“You are,” Camille whispered.
“How can we be when he’s kept this from me?” I cried. “When he let me love Lena? I know you’re not a fan of her, Aela, but Inessa gets it, don’t you?”
Untangling a lock of hair from Jake’s clasp, Inessa flinched but confirmed nonetheless, “She’s good to us.”
Aela scowled. “Your definition of good is different than mine.”
“No, it isn’t. You just haven’t been around her long enough to see. Plus, you’re—” I winced.
“Rebellious? Opinionated?” Aela threw in, but she was smirking as she did so.
“Yes.” I blew out a breath. “I feel like Mom died yesterday. I feel this hate inside me for who took her from me like it’s still a raw wound. But Lena did that, and I love her.
“Jake’s teething, and she gave me a rusk recipe that I can’t find. I want to ask her for it but I can’t.
“Jake wants to go to her, because she’s his grammy, and I don’t want her anywhere around him.” I covered my face with my hands. “I want to cry all the time, and I want Finn to comfort me, but then I remember what he kept from me. So I argue. And he’s being so patient. So, so… reasonable.”
“Being reasonable isn’t necessarily a bad thing,” Savannah said carefully.
“My husband isn’t reasonable. He’s fair, but…” I shook my head. “It’s difficult to explain.”
Camille reached forward and snagged my hand in hers. “Try, Aoife, it might make you feel better.”
I stared into her kind eyes and clung to her fingers. I didn’t know her as well as her sister, but I was grateful for her presence in my life.
All of these women had been a part of my world for such a short space of time, but we’d endured so much together.
We were O’Donnellys.
Through and through.
“I keep pushing his buttons,” I whispered. “I say things I know will piss him off. I—”
“You want a reaction out of him,” Savannah inserted softly.
“Yes.” I clung to her words as much as I clung to Camille’s hand. “I want a reaction from him. I just don’t know what kind of reaction I want.”
“Do you want to break up with him?” Inessa questioned. “Is that it? You want him to throw in the towel?”
The pain her words stirred in me was akin to the raw agony I felt over losing my mom.
“No,” I ground out on an agonized breath. “He can’t leave me. He’s not allowed to do that.”
Camille’s voice was gentle. “She didn’t ask that, Aoife. She asked if you want to break up with him?”
My head whipped from side to side. “No.”
“If you wanna stay with the jackass,” Aela mumbled, “then you just have to ride this out. Men do stupid shit all the time. Granted, nothing on this level. This is a grade A fuck up, but if you keep pushing him, you’ll get that reaction you want out of him.”
Her words were a warning, and I knew she was right.
I plucked at my bottom lip, muttering, “He’d never leave me. He’d never let me go.”
Aela shrugged. “Then is it worth pushing for a reaction you won’t be able to control?”
Savannah took a deep sip of her mimosa. “How did it feel to drive over her flowerbeds?”
I stared at her. “Satisfying.”
For a second, I thought about Finn’s other suggestions, but I knew I couldn’t go through with them. A part of me wanted to set fire to the dinner table, after I’d thrown all her food onto the floor, but it was wiser to leave.
To head back home.
Home.
I rubbed my temple as I wondered exactly where home was.
That place where Finn had told me something that was proof he’d been lying to me for years?
Where I’d lost my baby on the kitchen floor?
The desire to go to him, my real home, hit me, but I didn’t have anything to say. Didn’t want to be held by him. Didn’t even want to look at him.
“I think I’m going mad,” I rasped.
“If you were, I don’t think any of us could blame you,” Savannah murmured.
Aela slipped her arm around my shoulders, and I tried not to cringe when I felt her baby bump rub up against me. “We got you, babe.”
“Do you want to come and stay with us?” Inessa offered.
I shot her a shaky smile. “Thank you, Nessa, but no.”
A chasm had made an appearance between Finn and me. Like a crack in the earth’s crust after a quake, I could feel it spreading. Staying with Nessa would only exacerbate that.
If I wanted my marriage to work, then I couldn’t run away. But how did I cope with what I was feeling? How did I purge myself of the poison that was killing us both?
I cleared my throat at the thought then, needing to change the subject, asked Savannah, “When’s your next article coming out?”
“Have you been talking to Jen?”
I blinked. “What?”
“Never mind.”
“I meant the Sparrows—”
“Don’t talk to me about the fucking Sparrows,” Aela spat. “I finally decided to get a workshop, and because of those bastards, Declan wants to choose it for me. He showed me this poky little place in the East Village. The man’s got no idea.”
Inessa snorted. “He’s protecting you. Not just from the Sparrows.”
Chills whispered down my spine. “Speaking of the Sparrows… You guys remember Callum O’Reilly?”
“That dude who’s gone missing? With the bitch for a wife?” Aela clicked her fingers. “Priestley? Thinks she’s God’s gift to womankind when she’s probably the reason he ran off?”
I had to smile at her description, but it died as I rasped, “Finn told me he was a Sparrow.”
“What?” Aela boomed.
Ears aching with her outburst, I muttered, “Calm down, Aela.”
“Your blood pressure,” Camille tutted.
“He’s a fucking Sparrow?!”
“Yes.” I swallowed. “Finn said that he’s the reason…” I couldn’t get my words out. “He told the Sparrows about our wedding. He’s why the drive-by shooting happened.”
None of the women had been there, but they shuffled nearer to me, as if that would take away my pain.
“Those scars are why you—”
“Can’t carry a baby to full term?” I answered Inessa. “That’s right.”
“I am so sorry,” Aela whispered, rubbing her hand absentmindedly down her belly as if she were comforting both the baby and herself.
The sight had me jerking to my feet. She hadn’t meant to upset me, but it was too much. Much too much.
“I-I need to go.” They all jolted in surprise as I grabbed Jake from Nessa’s arms. He screeched in outrage as I reached for my purse, muttering, “I’ll text you later.”
A hand snagged mine before I was clear of the seating area, stopping me from surging forward and leaving.
“Jen’s our common ground, Aoife, but our men are the best of friends too. I’d like it if we...” For the first time, Savannah didn’t look her regular composed self. “I’m here if you need me,” she ended eventually.