Page 16 of Heated Rivals
Big words. “Oh, and I suppose you are?”
“Yeah. More than that, I’m the only one who’s going to truly have you.”
Carrigan laughed because it was the only appropriate response to the sheer cockiness of his words.Hewas going to be the only one to have her? The man was even more delusional than she could have guessed. “I don’t know if you noticed it that night, but I was hardly a blushing virgin when we met.” She found herself holding her breath, waiting for the inevitable demands to tell him how many men had been there before him. Or maybe he’d assume there had been only one, and the sheer magnitude of his intoxicating presence had been enough to stir her almost-virgin heart. In her experience, men fell into only one of those two categories. They constructed theirown beliefs about an experience—abouther—and when faced with evidence that they were wrong, they looked at her like she was either a whore or a virgin in disguise. There was no middle ground.
“They don’t matter.” He said it totally dismissively, as if it was actually true.
She blinked. “What?”
“They’re the past. We all have a past, lovely. It doesn’t matter who they were or how many or if you loved or hated every single one of them.”
She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry or just hang up. Damn him to hell and back for blocking off all the things she’d done with a few short words. If he was trying to mindfuck her, he was doing a hell of a job with it. “I’m not ashamed of what I’ve done.”
“Why should you be?” His voice dropped an octave. “Those choices led you to me, after all.”
Thenerve. “I number you among the mistakes.”
“No, you don’t.” He sounded amused again.Ass.
“God, you’re completely insufferable.” It didn’t seem to matter what she said, because he always had a comeback ready. Worse, he sounded like he actually meant them. Carrigan shook her head. What she should do was hang up the phone and block this number. To do anything else was just encouraging him, and that was the last thing she should want.
Right?
“I want to know something.”
“What’s that?” She really had to work on her mouth getting away from her. Maybe she wouldn’t be in this situation if she had better control. If her father found out… She glanced at her bedroom door and took aminute to pad across her room to make sure it was locked. The cell phone had been a gift from Teague several years ago, something that she could have without fear of the family monitoring every call and text.
Though she seriously doubted he’d approve of the way she was currently using it.
“Why did you come back to the club tonight?”
She froze in the middle of climbing back onto her massive bed. To answer that was to strip bare a small part of her. It wasn’t anywhere near her center, but it was still closer than she wanted to let James.Then hang up, idiot. But she didn’t. Instead, she answered. Honestly. “Curiosity.”
“You know what they say about curiosity and that damn cat.”
Yeah, she did, and that hadn’t stopped her. Her days were numbered as it was—if she didn’t use what was left of her freedom to take chances, she was wasting precious time. “Are you planning on hurting me, James? Maybe finishing what your father started?”
“Fuck, no. The world would be a darker place without you in it.” Before she could fully process that comment, he moved on. “You’re not being strictly honest, though. It was more than curiosity that drove you to sit down across that table from me.”
He was right. It had been a number of things that she didn’t want to give voice to. This conversation was already strange enough—it was almost intimate to sit here on her bed in the darkness and exchange words with him. Which meant she had to do what she’d been shoring herself up to since the moment she realized he was on the other end of this call. “Good night, James.”
“A little too close to the truth, huh?” Hesounded like he was smiling. “I can take a hint—on occasion. Good night, lovely.”
And then he was gone, leaving her wondering if maybe it really had all been a dream. She went so far as to check her phone to see if she’d actually received a call, and there it was. James’s number. Before she could think too closely about what she was doing, Carrigan saved the number underJand set her phone aside.
She lay back in bed, going over the conversation even as she cursed herself for doing it. She wasn’t sixteen anymore, dancing home from school after the popular boy talked to her. Hell, she hadn’t even done that when shewassixteen. And James Halloran wasn’t some harmless jock. He was aHalloran. More than that, he was now the man in charge of all Halloran territory and everyone under their control. One could argue that he was as powerful as her father, though she’d never be stupid enough to say as much where Seamus O’Malley could hear her.
She rolled over and buried her face in her pillow. Sleep. Sleep was what she needed more than anything right now. Maybe in a few hours things would look clearer.
* * *
Cillian stared at the untouched drink in front of him. He could almost taste the whiskey on this tongue. The sensory memory made him want to lick his lips and puke, all at the same time. He hadn’t touched the stuff in months—not whiskey, not Guinness, not anything else with a drop of alcohol. Guilt was his new drug, and he excelled at it. If he hadn’t been so shit-housed, Aiden wouldn’t have decided that they should walk home from the bar thatnight. If they hadn’t walked home, they wouldn’t have been vulnerable, and that bastard Halloran wouldn’t have had a chance for a drive-by. If he hadn’t had the chance, Devlin would still be alive. Cillian had been more concerned with chasing skirts than chasing grades in school, but even he remembered that old logic equation—ifAequaledBandBequaledC, thenAequaledC.
It meant that Cillian was responsible for Devlin’s death.
There was plenty of guilt to go around, or that was what both Teague and Aiden had told him time and time again over the last four months. They could keep believing that if it made them feel better. Cillian knew the truth. He might not have pulled the trigger, but he was the reason they were there in the first place.
He glanced at the table where they’d shared their last drink. The memory of the night was hazy at best—at least before they hit the street—but he vaguely recalled needling Teague about marrying a Sheridan. They’d all been laughing and shooting the shit. For a second, it’d almost been like the good old days. Before Aiden grew up and got serious about his role as heir. Before Teague took it upon himself to save every one of his siblings. Before Cillian recognized the noose around his neck and resolved to live life to the fullest before it yanked tight.
