Page 74 of Just Say Yes
His head tilted a little to the side, the gaze still fixed. ‘Why especially with me?’
‘Because you’re the hardest to work out.’
‘Am I now?’
‘Yes.’ I nodded, slipping my hands from his, ostensibly to tuck a stray lock of hair that had escaped from my clip back behind my ear. The truth was sitting here with Lorcan’s warm, strong hands wrapped around my own small, cool ones was beginning to feel just that little bit too good. Too comfortable.
‘Whereas you’re pretty easy to read.’
‘I most certainly am not.’
‘Oh, darlin’. You really are.’
‘I’m not,’ I said, feeling my shields go up. ‘And, as I said, I don’t need you to attend the designer’s studio with me. Thank you for the offer.’
He leant back against the cushions lining the sofa we were sitting on. ‘What’s up with you?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘You. You suddenly went into self-protection mode.’
I let out a laugh that sounded a little strangulated and tried to gloss over it, although I’d caught a glance of Lorcan’s face and he clearly hadn’t missed that it had sounded off. Of course he bloody hadn’t.
‘You don’t like people trying to get behind that organised, put-together face you show the world, do you?’
‘I don’t know what you mean. I like to be organised and I like to feel put together. There’s no “face”, as you put it. This is who I am.’
‘Is it though?’ His voice was soft and enquiring but his questioning was making my hackles rise. I wasn’t sure what his intention was. Perhaps it was just curiosity. I’d got used to my own company and keeping myself to myself, especially when it came to my private life. Well, as much as you could in a village and with Betty as a neighbour. Thank God the village wasn’t like Ballalee though, where you really couldn’t have any secrets. Everyone seemed to know everything. And the curious thing to me was that no one seemed to mind. Maybe it was just the nature of the place, the people. And maybe it was simply that nature that prompted Lorcan to ask the question he had. I did my best to keep that in mind.
‘It is,’ I said, smiling briefly before turning my attention to sweeping up the crumbs on the table in front of us with a napkin before depositing them on the side of the plate.
‘I see. I wondered if the real you was the one I saw Saturday night when doc’s drugs had you dropping all those barriers.’
‘I don’t have barriers,’ I said, struggling a little more now with keeping my polite smile in place. ‘My job requires me to be a people person. I can’t afford to have barriers.’
‘Rubbish,’ Lorcan countered. ‘You can be excellent at your job, which you clearly are, and still have personal barriers. In fact, maybe it’s a necessity at work, but I get the feeling there’s more to it when it comes to you.’
I looked up in order for him to witness my exasperated sigh but instead found myself hooked into that deep blue gaze and for a moment it felt as if he could see straight through me. Right back to that night. Right back to the moment when my life changed forever and I was hit with so much pain that I went out the other side of it into a place where I felt completely numb. A place I’d never thought I’d return from. A place perhaps I hadn’t truly come back from, not entirely. But no one had ever called me out on it before. Of course, Lorcan O’Malley was different from anyone I’d met before and that meant Lorcan O’Malley was dangerous.
‘What time do we need to leave for the airport?’ I asked, gathering up the neat pile of work I’d tucked beside me when the food arrived and putting it in my carry-on suitcase.
‘OK, I guess that’s the end of that conversation.’
I looked up from my task with what I hoped was an innocent expression. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you’d finished. I just don’t want us to be late.’
Lorcan raised a hand and gave a little wave to the woman behind the counter, signalling for the bill as he spoke. ‘We won’t be late, don’t worry. I’ll just settle up here and we can head off.’ The worn, comfortable leather of the sofa creaked as he stood, unrolling his sleeves and deftly fastening the cuff buttons, before slipping his jacket back on. The fabric momentarily stretched across his broad back before settling into just the right position.
‘Let me give you some money for the bill,’ I said, reaching into my purse.
‘No need. I’m here for business meetings. Had I not been we wouldn’t have had to stop off here, ergo you wouldn’t have had to eat here and may, in fact, be at home now knocking back some vile green juice thing instead of a hearty Irish stew. So, my meetings delayed us, therefore the onus is on me to pay.’
I let out a sigh. ‘Fine.’
Lorcan looked down, as though studying me. ‘You know, most people would just say, “Ah, thanks, Lorcan, that’s grand. I’ll get it the next time.”’
‘Well, I’m not most people, plus it’s unlikely that there will be a next time so it would have just been simpler if we split the bill now, but, as you seem so determined, I won’t object.’
A smile spread across his face and that ripple of danger tickled my spine once more. ‘You’re quite the woman, Miss Madeleine.’
