I even said The Lord’s Prayer, but no dice.
She didn’t hug her back, not even when Jen groused, “I missed you.”
“Missed you too, Jen,” Aoife whispered.
“Then why cut me out?”
“Because I-I don’t know… I just wanted to be alone.”
Another understatement.
“You’re not made to be alone,” Jen reasoned. “I’d have come and hung out. You didn’t have to isolate yourself.”
“I did. I wasn’t fit for company. I was crying all the time, either that or sleeping. I just…” She blew out a breath. “It was difficult. I was really happy, and then, I just wasn’t.”
“I’m so sorry, Eef. I shouldn’t have sprung my news on you. I just, well, I tell you everything.”
What news?
My brow furrowed as Aoife muttered, “It wasn’t your fault.”
“No?” Jen whispered.
“No.” She patted her hand. “The OBGYN said it was high-risk. She even said…” Her gulp was audible. “She told me that I should terminate the pregnancy.”
That was the first time she’d said that aloud without coercion.
I closed my eyes as her admission had a cocktail of emotions roaring through me.
Anger. Concern. Fear.
A potent combination that put my back up.
“Finn never said—”
“He didn’t know. I went without him to that appointment.” She bit her lip before she conceded, “I knew something wasn’t right before they even did the exams.”
“Oh, my God, Eef.”
“I knew what he’d say. I didn’t want to hear it. I knew what you’d say too,” she muttered mulishly. “I didn’t want to hear that either.”
“Were you in danger?”
When she didn’t answer, I couldn’t stop myself from growling, “Yeah. She was. If she hadn’t miscarried, and if the baby had gone to term, it could have killed her.”
That she’d shut both of us out just pissed me off all the more.
“Our baby wasn’t an ‘it,’ Finn,” Aoife snapped, twisting to face me, her hands balled at her sides.
“I could really do with some cake.”
Jen’s feeble words fell to the wayside as I snarled, “What the fuck would Jake and I have done without you, Aoife? How the fuck would we have—” My voice broke off when that goddamn arrogant righteousness seemed to filter the air around her.
She breathed it in.
Sucked it down, not realizing it was toxic.
Poison.
Her gaze was loaded with a hatred I’d earned, but not with this.
I wanted to protect her.
I loved her so fucking much, and she was talking about throwing her life aside as if Imogen meant more than her. As if all our deceased babies meant more than her health.
I wanted Imogen. I wished to fuck she were still going to grace us in August, but that wasn’t to goddamn be. And I definitely didn’t want to have my daughter if it cost me my wife.
If that made me evil, then I’d take the title, and I’d own it.
Nothing and no one was worth sacrificing Aoife for.
But I knew she didn’t see it my way. I knew we were on two different sides, and I couldn’t stop myself from flopping my hands up into the air, letting them fall, then turning away and walking out of the kitchen.
I felt like a flotation device that had been pricked with an ice pick as I headed down to my study.
But as I looked around the workspace that I’d turned into a semi-permanent office and not just somewhere to finish off a couple pieces of work over the weekend, I didn’t feel at home here either.
With Aoife and me at war, nothing felt right.
Nothing.
I didn’t have much time to dwell on it before the elevator pinged again.
Checking my Patek Phillipe, I noted the time, registered that it would be Padraig, and I headed over to the drink tray on my desk, poured myself two fingers of whiskey, and downed it.
The burn resuscitated a few of the more frozen parts in my soul, and I headed out to greet my uncle with it warming me up from the inside out.
Conor and Aidan, his godsons, hadn’t welcomed him with open arms, but I knew he’d visited Brennan and Eoghan this week.
I thought that was in thanks for their help in getting Liam back, something that the new Italian Don had facilitated by sending us the coordinates to the site where our cousin was being held hostage. But either way, he’d visited with them, and now it was my turn.
When I saw him, I had to admit, the changes in his appearance were difficult to process. The last time I’d seen him before Sunday, he’d been a grown man and I’d been a teenager.
I’d looked up to him. I’d respected him. He’d been larger than life and a welcome tonic to the craziness of Aidan Sr.
Now, he looked washed out.
A sepia version of the man I’d known and loved.
“Paddy,” I greeted, heading down to shake his hand.
Everything else might have changed, but his grip was the same. A handshake was a handshake with him and not an act of war like it was with Senior.
After, we stood there awkwardly until Jen laughed, and it stirred me into action.
As I shuffled him down the hall toward my office, he asked, “Who’s laughing?”
I could have told him who Jen was to him right then and there, but I didn’t have the energy. That explosion in the kitchen had taken everything out of me. I just wanted to get into bed and sleep for a goddamn decade.
“A friend of Aoife. Aoife’s my wife.”
“I remember.”
Nodding, I chivvied him down the hall, keeping it low because it was Jake’s nap time.
Only when the door was closed behind us did I drawl, “Never thought I’d see a day where a ghost would be in my office.”
“You’ve come up in the world,” was all he said, his gaze circling the space as he shook his head. “You all have. Penthouses, the lot of you.” His smile was sheepish. “And I thought we were flush with cash when I left.”
“Times change.” I arched a brow at him. “Need a drink?”
“Thought you’d never ask,” he said dryly, heading over to the sofa in front of my desk and taking a seat.
Aware he was looking around the shelves that lined the room, each loaded with books that he had no way of knowing were first editions and taking note of the artwork on the walls that cost a cool couple million, I poured him a drink, myself another, then moved over to the sofas.
Passing him the tumbler, I took a seat then sipped deeply from the glass.
With his eyes back on me once he’d done the same, he asked, “Brennan said the family’s made it because of you and Conor. That true?”
I shrugged. “I’m good with figures.”
He scoffed. “Good with figures? There’s being able to do trigonometry, Finn, and then there’s creating a billion-dollar industry.”
“Surprised you know what trigonometry is,” I mocked.
The O’Donnellys didn’t exactly applaud educational endeavors.
“Had to help Liam out with school. Amazing what you learn as they grow up.”
Tipping my chin up in understanding, I explained, “You’d already set the groundwork. You, Frank, and Aidan had a great portfolio of properties thanks to your da, and I couldn’t have done this without that.”