"Every day."
I nodded sadly and waited for him to say something more, but he seemed to gather himself. "Did ya know the Irish have hundreds of different ways to talk about the rain?" he asked, obviously changing the subject. I tilted my head, looking at him quizzically.
"Like what?"
"If ya say it's only spittin', it means it's just drizzlin' a bit. Pissin' is a heavier rain that might keep ya inside. Rainin' stair rods is a soakin' rain that will ruin your shoes. Hoorin' will have your windshield wipers set at top speed. Lashin' will wash ya right down the storm drain and hammerin', well, entire towns have been known to disappear in rain like that."
I was laughing as he spoke, and he looked at me with a warm gleam in his light blue eyes, our gazes meeting, lingering, and then parting. I love you, I wanted to say, blinking at my own thought, feeling suddenly insecure and off balance. When I looked back at him, Brogan was watching me, a small, confused frown on his face.
I cleared my throat. "Why so many?" I asked, but my voice sounded breathy.
He shrugged, his smile contemplative. "It rains a lot in Ireland. I guess ya know what's frequent or important in certain places based on the number of words for any specific thing." He paused. "There are also about a hundred ways to describe gettin' drunk." He looked away, his lips thinning and a grim look taking over his expression.
"Do you miss it?" I rushed in to fill the silence, wanting to sway his mood back to playful again. But I also genuinely wanted to know. I wanted to ask him so much about himself. Did he have a lot of friends in Ireland? Did he want to go back someday? How did his mother die? Did she have cancer like mine? I felt a sudden urge to touch him, to let him know I wanted to be his friend. I wanted him to ask about me, to ask me what I felt like inside, and I wanted to tell him, not just because I had no one else to tell-my friends and I didn't discuss things like that-but because I liked him so very much.
My hand lifted to reach toward his when there was suddenly the clicking of heels on the marble floor growing louder in the hallway.
Brogan jerked to a standing position just as Ginny turned the corner. She stopped in the doorway, cocking one slim hip, looking back and forth between Brogan and me. "Why hello, Brogan. How nice of you to come visit us up at the house."
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. Sometimes the things Ginny said came out sounding so bitchy.
Brogan gave me one last glance and turned toward the door. He nodded at Ginny as he passed her. "Nice to see ya, Mrs. De Havilland."
She turned her head and looked back at him moving down the hall toward our front door before looking back to me. She clicked her tongue. "You've really got to stop cavorting with the help. I see you bothering him relentlessly while he's working. Honestly, Lydia, you may as well just pick up a rake and help him out if you're going to be hanging off him so much."
I stood up and crossed my arms. "Cavorting?" I asked. "We were only talking. And I don't bother him." I pouted. "He likes talking to me, too."
"It really can't come to any good." She walked across the library to the liquor cabinet and poured herself a glass of wine. She held the bottle up in my direction, and I shook my head no. I'd shared several glasses with her before and had to drag myself out of bed for school the next morning feeling like death warmed over. Despite our somewhat close age, I'd wanted Ginny to be a mother figure, but Ginny wanted to be my . . . friend. I was beginning to wonder if she'd be of any real use in either role. But she was all I had.
I made a scoffing sound in my throat. "Myles says I'm the prettiest girl in Greenwich," I bragged, frowning immediately at my attempt to impress her. Should I even bother?
Ginny gave me a smirk. "Now Myles is the boy you should be focusing on. A thoroughbred who comes from old money." She winked and I rolled my eyes again. Were we talking about boys or horses? "Now if you want advice about how to catch that one, use your Irish boy toy to make him jealous. Have him catch you kissing Brogan. Force him to claim you before he even has a chance to think about it."
I raised my eyebrows. "Does that really work?"
"As long as he has even the remotest attraction to you, it works every time. Men. They're all such predictable creatures." She took a long swallow of red wine. "You just have to know how to wind them up and then watch them dance."
I turned away from her, considering the plan. The thing was, I had no need to make Myles jealous. Myles was mine for the taking. He was fun to flirt with, fun to have following me around, I supposed. But he wasn't the boy who set my heart on fire. I wondered if I had the nerve to go through with a plan like Ginny's. A powerful thrill shot down my spine. I wanted it to work. I wanted to make him jealous. I wanted to force his hand, to make him claim me. But the him I was referring to was not Myles. It was Brogan I wanted. Brogan Ramsay.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Brogan
Christ, I was so fucking upset I was still shaking. Upset at myself. I had meant to shock her, to unbalance her the way she'd been unbalancing me since the day she'd walked into my office. Instead, I'd merely succeeded in exposing myself and telling her things I hadn't meant to tell her.
"Goddammit," I swore under my breath as I got out of my car and slammed the door behind me, clicking the key fob. I'd left Lydia's room and Greenwich, heading for the Bronx. I needed to put space between us. I just needed to reclaim my emotions and I needed to do it in a place where I held all the power. Despite owning one of the prime pieces of real estate in Greenwich, the location still had this way of making me feel like the gardener's son. Less.
I pushed the door of The Black Dragon Tavern open, the pungent smells of stale beer, grease, and dirty mop water assaulting my senses. I didn't usually come here at night-preferring to sit on the open patio-but it was one in the morning and if I wanted to be around other people, which I did, inside at the bar was my only choice.
"Brogan Ramsay," I heard from a corner and turned to nod at a couple of the regulars. "What's three thousand ninety-nine divided by seven hundred thirty?" Aidan McGonegal called out, holding up his phone, his finger poised on what I knew to be the calculator.
"Four point two four five two zero five," I answered easily. The corner erupted in hoots and hollers, one guy pretending to fall out of his chair. I smiled, turning to the bartender and ordering a whisky.
"Bang on," Aidan yelled, his calculator just a couple seconds behind. More hoots and applause sounded from behind me and I chuckled.
"The lad is wicked good with numbers," I heard someone else say. Yeah, this was a good call, what I needed. I took a sip of the whisky and massaged the back of my neck.
"Brogan Ramsay," I heard to my right.
I looked up and saw an old man, a glass of amber liquid sitting on the bar in front of him. I nodded, frowning slightly. "Do I know ya?" I asked.
He smiled. "Father Donoghue. We haven't had the pleasure. I know ya by name, and I know your friend, Fionn." A priest? I'd never known Fionn to keep company with holy men.
"Ah. Well, nice to meet ya, Father. Any friend of Fionn is a friend of mine. What church do ya work at?"
He shook his head. "Oh, no, I don't reside in a parish any longer. There was a wee," he raised the pitch of his voice and held his thumb and index finger together, "bit of a scandal some years back. These days, I hold confession from this bar stool right here. The title and a few job duties kind of stuck, shur ya know like." He chuckled, looking none too upset about whatever scandal had occurred that had evidently resulted in his ex-communication. I shrugged. Who was I to judge? I was a fallen man, too.
"I don't usually see ya around these parts this late at night," he said, taking a sip of his drink. "Now Fionn, that's a different matter. That boy's always on the tear, and always with some new floozy on his arm. Ya know when I say floozy, I mean no disrespect. God loves all his children, even the ones who dabble in dubious ethical behavior."
I smiled what felt like a weary smile. "I don't usually have the need to imbibe at all, truth be told, Father."
"Ah, so what's chased ya here at such an ungodly hour, son? Money or a woman? Since I've heard ya have more money than the Almighty himself, me guess is a woman."