Page 30 of Accidentally Kidnapping the Mafia Boss
“I already have. I’ve offered to take you back to London and you refused because you want compensation.”
“Ask me why it was me who walked out of the back door of the pub that night, when you expected your brother?”
Her hand pauses on my arm, and she twists so she can look into my face.
“Why didn’t my brother come out from the pub?” she echoes tentatively, eying me as though she’s about to step off a cliff and she’s not sure I’ve made her wings strong enough.
“He’s at my house,” I reply simply. “With a gambling addiction therapist, and without his phone, which is why he hasn’t messaged you.” The outrageously expensive therapist told me firmly that it was too much temptation to have his phone with him.
Her jaw drops open. “But you, I…”
“You think I don’t know what is happening with my employees,” I say dryly.
“You know about the private lives of all of them?”
“No. Your brother is special.”
A bolt of panic crosses her face, and I laugh.
“Not like that. Not for himself, pet. Ask me why I walked out of the pub.”
A little crease forms between her eyes, and I reach and smooth it away. She leans into my touch, and I end up with my fingers laced in her hair.
“You came to tell me about Noah?”
I nod. “To invite you to stay with me for the duration of his treatment.”
“At your house?”
“Atyourhouse, as it turned out.”
It’s some hours after the revelation of Noah being in treatment back in London and I’ve explained the whole process to her. She’s read the updates from the therapist on my phone and discovered everything is as I promised. Afterwards, we watched a movie, with her snuggled in my arms, and had a walk along the beach, her knuckles brushing mine all the way until I gave in and grabbed her hand.
Now we’re back at the cottage, in the kitchen as the sun sets outside.
“I can help,” she suggested when I paused, wondering how best to do things when cuffed together.
“No,” was the simple answer. She doesn’t cook anymore. I’m not her brother, for her to look after, or one of her patients. Iprovide forher. And if that sounds caveman-ish? Well, I guess that’s why the Irish have a bit of a reputation.
So I rejoined her hands, made her a drink, and set about cooking something hot and delicious for her to eat.
“What about you? What happened that you became the mafia don of Kilburn? Parents dead? Tragic backstory?” she says lightly when she’s run out of questions about food.
I catch her eye, and she’s trying to appear nonchalant, but the intensity of her sidelong gaze reveals her. She’s as curious about me as I am about her.
“Both my parents are alive, and I have six brothers and sisters back in Ireland. My father runs the Cork mafia, so you could say it’s the family business.”
Her eyebrows shoot up. “But why London?”
“I’m the middle of seven children. No one took any notice of me, I was just the middle boy of the O’Connor family when I was a kid. I think it lit a fire under me to prove myself on my own, so I came to London when I was your age. It took me a few years,” and more than a few murders, “but I got control of Kilburn.”
“And are you happy with your life?” She reads from the notebook as she plays with a strand of her hair that has come loose from her ponytail and glints in the evening light.
“I thought being on my own would make me happy, since I left because Cork felt too crowded. But I feel like something has been missing, and it wasn’t my family back in Ireland. Going to visit them was no help. I didn’t realise until very recently what the feeling was. I was lonely.”
“But you spend every night in the pubs of Kilburn, laughing, drinking, and…” She blushes and looks away.
“And having women throw themselves at me,” I finish for her.
