“Because you and me, we’re it for each other, Aoife. You could leave me, but it would be a half-life you’d be resigning us both to.” He squeezed me. “I fucked up. I admit it. It was a horrific thing I did, and I will spend the rest of my life making up for it. Even then, it might never be enough, but I am yours. You are mine.”
I thought about the tattoo on my arm, and I whispered, “The air I breathe—”
“—belongs to you.”
With a shuddery sigh, I nuzzled his throat again, then I closed my eyes.
Forty-Five
Finn
We spent the night like that.
Her covering me, me holding her.
I woke up about an hour or two after dawn and just savored the closeness because her threats of divorce might have been hurled at me in a tantrum, but a threat was a threat.
I’d never let her go, but that didn’t mean she had to love me, and her love was…
Jesus Christ.
Once upon a time, I’d thought love was a weakness. When Aoife came along, I figured it was a strength.
Now, I was reminded that my earlier belief was fucking right.
No one had the power to decimate me like she did.
Aidan Sr. could nail me to a goddamn cross, and he could slice me up like I was deli meat, and it wouldn’t be as excruciating as this agony inside me.
So I held her for as long as she’d let me. I was her calm as the wild winds of her grief overtook her, and only when she mumbled in her sleep and slipped off me, falling flat on her back in her flour-dusted tee and sweatpants, did I get up.
Knowing she was exhausted, and that she needed to rest, I showered in the guest bathroom, got changed, then I started to get Jake ready too. But after I changed his diaper, I was surprised to realize he wanted to sleep.
Yesterday had taken a lot out of him, I knew. Meeting with Paddy, and then staying up late, I’d intended on taking him with me, but seeing that he wanted more sleep, I decided to leave him.
I needed to head to the office to access some private files the Points had gathered on Hanover Corp., files that couldn’t be computerized.
The last thing I wanted was to leave, but I didn’t have much of a choice. We stored that shit on paper, not computer.
While we’d sent a contract over and they were due to sign it, I got the feeling they were going to dick us around, and I liked to have my leverage firmly in place before I negotiated.
So with my family still resting, I left my apartment with the baby monitor in my hand and went to the floor below where my crew had a place of their own. My guys had fewer tasks than my brothers’, and they acted as guards and drivers for my family.
As the elevator doors opened, Braden got to his feet, dropping a breakfast burrito on the table in front of him. “Everything okay, boss?”
I nodded. “I need to head out.”
“Okay. Want me to go up?”
A part of me did, but another part knew that they’d disturb Aoife, and I wanted her to rest for as long as Jake would let her sleep.
“Here,” I told him, giving him the monitor. “Listen for Jake. Go on up if he stirs.”
Braden shot me a wary look. “You want me to babysit?”
I rolled my eyes. “You have three kids of your own.”
“Yeah, and Nevaeh looks after them!”
“You got three kids and you don’t know how to take care of them?” Ollie muttered, stepping out of the kitchen too. In his hands, he was holding a BLT. “That ain’t something to be proud of, dumbass.” To me, he said, “I’ll handle Jake, boss.”
“Appreciate that. I won’t be long. Just keep an eye out.”
“Will do. Want Sam to drive you?”
“No.”
They nodded, and I retreated to the elevator then pushed the button for the garage.
Moving over to my Range Rover, I climbed in, and I set the radio to blasting. The beat seemed to rage in time to my anger and fears, so I felt calmer when I approached the main headquarters of Acuig.
With one of my PAs notified of my arrival, Ethan was there waiting for me as I climbed into the elevator.
As he passed me some coffee like this was a regular day at work when it wasn’t, I murmured, “I won’t be here for long.”
Of course, the coffee must have been some kind of fucking test because I ended up spending the next eight hours locked in discussions over some changes to the contract that Hanover Corp. sent over at nine AM.
Their actions proved that hostile takeovers were the best way to make corporate moves because when you did shit diplomatically, they thought you were a punk-ass bitch and could make demands that were beyond their worth.
Angered by the wasted morning, I was on the brink of storming off when Ethan popped his head around the corner and said, “There’s someone called Louise waiting down at reception for you, Finn.”
I glowered at him. “Who?”
“Louise? She says she works with Aoife?”
Louise?
“Send her away,” I dismissed.
“You don’t want to see her?”
“I sure as hell don’t.”
He hesitated. “She says she has something for you.”
A bunny she could boil later?
I grunted, “Tell her to leave it at the front desk.”
Seemingly aware that I was on the brink of getting him to send security, Ethan said, “She won’t. Says the receipts are important and she wants to show you that someone is stealing from Aoife.”
Achilles’ heel well and truly tested, I snapped, “Send her up.”
I had no way of knowing if this was a ploy or not, but if it was, I didn’t give a damn that the bakery had nothing to do with me—I was firing her.
Ten minutes later, I finished sending an email to one of our attorneys when a knock sounded at the door.
Ethan waited a second before he popped in. “She’s here, Finn.”
“Send her in.”
“Want some coffee?”
“No,” I sniped. And encourage the bitch into thinking she was welcome here?
“Oh, but, Finn, it’s so cold out. I’d love some,” Louise chimed in from behind Ethan.
He flicked a glance at me but I shook my head. Ethan backed off, letting Louise stride inside.
She wore the same outfit as earlier this morning: skintight jeans with a tee tucked into them. A thick cable-knit cardigan swung around her hips, and she had a winter coat over the top. With calf-length boots, gloves, and a hat, she was dressed for winter.
Not for seduction.
Praying this wasn’t a ploy and genuine for the sake of my patience, I beckoned her forward and remarked, “Ethan says you have proof someone’s stealing from Aoife?”
She shot me a wary smile. “I didn’t want to disturb her with this.”
“You were right to come to me first,” I told her coldly as she approached the desk.
From her bag, she pulled out a folder, and instead of handing it over to me, she rounded the desk and moved closer.
“You’re fine where you are,” I groused, incensed when she ignored me and shuffled even nearer to my side.
“I need to show you where there are clear signs of theft,” she argued with a somber smile that I didn’t trust.