Page 3 of The Watcher's Bride

I’m dismissed.

If the girl is a twin to Quinn’s son, she’s only twenty-two. My uncle is in his sixties, twice widowed to young brides who died violently, one by suicide and the other by his hand during a jealous fit of rage, and yet he’s acting as if he’s some great prize. Of course, he has vast wealth, and he will extravagantly lavish this on his wife, parading her around like a trophy. But she will be expected to be purely ornamental, there only to service him and provide heirs, a blank canvas for him to mold as he so wishes. Should she refuse, he’d have no qualms about removing her from the equation, alliance or not.

I hope for her sake that she’s a fast learner and strong enough to survive. If her father has prepared her, she stands more of a chance than the last two. I don’t relish the idea of following some Irish Mob princess around New York. But duty calls. With any luck, she’ll be pretty, but not so pretty as tomake Dimitri jealous, dumb enough to make him feel smart, compliant enough to satisfy his demands, and boring enough to prevent this fragile alliance from blowing up in our faces.

Or maybe she won’t be any of those things and I can finally get some retribution from Eamonn Quinn.

No matter what, if the wedding goes ahead, Dimitri will eventually tire of his new plaything and dispose of her. Then we’ll be forced into an even more bitter war.

If she wasn’t a Quinn, I might almost feel sorry for her.

Chapter 3

Nora

It’s been a week since my watcher spoke to me. In the time since, he hasn’t approached me again, but he doesn’t seem to mind if I see him standing in the shadows, observing. That’s the strange thing, I thought after he dared to come into the library then that would be it. But he’s still there… watching.

As a result, I eagerly volunteered to work the day shift today. I don’t want to lose my nights alone in the comfort of the library, but logic also tells me that I should change up my routine. Hopefully, my stalker will grow tired and find someone else to watch.

The library is busy today. My colleague, Mike, and I have been rushed off our feet. I’m tidying up after just finishing story time in the kid’s corner when he comes over, holding a steaming cup of tea.

“Thanks,” I say gratefully, taking it from him and warming my hands with it.

Winter’s approaching and there’s a distinct bite to the fall air. Even with the heating on, the large, drafty library never manages to get warm enough for my liking. I grew up on the Golden Coast where snow was a freak cold snap rather than a regular occurrence.

“How did story time go?” Mike asks me, sipping his own cup of tea.

“It was good. The kids were hyped up but aren’t they always?” I say with an indulgent smile.

“You’re good with them,” he says, looking at me with the gooey eyes of someone imagining me as a mother.

I like kids; they’re innocent, safe. They say what they’re thinking, and they rarely have ulterior motives beyond trying to get candy or stay up late. That being said, I don’t know if I’ll ever have children on my own. You need to find a man for that, and I can’t picture myself ever finding someone I love and feel safe with.

“That’s because I get to hand them back over to their folks after an hour. I’ll pick my cat over kids any day,” I joke.

“Do you have any plans tonight?” Mike asks hopefully.

Mike and I work largely similar shifts in the week, with me finishing later than him, and more often than not we get weekends off while the older part-time workers or high schoolers take the weekend shifts.

He’s been subtly trying to ask me out for a while now, but I always rebuff his advances no matter how innocent. I like him as a friend and I don’t mind hanging out occasionally, but that’s as far as it goes. I know he wants to be more than just friends and it’s hard turning him down without making things awkward at work. Fortunately, for once I don’t have to lie or make up some lame excuse.

“Yeah, I’m going out with my friend Nadya,” I reply. “What about you? Any big weekend plans?”

“Is she the one with the pink hair and piercings?” Mike asks, wrinkling his nose and ignoring my question. Clearly, he doesn’t have plans.

“Yep,” I reply.

Mike knows exactly who Nadya is—she’s my only friend and the only person to have ever visited me at work. Despite being only a year or so older than me, he’s quite old-fashioned in his ideas. He doesn’t approve of her, which I can only assume is him judging a book by its cover since she’s the sweetest person under her tough girl exterior.

“Nice girls like you should keep better company,” Mike says as if he’s paying me a compliment.

Admittedly, we do make an odd pair, but there’s no way I’m going to let anyone say a bad word about Nadya. She was there for me after Josef, my neighbor and cat’s namesake, died. He’d been the only friend I’d had for the first two years living here. I was a frightened seventeen-year-old in a strange city and my only friend was an elderly man. When he died, I’d never felt loneliness like it. Not long after, Josef turned up, and while my cat is good company, he’s not much of a conversationalist. That’s when I met Nadya, an eighteen-year-old runaway. I was only nineteen, but I felt this maternal instinct to protect her, to help her the way I had been helped. Her friendship was the thing that kept me going.

“You know nothing about her,” I snap. “And frankly, who I choose to spend my time with outside of work is none of your business.”

“Sorry, Nora. I—”

But I don’t let him finish, I’m too annoyed by his judgmental attitude to hear a lame apology. “A customer is waiting for assistance, you should go help them,” I say, gesturing to the reception desk that Mike is manning today before turning my back on him and finishing my tea.

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