Back before I’d used them, I’d seen TV shows with characters who didn’t take their prescription medication and I’d wondered why they did that.
But what doctors didn’t tell you when they loaded you down with your own physical pharmacy, was about the side effects. Sure, they told you to read the fine print, but experiencing it was different than reading it.
When you had to take metformin because your antidepressant made you borderline diabetic, and when your anti-psychotics screwed with your thought processes, dulled them, sometimes it was better to have suicidal thoughts.
Sometimes, it was better to let the PTSD mess with you, to allow the past to swallow you whole just to be able to think without chemicals clouding your mind.
“You want anything to eat?”
“No, but thank you,” I choked out.
“We should go.”
“No.”
“We’ve been here for three hours, Lena.”
“So? We were here for three hours yesterday morning and another three hours yesterday evening. You got someplace else to be?”
He sighed. “No.”
“Well then.” I pursed my lips, uncaring that I’d been staring at the façade of the tearoom for over ten days now.
I knew he was bored. I wasn’t exactly having a hoot of a time, but when I was here, I felt like I was doing something productive.
Getting the news that Aidan suspected he had testicular cancer was one thing. His confession that he’d cheated on me and a child had been born from that relationship was another.
He’d told me because he thought he was going to die. His confession appeased his soul but added the burden onto mine.
The unfairness of it made tears sting my eyes.
I wished he hadn’t said anything.
Wished he’d kept quiet because since he’d told me, I’d been unable to stop myself from thinking about whom he’d been sleeping with behind my back. Who the child was. When it had been born. Was it a girl or a boy…
The questions were starting to drive me crazy.
“You’re sure they said it was her,” I grated out for the tenth time this morning.
“I’m sure,” he rumbled wearily, his focus on his phone and that stupid game he was playing. The one where you matched three jellybeans to score points. “The Old Wives’ Club doesn’t get shit like that wrong.”
I bit my lip, wondering if those old bitches were laughing at me behind my back. Michael said he’d been discreet, but was there anything discreet when it involved Aidan and me?
We ruled the roost. We reigned over the Five Points like king and queen. Where we went, gossip followed.
I scratched at my neck as I murmured, “Have you found anything else out about her? No links between Michelle Keegan and a Five Pointer?”
“Not by blood. Her husband was a cousin of a Five Pointer, though. You knew one of them.”
“I did?”
“Cillian Donahue. He died years back. Was friends with your Declan, and his sister, Deirdre, was his girlfriend at some point.”
My mouth curled as I corrected, “His fiancée. I remember them both. Horrible children.”
“Cillian was a trouble-maker through and through.” He hummed. “When Donahue, her first husband, died, Michelle changed her and her daughter’s surname back to her maiden name.”
A little girl.
Aoife.
I’d been blessed with boys, but no girl, and I knew Aidan had always wanted a girl. He might say he didn’t, but he did.
And she’d given him what I couldn’t.
A black Lincoln pulled up outside the tearoom, rupturing my thoughts. Three women climbed out of the back. My brows rose when I recognized one of them, and my fingers stopped rubbing the side of my neck.
Elizabeth Davidson.
God, it had been years since I’d seen her, and that hadn’t been long enough. I’d never liked her.
She was a supercilious bitch whom I’d had the misfortune of knowing when I was younger, before life had taken us down two paths.
My father had wanted her elder brother to marry me, and I knew that George had all been set to propose the night of my debutante ball. That was before Aidan had showed up, bringing his usual level of chaos to my family.
It was a lifetime ago since I’d first known her, but it wasn’t the first time we’d met since then.
I was the wife to the leader of the Five Points.
She was a Senator’s wife.
As I wondered if the rumors of Alan Davidson cheating on her were true, I watched as she and the other two women headed into the tearoom.
It was a busy place, had an affluent clientele, but Elizabeth Davidson was definitely a step up from the corporate businesswomen who usually frequented it.
Nostalgia and a strange desire to reconnect with my past had me climbing out of the car when the two women with Elizabeth left the tearoom an hour later. They both went their separate ways just as the black Lincoln pulled up.
“I won’t be long,” I muttered to Michael, and before he could stop me, I dashed across the road.
I heard the honking of a car horn but I ignored it as I made it to the other side of the street, just as the door to the tearoom opened and out walked Elizabeth.
The noise from the road caught her attention, but her gaze drifted a second, held, before it swiveled onto me.
As I walked over to her, she smiled. “Magdalena O’Shea, as I live and breathe.”
My eyes narrowed upon that catty smile. I’d known her as an eight-year-old and she’d been as much of a bitch back then as that smile indicated she was now.
“Lizzie Ó Cléirigh, what a surprise.”
The smile faded. “It’s Davidson.”
“It’s O’Donnelly. You’d know that seeing as Aidan donates to Alan’s campaign.” I tipped my head to the side. “I’m surprised you’re in New York. Isn’t Alan in Florida? Trying to swing enough votes to get people to forget about that unfortunate news article last winter?”
She scowled at me. “That was all conjecture.”
“The best type of news usually is,” I drawled.
“People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones,” she hissed, dipping down from her irritatingly statuesque height to loom over me.
“Meaning?”
“Meaning my husband isn’t the only one who can’t keep it in his pants.”
I straightened up at that, her words hitting me on the raw. “Aidan’s—”
She scoffed, “Aidan’s, what? Faithful? Get real, darling. Mine’s about as faithless as yours, but at least Alan isn’t a hypocrite. And that article last year was nonsense.
“I wish he would sleep with staffers. At least that would be easy to cover up.” A dry laugh escaped her. “I heard all about Aidan, though. Alan doesn’t like having his arm pulled.”
My brow furrowed. “What are you talking about?”
“What do you think I’m talking about?” She jerked her hand toward the tearoom. “I just had to check this place out when I read the report on Alan’s desk.”
“What report?”
“On your husband, of course.” She tsked under her breath. “I assume that’s why you’re here? To confront her? I wish I didn’t have to dash because I’d have loved to see the show.”