Page 71 of Iron Crown

What happened to him also happened to me. I was not whole without him.

He tugged me closer, putting an arm around my shoulders.

“I want you taken care of if… when…” He let his words trail off. “It reassures me, Love.”

I wanted to pull away, but knew that if I did, he’d read the wrong thing into it.

“Promise me you’ll lean on Dairo if anything happens to me. He’ll take care of you. He’ll… I just trust him. Okay?”

He looked away, and I tried to examine his face. I tried to do what Blink would do and assess the twitch of an eye, or themovement of a muscle, to detect the true meaning beneath his words, but I came up short. Maybe he was too handsome for those tricks to work?

“You’ll never have to work another day in your life. You and Cillian will want for nothing. You understand?”

His jaw clenched, and he looked at me as if that was the most natural thing to desire. Comfort, over love.

“What aren’t you telling me, Love?” I whispered, dread seeping into my skin.

“I’m just saying you don’t ever have to be without resources. If you want a brand new life, it’s yours. I’ve made sure of it. If I’m not around, then Dairo will—”

“Why wouldn’t you be around?” I held his hand tighter, until my knuckles turned white. I held on so tight that my hand began shaking.

He looked down at my gorilla grip, and he didn’t pull away.

“I’m just being practical, Love. That’s what husbands are meant to be, no?” He pulled his hand up to kiss my fingertips.

“Eoghan…”

Nothing was ever as it seemed with Eoghan. Everything hid something deeper, like the fucking bowels of his mansion.

Like the depths of his paintings, including the masterpiece in his foyer.

“Eoghan, what aren’t you saying to me?” I reached out with my free hand to turn his face to me. “I thought we said no more secrets.”

He looked at me, his eyes forlorn. A confirmation that he was, in fact, keeping something from me.

“Nothing, dear Muse,” he said flatly, leaning down to kiss my forehead.

“You…” My heart was aching again. “You just… lied to me.”

He would consider it an insult if I lied to him… so what did that say about him lying to me now?

“Eoghan…”

He kissed my nose. “I’ve grown more forgiving of… discretion.”

I felt the weight of my own lies as I stared at him, unblinking, my mind churning with possibilities of what the hell he could mean. What was he saying to me? What was going on? What wasn’t he telling me?

Before I could ask for more, the car came to a stop. The partition between us and the driver went down, and Kieran O’Malley looked back at us. “Sir, we’re here.”

“That’ll do Kieran,” Eoghan said, not taking his eyes off of me. “Give us a minute, yeah?”

Kieran gave him a nod, lifting the partition. I felt the car sway with his weight as he stepped out of the car.

“If you give me nothing else, Kira,” he said quietly, holding my hand in his, his thumb caressing the life line in the palm of my hand. “Tell me that if something happens to me, you’ll talk to Dairo. Let him give you what I leave behind. You’ll be a rich woman, as my widow.”

Widow. Widow.Widow.

“No.” I laughed in disbelief, because I did not want to cry from hurt.

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