Duncan wanted to have what Flynn and Cassie had. A family of his own. A child he would love and raise with affection, a little girl or boy with Lola’s beautiful eyes and bright spirit.
“We have one more announcement,” Flynn said. He and Cassie both looked ecstatic as they said, as one, “We’re engaged!”
More hugs and tears ensued. And then Ethan said to Beth, “You know what we need to do to celebrate, don’t you?”
“Of course I do,” Lola’s mother said, grinning. “We’ve got to get out the instruments. And we need to dance. We can clean this up later.”
“You’re going to think we’re like the von Trapp family singers in The Sound of Music,” Lola told Duncan. “Or the Brady Bunch when they sang and danced in that Christmas special.” But he could see that she was as excited as the rest of her family about celebrating Cassie and Flynn’s great news in a classic Irish way.
Within minutes, the living-room furniture was pushed aside, and Turner was holding Irish pipes on his lap, which looked quite different than Scottish bagpipes. Ashley was holding a flute and Hudson a fiddle.
“If Brandon were here,” Ethan told Duncan, “he’d be on the bodhran, an Irish frame drum. Tonight, we’ll have to make do by stomping our feet and clapping our hands.” Lola’s father picked up a guitar. “Why don’t we start with a jig?”
Within seconds, Duncan felt like he’d been transported to a pub in Ireland, the catchy, joyful music filling his soul.
Beth took Lola’s hand, saying, “It’s time to kick up our heels.”
Lola shot Duncan a look that seemed to say, What can you do but join the madness? Then she followed her mother to the impromptu dance floor.
And what glorious madness it was.
Duncan had seen Irish dancing on TV, but watching it from mere feet away blew his mind. Lola threw herself wholeheartedly into the dance, her movements perfectly coordinated alongside her mother, both of them exceptionally talented dancers.
The last thing he expected was for Lola to reach for him. “Dance with me. We can do one where the man and the woman play off each other.” After Ethan passed his guitar to Cassie so that he could join Beth in the dance, Lola said, “Just follow my lead.”
Duncan’s heart was soon pounding as he jumped and spun and pulled Lola into his arms, her laughter the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard. Though they were surrounded by her family, it felt like it was just the two of them, dancing and laughing and loving each other.
As he swung her close, he whispered in her ear, “I love you.” When she whispered it back, he was happier than he’d ever been.
The doorbell rang just as the song ended. “Moira!” Lola’s mother sounded thrilled to find an unexpected guest at the door. “What a wonderful surprise. If you had told us you were coming up from Boston, we would have held dinner for you. You’re here just in time to dance.”
“My weekend cleared up at the last second, and I thought it would be fun to surprise you.” Moira smiled fondly at everyone. “Hearing the music, seeing the dancing through the window, felt like walking into the local. I almost wondered if I had been magically transported to a pub back in Ireland.”
Moira and Beth had similar accents, and Duncan deduced that they had grown up together. And from the way Lola rushed to give her a hug, he guessed this was the second mother Lola had told him about, the one whose failing business had contributed to her ill health. Fortunately, she looked like she’d recovered from her bout with cancer.
“Moira, I’m so glad you’re here tonight.” Lola took her hand and brought her over to Duncan. “There’s someone I’d like you to meet. This is—”
“Duncan Lyman.” Moira’s smile fell away, her face suddenly ashen. “What are you doing here?”
Duncan didn’t believe he’d ever met Moira, nor did her name ring a bell. But from the look on her face, he had a bad feeling that he was inextricably connected to her all the same.
“He’s here with me, Moira,” Lola said, looking confused as to why her close friend was acting so strangely. “He took one of my drawing classes last weekend, and we—” She looked at Duncan, her eyes full of emotion. “We fell for each other.”
But Moira was shaking her head and backing away as though she couldn’t stand to be this close to him. “He…” When she looked as though she was going to faint, Ethan helped her to one of the couches, while Beth brought her a glass of whiskey. She downed it in one gulp.
“What’s wrong, Moira?” Ethan asked.
But Moira just stared at Duncan, her face even more pale now, if that were possible. “Brilliant Funds was yours, wasn’t it?” Her question came out barely above a whisper. “And you were instrumental in all of our failures.”
The earth actually seemed to stop spinning as Lola turned to Duncan with shock—and disbelief—written all over her face. “Duncan?” She looked like she was going to be ill. “Is this true? Did you have something to do with Moira’s business failing?”
Everyone in the room was silent as they waited for Duncan’s response. Standing in the middle of the Sullivan family, with Moira gazing at him in horror, Duncan felt as though an invisible fist were slamming into his gut, over and over and over again.
Brilliant Funds had been a startup incubator that had promised half a million dollars of funding to each company it worked with as long as company owners first put in one hundred thousand dollars of their own money and then proved their product’s marketability over the first six months. Though Duncan’s signature had been on the contracts, the company had been his brother’s baby, so he’d had nothing to do with the fund. Unfortunately, Duncan had found out too late that Alastair was defrauding and embezzling from the clients of Brilliant Funds.
Lola had told him he was a good man. She’d had faith in him. She’d trusted him implicitly. She’d given her heart to him. And now, he was going to completely betray her trust, her faith, and her love with an honest answer. “Yes, Brilliant Funds was a subsidiary of Lyman Ventures, the company I ran with my brother.”
That was all it took for the woman Duncan loved to jump away from him…and for doubt and stunned disappointment to replace the love in her eyes.
The anguish on Lola’s face made it feel as though a knife had plunged straight through his heart. If only he’d told her everything before tonight, then maybe he could have found a way to make her understand that he’d never meant to hurt anyone—and that he had spent years trying to fix what his brother’s crimes had broken.
But before he could explain anything to Lola, he first had to make his apologies to Moira.
After Duncan’s corporate records had been destroyed, he hadn’t been able to piece together enough information on one of the six companies that had signed on. Now he knew that Moira’s company was the one that had slipped through the cracks.
Though the current situation couldn’t be more fraught, he was glad that he’d finally found Moira. At last, he could make amends for what Alastair had done to her and her company.
“For five years,” he began, “I’ve tried to find you—”