Page 62 of The Irish Arrangement

“Answer me,” I said.

Keira only giggled, a high-pitched sound that grated on my nerves and made me even madder.

“We never said when we’d pay anything for Nora.” She tilted her head to the side, smiling wide, like she’d been waiting for this moment. “It could be… years.”

I gritted my teeth, stepping forward with the urge to strangle her. “You liars.”

“What, you need money?” Keira taunted. “Ask your ‘husband’.”

Saoirse snickered. “How’s it going, a stupid, ugly idiot married to a rough brute like him?”

“You have no room to talk about me,” I warned her. “Or him, you bitch.”

Keira gasped. Her hand flew up, and she slapped me—hard. Stinging needles of pain lanced over my cheek, and as my head flung back, my hair whipped to the side.

“Don’t you…” She growled. “How dare you be so disrespectful to your sister!”

“You—” I lunged after her as she turned and slipped away. Saoirse’s lingering laughter floated with them, and before I could weave through the crowd and chase them down, I lost my way.

Further from the drinks area, almost to the middle of the ballroom’s center, the dance floor, I stood still and let my arms sag.

“Fuck!” I whispered to myself, scanning the crowd.

I wanted to speak to my father, to demand that he own up to his end of the deal. I couldn’t have gone through all of this for nothing. I refused to consider the chance that I’d married a stranger to abandon my mother and not secure her future for her.

As I spun, impatient to find my father, my gaze landed on Declan instead.

With a furrowed brow, he hurried up to me. He cut through the crowd, his eyes so stern with worry and anger.

“Where did you go?” he asked.

I turned to the side, giving him more of my profile. My cheek stung, and I was so nervous that he’d see the evidence of Keira’s slap.

“I just wanted to walk around,” I replied, defeated to miss out on speaking with my father.

“Don’t tell me you need another breath of fresh air already,” he mocked. “We just did that fifteen minutes ago.”

I smiled, wishing I felt the full effect of his gentle teasing.

“Hey.” He frowned again as he reached for me. “What’s wrong?”

I tried to keep him toward my side, hiding the full view of my other cheek. “I just want to go.” That wasn’t a lie, but it was far from the whole truth.

He sighed, still studying me closely. “We will.”

“I just don’t fit in here. I don’t belong.”

“You do. With me.”

“That’s the only place I want to fit.” And I meant that sincerely, too. Now that I was back with him, near his powerful body and take-no-shit attitude, I felt stronger. Calmer.

“What the fuck is this?”

He scowled, reaching up to cup my jaw and turn my face toward him.

Oh, shit.

“Are you wounded?”

---