Page 61 of The Irish Arrangement

A test.

And I wasn’t sure I would know if I passed, this first time in public with him.

“You’d fuck me in front of all these people?” I challenged.

“No.” He sighed, standing straighter. “No man will ever see your body. No one but me.”

I bit my lip. Damn, he was protective tonight.

“Dec.” Ian nodded at me, his usual greeting, short and curt. “Smith wants a word.”

He shook his head, taking my hand as he stepped beside me. “No. Not tonight.”

Ian shrugged.

I didn’t know who Smith was, but I was hoping Ian could drag his brother off to speak to someone. I had yet to find an opportunity to slip away. All I needed to do was confront my father and ask why nothing had been paid toward my mother’s bills. Just a minute. One quick chat. But Declan seemed unable to let me out of his sight.

Finally, I found a chance to step aside.

“Stay with her,” Declan told Ian when he was summoned to speak with a few older men.

Ian nodded, stepping back toward me, but since I saw a man calling out his name, I snuck away from my brother-in-law too.

I’d last seen my father near the drinks. Picking up my gown to hurry toward that area, I roved my head side to side, seeking him out.

Dammit. I couldn’t spot him. I searched, craning my neck to see past all these people who needed a refresher from the bounty of alcohol here.

Where is he?

I felt so obvious, frantic to find both my father and my husband. I had to speak with my father and get answers. But I also had to keep an eye on where Declan was so he wouldn’t come and hover, all overprotective again.

Should I come clean? I’d warred with the option of just telling him all. To this moment, I still couldn’t tell whether I was making a mistake in keeping this a secret from him.

What would happen? If I broke down and told Declan that I’d only married him because my father agreed to pay off my mother’s debts, what would happen?

I feared his anger.

I worried that it would wound him. Because even though we’d been forced to marry and had done so without love, I hated the idea of ruining this slow buildup of reluctant affection we seemed to have now.

But what if I tell him, and once he knows that my mother is my weakness, he tries to use that against me too?

“Cara?”

Keira’s haughty voice stopped me in my tracks. I spun toward her, finding her in a burgundy dress that made her face look even redder. And blotchy. Or maybe that was the lighting. I approached her cautiously.

This woman never had any nice words to say to me, and I had no reason to lower my guard now. “Where’s my father?”

She snorted. “Your father? My husband has never been your father. He’s just a sperm donor. Shane is Saoirse’s father.”

I rolled my eyes, shaking my head. She’d always been so spiteful, so determined to wash away the fact that my father ever dated my mother and had me. Like we were a stain on her clutch on him.

“Where is he?” I demanded. I had to be running out of time. Declan would be seeking me out.

“Nowhere you need to know.” She looked me up and down, disdain clear in her unimpressed stare as my stepsister joined us.

“I do need to know.” I stepped up closer, unafraid. “I need to know why my mother’s medical debts haven’t been paid. Why he hasn’t held up his end of our deal.”

She smiled prissily, glancing at Saoirse as she laughed.

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