The Wedding Pact (The O'Malleys #2)(78)

“No.” She stepped into her heels. “Unlike some people, my family will always come first.”

She was going to throw that in his face? He crossed his arms over his chest. “Whatever you have to tell yourself to sleep at night.” He wanted to grab her, to shake her until some sense popped into that gorgeous head of hers, but he’d never laid a hand on a woman in anger and he sure as fuck wasn’t about to start now. Tying her up until she saw reason wasn’t an option, either. He was left with nothing but standing there and watching her get ready to walk out of his life.

He couldn’t shake the feeling that if she left now, it would be for good.

So he tried to be calm and rational. “Carrigan, sit down and we’ll talk this through.”

“Talking never did anyone a damn bit of good.” She stopped in the doorway, her knuckles white where they fisted the hem of her dress. “Good-bye, James. For good this time.” Then she was gone, disappearing as if she’d never been there to begin with.

And he just watched her go.

As soon as he heard the door close behind her, he slowly got dressed. It didn’t take a genius to realize what she was doing—making yet another personal sacrifice for her family. She’d said as much. She might even be trying to protect him, too. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that she’d walked out without talking about it, without giving him a chance to find a way out of this mess.

She might care about him, but she didn’t trust him. And fuck if that didn’t hurt.

He rubbed a hand over his chest, knowing damn well that it wouldn’t do anything to combat the dull ache that started there the second she walked out of this room. There would be no more phone calls. She wouldn’t come running to him again, no matter how deep into shit she got. No, she was off to marry this Dmitri Romanov and sail away into the sunset.

Fuck.

He walked through the still mostly dark house, letting the memories wash over him. Play fighting with his brothers in the living room. Watching his mother knit in the rocking chair, looking more at peace than he ever saw her in Boston. The loud meals served around the tiny dining room table, while he and Brendan and Ricky all competed for her undivided attention. She’d always managed to make each of them feel like they were the center of her world.

And their old man…James touched the thickest scar running across his upper chest. He could feel the ridge of it through the thin fabric of his T-shirt. His father hadn’t dared touch them while she walked this earth. He’d always thought that it was because her death broke the man, but now he wondered. Victor had been batshit crazy for as long as James could remember. Had his mother been the reason he stayed his hand? The shield between her boys and their sadistic fuck of a father?

The more he thought about it, the more it seemed to fit. He’d never seen her in a swimsuit. Whenever he thought about it now, he’d chalked it up to the summers that were never quite warm enough. But what if it wasn’t? His hands clenched. Had Victor hurt her as a proxy and then turned his attentions on his boys when she was no longer available?

His stomach lurched, and he had to close his eyes and concentrate on breathing. It was the past. Knowing that didn’t magically make the hurt go away, but it helped him focus. Right now he had bigger problems than worrying about if his old man beat his mother fifteen years ago.

He would find out, though.

In the meantime…James turned to the front door. He’d give Carrigan some time. Chasing her down now wouldn’t do either one of them a damn bit of good. She was freaked out and she had reason to be. As much as it stung that she didn’t believe in him enough to give him the chance to fix things, a part of him understood. A very small part. The rest wanted to track her down, but it would only make her run farther and faster from him.

No, he’d find a way around this, and then he’d come for her.

He walked out of the house and locked the door behind him. The first order of business was to get through the exchange tomorrow with those pieces of shit bringing in women. Then he’d deal with the mess with Carrigan.

It wasn’t like she’d be married in the next twenty-four hours, after all.



Sloan drifted up the stairs, moving down the hallway on bare feet, taking silent count. Keira had stumbled home sometime after one and was currently passed out in her bed. But she was safe. Cillian hadn’t come back from wherever he’d gone when he left this afternoon, but she suspected he was wherever he’d been spending all this time lately—most likely a bar. Aiden…well, Aiden was the easiest of her siblings to keep track of. He rarely left their father’s study anymore, except when business demanded it. More and more he’d taken up the mantle of leadership, and she sometimes wondered if she was the only one who could see how heavily it weighed on him. But he wouldn’t accept a shoulder to lean on because it would mean he was weak.