Page 61 of Naughty Irish Liar

I might have just taken the biggest risk of my life.

Or the biggest mistake.

* * *

“Hey, Rissa. Is Dad here?”

“Yes, miss Catie, he’s in the drawing room.”

I left my coat on the newel post after thanking my parents housekeeper. It wasn’t unknown I would come by in the week without letting them know, but mom had a few days off, so I thought I’d grab lunch with them.

A voice inside dad’s study had me pausing outside of the door before I went inside.

“Jon, she’s okay. I wasn’t gonna leave her if she was still feeling like crap. I’ll get back to her soon.”

Ronan.

Ronan was here talking to my dad? The burst of love and happiness was short lived when they began discussing my illness. A vicious twist in my middle, I began adding up things that didn’t add up at all. Because it sounded like my dad knew of my relationship with Ronan and I hadn’t been the one to tell him.

Ronan never mentioned he’d spoken to my dad recently. In fact he’d told me they hadn’t seen each other in a good long time.

What was going on?

“How is it actually going, son?”

Son? My forehead folded down, my heart racing for reasons I couldn’t put my finger on yet.

“I think I’m fucking it up. I don’t know how to be a boyfriend.”

Dad barrel laughed from inside the study. “Don’t you think you should have factored that in when you decided to make that girl of mine yours?”

I’d heard enough. With my heart pulsing I pushed open the door and both sets of eyes looking more than comfortable in each other’s company sitting by the fireplace, turned my way.

Only Ronan appeared guilty. My dad smiled like it was normal catching them together like this.

“I’d ask what’s going on, but I heard enough to know you two have secrets and I’m at the center of them.”

“Sweet girl,” my dad said standing to his feet with his arms outstretched. Any other time I would have walked into them. I love my dad and I love his hugs. “Don’t sweet girl me, old man. You’re just as guilty as this one.” Dad grumbled retaking his seat.

I turned my confused gaze on Ronan. Not a flicker of amusement on his face, though his eyes bore into me. “Go ahead, tell me this isn’t what it looks like, Ronan.” I didn’t venture into the room. I couldn’t was more to the point.

My feet rooted to the floor like cement was weighing me down.

I felt as though I’d been part of a game I was only just finding out about. Like I’d been on the board this whole time and only now I was let into the big secret.

My two favorite men in the entire world. Two men I loved in different ways and they’d conspired against me somehow like a chess piece? That’s how it appeared. And the longer Ronan stayed quiet, the bigger his guilt became.

“It depends what it looks like.” He said, toneless. Watching me.

“I’ll help you,” I said with bite. “You manipulated me as a favor to my dad.”

“Catie-cat. That’s not it at all.”

“Keep me busy, was that it, Ronan? Get me refocused on my degree, am I hitting the mark? Let me see the hard, backbreaking side of running a pub so it would divert me back to the hotels when he knows I don’t want to work in his damn hotels? And you flew to do his bidding.”

“You have it all wrong, baby.” Dad input but my focus was for the man not saying a word.

I couldn’t trust the words flying out of my mouth, but the more I spat out the more they made sense. Why else would they be in my dad’s study discussing the relationship he and I were in the middle of. Why the big damn secret?

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