“It would have been that anyway. The place is nothing without your recipes.” I narrowed my eyes at her, well aware that she didn’t go in as often as she used to because of... well, being pregnant. “You’d better not even think about going into the bakery until the doctor says you’re ready.”
She sniffed. “Why do you think Louise is here? I’m not an idiot, Finn. I know not to push until I’m ready, but that doesn’t mean I can laze about in bed all day and night. I’ll go crazy.
“When are you going to get Jake anyway? I miss him.”
“Eoghan’s bringing him tonight.”
“Eoghan?”
“I’m not leaving you.” I pursed my lips before I growled, “Good thing seeing as I’d come back and you’d probably have headed into the bakery for the first shift.”
She slammed the flour jar on the counter. “I lost Imogen, Finn, not my brain.”
“You’re grieving.”
“So? Aren’t you?”
“Yeah, another reason why I’m not hard at work in my office, dammit. You think I can focus—” My voice cracked at that, and she stopped slamming more shit on the counters to turn and face me.
Aoife and Jake and our family were the only source of normalcy in my life. When there was chaos here, it triggered a butterfly effect.
Naturally, her grief was more detrimental than mine, and she was the one who needed looking after, but she wasn’t alone in her suffering.
Her lips quivered as she looked at me, seeming to see that she wasn’t the only one drowning, and she whispered, “Oh, Finn—”
I swallowed down her pity and stepped back and away, not able to deal with what was happening right now. I heard her call out my name, but I ignored her and headed to the elevator when it buzzed again like the annoyance it was.
If she were anyone else, if it were Billy, for example, I’d have let Louise come up to the penthouse. I didn’t like her though. Aoife trusted her, but that didn’t mean I had to.
Pressing my back to the wall, I stared at my reflection as I descended to the lobby.
“When did you start looking so fucking old?” I rasped under my breath.
“Do you want a statistical analysis on that?”
“What the fuck?” I growled, peering up at the elevator ceiling as I straightened. “Conor? Is that you?”
“Yup, it’s me. I can run your pictures through a program and give you a time lapse if you want.”
“A time lapse of what?” I snapped.
“We can pinpoint when you started to look ancient.”
“Beating the shit out of you would be one way to ease my goddamn mood, Kid. Watch yourself. What the hell are you even doing?”
Warily, I eyed the console where the speaker was then looked up at the magic eye in the ceiling.
He sniffed. “I was doing routine updates.”
“Nothing’s routine about you.”
“That didn’t sound like a compliment, Finn.”
“That’s because it wasn’t.” As the elevator approached the lobby, I growled under my breath with impatience as, barely thirty seconds later, the doors opened.
I saw her immediately, and everything about her put me on edge. I wasn’t sure how Aoife didn’t see it, but I sure as fuck did.
The first time I’d had the misfortune of meeting her, she’d had blonde hair.
Now, she was auburn, and she wore green goddamn contacts too. She’d started wearing her hair in a similar style as Aoife, and the clothes weren’t exact replicas because my wife’s wardrobe was expensive, but Louise did what she could within her budget.
The second she saw me, she smiled and strolled over to me.
“What’s Aoife doing in the lobby?”
Conor’s voice was softer now, as sotto voce as he got, and that he’d mistaken her for Aoife pissed me off even more.
“Louise,” I greeted curtly.
“Finn.” Her smile dampened down as she gave me an apologetic look. “I was so sorry to hear about Aoife and the baby.” She reached out and pressed her hand to my arm. “If there’s anything I can do, just let me know.”
In the background, I heard a gagging sound.
How I managed not to smile, I’d never know.
Louise jerked in surprise. “What was that?”
I shrugged, but primarily, it was to get rid of her hand on my arm which was clinging on like she’d stuck it there with Gorilla glue. “What was what?”
Her brow furrowed, but she pinpointed me with her attention. “How are you doing, Finn?”
“My wife just lost our child, Louise. How do you think I’m doing?” Though she flinched, I ignored it and demanded, “Aoife said you had some accounts for her?”
“Yeah. Here they are.”
As she handed me a box, she gave me a limpid smile that I also ignored as I asked, “Why couldn’t you email these over?” I opened the lid and peered inside. “It’s just a bunch of receipts.”
“The system isn’t online.”
I nodded my understanding and retreated into the elevator. As I did, she joined me. Her audacity had me snarling, “Did I invite you in here?”
“Well, no, but I wanted to visit Aoife…” Her voice waned.
“Not today,” I dismissed. “Maybe some other time.”
“Oh, but I’d really like to catch up with her.”
“She’s not feeling up to it.” Whether Aoife would agree with me or not was another matter entirely. Regardless, I wasn’t damn well capable of dealing with her cooing and simpering over a coffee. I dismissed her by saying, “I’ll pass on your well-wishes to her.”
She shot me a disappointed look. “Oh, okay, then.”
As she stepped back and out into the lobby, I didn’t even have to tap the button for the doors to close.
“Thank you, Kid,” I told Conor the second we were ascending.
“My pleasure. Want me to arrange for their system to go online?”
“Please.”
“I tried to do it a few years back, but Aoife wouldn’t let me.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not asking her, and neither are you.”
“Good, good. I’ll be discreet.”
I snorted. “Yeah, I just saw you being discreet. What was that gagging about?”
“Am I the only one getting Single White Female vibes here?”
If I wasn’t pissed, I’d have laughed. “You’re not.”
“She wants to fuck you.”
“I know,” was my grim reply.
“Aoife doesn’t see that?”
“No.”
“She looks like Aoife.”
“Yeah, a watered-down version.”
Like the diet version of anything when full fat always tasted and looked that much better.
“What’s that about?”
“God knows, but Aoife doesn’t see it, and I’m not about to cause a problem for her that isn’t necessary. I see the freak a couple of times a year, and Aoife says she's good at her job.”
We could agree to disagree with that one.
Conor hummed under his breath. “It’s weird.”
“You think I don’t know that?”