Page 24 of Tempting Irish

He grunts, not looking up at me. “Some tourists started this custom a few years back, attaching theselove-” He sneers on the word, then grumbles as he puts his weight into breaking through the metal. “-locks to thebridge.”

I’d heard something about that.Love lock bridges. The couple attaches the lock to the bridge, then tosses the key into the water, a symbol of their unbreakablelove.

“Why are you cutting themoff?”

He looks up at me through bushy eyebrows. “Because the metal causes corrosion. They’re ruining the damnbridge.”

I can’t help but frown as he tosses another lock in his bucket. My mom would have loved something like this. Flighty. Romantic. Superstitious. And I wonder if she ever came here with my realfather.

I never knew the man. All my mother ever told me about him was that he was from Dublin, and I have his eyes. She called him her one great love. But then, every time she met a new man, she always believed he was her soulmate, her Prince Charming who would eventually give her a happy everafter.

Bullshit.

It’s darkly humorous that the locks, meant to symbolize eternal love, are being discarded, like most of the promises theyrepresent.

Love, if it even exists, doesn’t last. It fades, or it cracks.Or someone breaksit.

Sure, there’s the high, the lust, the moments of pleasure. Without it, no one would fall for the biggest lie in the world. That there’s a happily-ever-after ending, a soul-consuming love for anyone willing to fight forit.

I watched my mom chase hers straight into thegrave.

Turning away from the man, and starting to run again, I realize if I’m not careful that’s exactly what I’ll do with Owen. Because if there was ever a danger of me falling for a man, it’shim.

Stupid twelve-year-oldcrush.

What I need is to finish what we started last night. Get the man into my bed, and out of my head. But I doubt that will happen now. And it sure as hell won’t happen when he finds out who Iam.

The sun is high in the sky when I return to the hotel, and by the time I walk through the large glass doors into the foyer, I’ve decided that it’s best if I get my luggage from Owen’s room and clear out before my cousin Emer or Shane see and recognizeme.

Ifthey’d even recognizeme.

All these years, and not one letter from either ofthem.

Out of sight, out of mind, Iguess.

But I’m tired of being bitter, tired of wanting acceptance, wanting a family that forgot about me a long time ago. I should never have come. It was a stupid idea. One I made after I lost another waitressing job, because of the damn nerve damage in myhand.

It’s one thing not being able to play the piano anymore; at least, not with the proficiency I used to. But it’s a whole other thing to not be able to keep a job because of the chronic pain that makes my hand spasm at inconvenienttimes.

One more thing I blameloveon.

“Ms. McGrath.” The concierge from last night waves a hand, ushering me to the front desk. “We had an early check-out.” He hands me a small folded package with a room number scribbled ontop.

I want to tell him that I won’t need it. That I’ve decided to leave Dublin, to leave this country that holds nothing for me, when a woman’s flittering laugh draws my attention to theelevators.

Two women step off, lost in theirconversation.

My heart skips abeat.

Emer.

She walks towardsme.

I hesitate, not knowing what to do. I feel like a damn coward as I turn my head away, so that I don’t catch hergaze.

This was why I came here. To see my family. To return to my roots. To see if there was anything here for me, when there seems to be nothing for me anywhereelse.

ButOwen.

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