Page 46 of On The Rocks

“You never asked before.”

“You never offered either.”

“Yeah, because you don’t want that type of marriage, remember?”

The heel of his hand came up to dig into his eye, and he sighed deeply. “What the fuck are you listening to mefor? I didn’t mean we’d ignore each other and never fucking communicate. Plus, I’m obviously a fucking eejit.”

Despite myself, I laughed.

The corner of his mouth hitched as he watched me chuckle. “You’ve got a great laugh,” he said under his breath as if talking to himself.

I scrunched my nose and peered up at him. “Callum O’Shea. You’re the most confusing man I’ve ever encountered. What’s going on with you? I’m supposed to be the weird one.”

He jerked as if coming out of a daze and stepped back. “Jesus Christ, I don’t know, Mae. I’m as confused as you are. All I know is that you talk to everybody on the phone except me, and I don’t fucking like it, especially when I don’t even have your damned number.” He leaned down until our faces were inches apart. “You’re my fucking wife; how can you talk to Donovan all night and not even give me your digits?”

My heart gave a flutter at the hurt in his tone, even though I knew it shouldn’t. Heart fluttering was bad, especially when it came to Callum ‘almost fucked your sister’ O’Shea. However, he was right; giving everybody except him my number was petty, but what if there was an actual emergency and I needed help?

“Give me your cell,” I ordered.

He pulled it out of his pocket before unlocking it and handing it to me.

“How many women’s names have you got stored in this thing?” I snipped, taking it from him and keying in my name and number.

“None,” he declared. “As soon as I move on, I delete, then I really move on. There’s nobody on the scene, and there hasn’t been since before we got wed, so the only number in here right now is yours.”

I steeled myself against the ‘right now’ and called my cell from his so I could store his number too.

“I wanted to say sorry for everything that went down on our wedding day,” he murmured.

My eyes shot up to meet his.

“I was an asshole in the car after our wedding. Everything felt like it was moving too fast, and I was out of control. I’d just pissed Paddy off by ordering his associates out of the church, and I reacted badly. God only knows what I was thinking. I didn’t even mean half the shit that came outta my mouth.” He sucked air in through his nose to fortify himself before continuing, “Then you overheard Shannon and me, and everything went from a bit of a crapshow to a total shitshow at the speed of light.”

A sharp ache shot through my chest. It happened every time I was reminded of him and her; the pain and humiliation morphed into a short, sharp shock.

“You should’ve fessed up,” I stated. “Instead, you gave her the tools to corner and blindside me. You must’ve known she’d be baying for my blood, especially when, in spite of her meddling, you still went ahead with the wedding. She already thinks I took her dad’s love from her. Now she’ll think I set out to take you from her, too. It’s how her nasty little mind works.”

He pulled his coat lapels together to protect himself from the cold, then tied my loose-hanging scarf securely around my neck. “Honestly, I didn’t even think about it.”

“For a man who thinks he knows women, Callum O’Shea, you’re really clueless.”

His eyes flicked over my face, and he slipped his phone back into his pocket. “I’m beginning to see you’re right... again.”

We turned and set off walking, though thankfully slower. “That mindset right there, where I’m always right. You stick with that, and we’ll get along great. Well, at least until we break up in a few months, and we have to start hating each other.”

His body jerked from beside me. “Don’t say that shit.”

Huh?

Both our necks swiveled to face each other. Our eyes locked, and my heart went all aflutter again.

Damn.

“We’ve been married five days,” he said quietly. “Let’s just get to know each other without any more talk of divorce just yet.” He took my hand and tucked it into the crook of his arm.

His body felt big and warm next to mine, like a shield that wouldn’t let anything get to me. It was bittersweet because I’d never had that before. I’d gone it alone for so long I didn’t quite know what to make of it or how I should feel.

I didn’t want to get used to it. Callum made it clear where we stood back in New York, so becoming dependent on him would be a mistake when, inevitably, I’d lose it all. Already, the thought of leaving brought a lump to my throat, so I had to set some boundaries if I was going to survive this marriage.

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