Ramsay(10)

When she'd walked into my office, I'd had the urge to lean toward her to  catch her fragrance. That had shocked me. I was used to unconsciously  leaning away from people when they got too near, or holding my breath as  they passed. I didn't enjoy the smell of others for the most part-and I  could detect too much. It felt like an intimacy, and most often, it was  an intimacy I didn't care to partake in. But it'd always been different  with Lydia. She had always appealed to me in a way no one else had.  Chemical makeup didn't change, I supposed. Pity for me.                       
       
           



       

My mind went back to a summer evening seven years ago, the night my mind  wouldn't let go of for some insane reason. I could still feel Lydia in  my arms, could still recall her delicate scent, the flavor of her mouth,  the sound of her sigh as I'd pushed into her tight body. Why? Why was I  still so damned affected by her? I'd been a boy the last time I'd seen  her. I was a man now. A man who'd been with women who had much more  sexual prowess. Beautiful women who knew tricks in bed that would make  an innocent princess like Lydia De Havilland go scarlet. I'd had  experience far beyond the teenage fumbling I'd known with her. My time  with Lydia had been but a moment. And yet . . . I shook my head of the  memories and forced myself to move past the brief moments in her arms to  the one that had come next.

The humiliation. The rage. The hopelessness. The grief.

The memory of what she'd done still pulled tight like an internal scar  every time I thought about it. Not just what she'd done, but what she  hadn't done. She hadn't defended me. She'd basically stood by while her  brother shamed me and made me beg. I hated her for manipulating me, for  making me hope, and for the weakness I'd felt. And I couldn't forgive  her for it. I wouldn't ever forgive her for it.

And that was it. If I exacted the revenge I'd been imagining for so  long, I'd be free of her. Exorcised of her ghost, the one that had been  haunting me for seven years. Of Lydia, of the memories, of the shame  that still burned deep in my gut. I'd finally be able to let her go.  Because I'd succeeded in turning everything around-now she was the one  who needed me.

Now she was the one begging.

"Well, what's the craic?"

I raised my head as the door swung open. Sitting up, I attempted to  smooth my ravaged hair. Fionn eyed me as he dropped into the chair Lydia  had occupied only a few minutes before, his big body sprawling. His  shirt was wet from the rain. "Not much." I answered.

Fionn whistled, leaning forward. "That Irish accent says otherwise, mo  chara." He laughed softly, and I gave him a glare that only made him  laugh harder and pretend to shiver. How in the hell had he detected my  accent? I'd only uttered two words. "What a fiendish glare. Is that  supposed to work on me?"

I sat back, leaning my head on my chair and staring up at the ceiling for a minute. "Lydia De Havilland came here."

"Ah."

"Yeah, ah." I raised my head and looked at him. His expression held sympathy and the vague hint of worry.

He raised his eyebrows. "Well, now I understand the state of ya. Did she offer to buy her company back?"

"She can't. She doesn't have the funds." Which I'd already known.

Fionn shrugged. "Well, that's that, then. She'll have to find a new job. Good luck to her."

I felt a tick start up in my jaw. Fionn narrowed his eyes and inclined his head. "What's that look?" he asked.

"I told her she could come work at my home and serve me and beg for her company back every day, and I might show mercy."

Fionn gaped at me for a moment, then reclined back in the chair, his arm  hung leisurely over the back, studying me. "That's a fret."

"You could say that."

"What were ya thinkin'?"

I gritted my teeth. "I was thinking," I said slowly, enunciating each  word, "that it's her turn to get down on her knees and beg me, that's  what I was thinking."

"Her turn to beg ya? Ya haven't left her much choice, have ya? Is that what ya really want?"

I shrugged nonchalantly. "We'll see."

"And do ya have any intention at all of returnin' her company?"

"No."

Fionn was quiet for a moment. "This is all gona go arseways, ya do know that, yeah?"

Probably. "No. I have it under control."

"What's the plan, then? And what's the time limit on this bloody madness?"

I shrugged. "I'll make it up as I go along. I'll see what pleases me."

Fionn chuckled. "What pleases ya. Aye. Because ya already look so  pleased." He sighed. "Completely arseways. It doesn't even make any  sense. Why do this to yourself, mo chara?" he asked softly.

"Satisfaction." Peace. Payback. Revenge. A cleansing. A hundred reasons  and I didn't even need one. I was the one who held all the power now.

"Aye, if ya say so. But I helped ya because I thought takin' the company  from Lydia's brother was what was gona bring ya satisfaction. I gotta  say, ya look many things, but satisfied ain't one of them."

I shrugged. "Another opportunity presented itself. I decided to take advantage of it. Why are you here?"

He sat up and sighed. "I work here, remember?" He raised a brow. "And  now that ya have your archenemy by what I can only assume is a very  pretty throat, we have some actual business to attend to." I narrowed my  eyes at his mocking archenemy comment, but he only grinned in that  disarming Fionn way-the way that had gotten us out of some scrape or  another more than once. "And then we're gona go get ourselves good and  ossified and find us some women of questionable moral attributes."                       
       
           



       

I stared at him for a minute, but then chuckled. I could never stay  annoyed with Fionn for long. And truthfully, getting good and drunk  could be a good thing. I sat back as he went over the jobs we had going  on that week.

Fionn had been by my side practically since the day we'd left Greenwich  and moved to a small rat-hole in the Bronx. I'd had less than a month  left of high school, but had never graduated, instead scrounging for  every side job I could get to support my family. My father had looked  for work but sunk into a deep depression when he didn't find any. Then  his drinking had only increased, until he was drunk more often than he  was sober. Which left me in charge of Eileen's care. And so I'd done  what I had to do, some of which would sadly follow me for the rest of my  days. All because of what had happened that evening in the back room of  Lydia's stable. All because of her betrayal.

But I'd had a trusted friend in Fionn-at least I'd had that. A scrappy  kid a year younger than me who'd moved with his parents to New York City  from a town very near where I was from in Ireland. His parents died in a  horrific car accident, and as they didn't have any close family left in  Ireland, he'd had nowhere to go other than the streets. But one thing  you could say for the Irish, we took care of our own. People did what  they could for us, sharing their food no matter how little they had,  hiring us to do odd jobs. But for me, it hadn't been enough. Because  Eileen had needed more, and I'd vowed never to let her down. I was all  she had.

And I dreamed that one day I wouldn't have to scrape and do without, I  wouldn't have to check my pride at the door, make sacrifices I didn't  want to make, do things I cringed while participating in. I dreamed that  one day I'd make my own rules. I dreamed that one day I'd feel safe.  One day I'd be at peace. And I'd finally achieved my goals. I'd finally  arrived at a place where I could turn my attention away from merely  surviving to making the people who'd torn my world apart pay.

I didn't know exactly what I wanted from Lydia. But I wasn't overly  worried. If her presence became bothersome to me in some way or another,  I'd simply tell her to leave, and I'd keep her damn company. No matter  how much she begged. I'd add it to my empire. I didn't need the money,  but I'd make it successful; I'd make it my own, and I'd find  satisfaction in that alone.

A small feeling of guilt niggled at me, but I squashed it down. Taking  the De Havilland company meant I'd be taking it out of the family. And  Lydia's father, Edward, had been a decent man who had been proud of what  he'd built from the ground up. In actuality, I'd respected him more  than I'd respected my own father. And he'd always been fair to me, more  than fair-he'd been kind. I'd heard that he'd passed four years before  and I'd gone to his funeral, standing at the back of the cemetery so I  wouldn't be seen. But I'd seen her. My eyes hadn't seemed to be able to  look away as she'd mourned in her black suit, a pair of sunglasses on,  and her hair held back in a black headband. And then her brother had  come up and put his arm around her, pulling her close and comforting  her. And she'd let him. And why shouldn't she? He was her brother. And I  still couldn't figure out exactly why watching them together had felt  like another betrayal. Was she supposed to have banished him from her  life after what he'd done to me? She hadn't even cared enough to come  after me. To expect anything at all from her was ridiculous. And yet it  had ached. I hated them-hated the whole lot of them. And now they'd pay.  And I'd enjoy every minute of it. I wouldn't allow anything less.