Page 118 of Possessive Mafia Vows

EPILOGUE

SIENNA

It feelslike the scene at the end of the movieLove Actually.

Kyle and I are waiting at Dublin airport for everyone to arrive from New York City. Emily came over a week ago to spend the summer with us. It turns out that she has an artistic streak that she’d been keeping to herself since she was a child, afraid that her older brothers would laugh at her if she revealed that she wanted to be an artist. She loves animals too. So far, there are seven paintings of cows in my new studio, each one named, each with a personality of their own.

One day, I’ll persuade her to sell them.

Kyle leans over my shoulder and kisses my cheek as he hands me a vanilla latte smothered in cinnamon and sits beside me. His hand cups my belly, and the baby reacts with a few well-placed kicks.

“I stand by what I said before: he’s going to be a footballer.” Kyle winks at Emily who is sitting opposite us in the arrivals lounge.

“Sheis going to be a prima ballerina.” I sip my drink and hide behind my cup.

“What do you think, Em?” Kyle watches his sister, who snaps her attention back to the conversation.

She hasn’t been watching the planes preparing for take-off, or studying the flawless blue sky for a glimpse of the family’s private jet coming in to land. I follow the direction of her gaze to two young men sitting near the bar area of the lounge playing a card game. One, dark-haired, blue-eyed, classically handsome, glances over at Emily, catches me watching him, and looks away again.

I wonder who they’re waiting for. Their parents? Friends? Girlfriends?

Everyone here is waiting for someone. We’re waiting for Kyle’s family to fly into Dublin for our wedding next week. It’s been a few months since I’ve seen baby Holly, and although Victoria sends me pictures every day so that I can see how she’s growing, I’m excited to spend some time with her before she forgets who I am.

Since the abduction and the subsequent deaths of Nick and my father, I’ve been spending most of my time in Ireland. Kyle bought a little cottage by the sea for me to stay in while I figure out my next move. It has small, low-ceilinged rooms, a wood-burner, an outside shed filled with freshly cut logs, and a garden filled with wildflowers.

My closest neighbors, in another cottage with pink climbing roses framing the doorway, are Kyle’s security team. He thinks that I don’t know about them. But I haven’t told him that I still look for Seamus every day, expecting him to come marching up the front path and offer to give me a tour of the coastline. His death follows me around, and the guards’ presence is like an invisible comfort blanket.

When the sun shines, the sea sparkles like a million diamonds, and when it’s stormy, the sea turns moody-gray, the sea-monsters come out, and the wind shrieks around the cottage, a warning to stay inside.

I like the stormy days the best.

When everything outside is chaos and carnage, I feel a sense of inner peace that I’m not sure I’ve ever experienced before. The wind, the Irish Sea, and the baby growing inside me keep me company when Kyle is in New York.

He currently divides his time between here and the States, but I sense that it’s becoming increasingly difficult for him to leave whenever he’s needed in the city. His life is right here. He’s connected to Ireland through blood, through his family legacy, and through me while I’m here. He wants to stay. For good. Build a life here with our child, open a new gallery, visit the local pub on a Sunday afternoon for a pint of Guinness, get involved in the close knit community.

I haven’t told him yet that I’m tempted.

I don’t have the same roots. The more I think about it, I’m not even certain that the roots I put down in the city are keeping me alive. But I finally feel like I’m starting to grow again.

I haven’t painted since Nick and my father destroyed my artwork in the New York gallery.

I broke my right arm in two places when I fell over the side of the cliff outside the mansion in Donegal. Fortunately for me, there was a narrow ledge jutting out of the sheer cliff-face. It broke my fall and saved me from certain death on the rocks below, but it broke something inside me at the same time. My arm is healing well. The doctors say that there’ll be no lasting damage, and thatwith continuing physical therapy, there’s no reason why I can’t get back into the studio.

But my heart isn’t in it.

Not yet.

Kyle built a new studio for me. He thought it was what I needed to help me recover from the ordeal. But each time I pick up a paintbrush, I relive the moment when I discovered that everything I’d ever painted had been trashed.

Maybe I’m being melodramatic, but it feels as if all the tiny pieces of my soul that I mixed into the paint on those canvases were destroyed with them. I’m struggling to pick myself back up. I know I will in time—I’ve always bounced back before—but will I paint again?

Who knows?

Besides, I’m going to be a mom soon; the baby growing inside me consumes my every waking moment, and I’m happy with that.

“It has to be a girl.” Emily’s eyes gleam when she smiles at me, dragging me out of my reverie.

I spend too much time inside my own head lately, but that will change when everyone else arrives and we all move into the Murray family home for the next couple of weeks.

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