind more often lately. Were the flashes of red merely a flashback to the rumors of the red dress his mother had worn the night his father had attacked her?

Or maybe he was just losing his mind.

With a shrug, he ducked into the driver’s seat. If he was thinking about his mother more lately, perhaps he should schedule a trip to Ireland soon. But if some kid was out there, hiding in the woods wearing a red shirt, that was none of his concern. He had one mission today and he planned on heading right back to Philadelphia as soon as the meeting with Tom was over.

“It’s the right thing to do,” Dorothy whispered, shifting Declan in her arms and patting his back. “She tried to tell him.”

---