Wild Embrace (Wilder Irish #11) - Mari Carr Page 0,35

because they kept finding ways to seek each other out.

Monday, he’d followed her to the coffee machine and they’d chatted briefly. Tuesday, she’d stopped by his office to invite him to grab a sandwich at the café on the first floor with her and a couple of other people in the office for lunch. He’d surprised himself—and their colleagues—by accepting, and for the first time in forever, he’d taken a lunch break that wasn’t connected to a meeting for work. And enjoyed it.

On Wednesday, she’d gone for broke and convinced him to knock off work early—which meant on time—to join her for a quick happy hour at Pat’s Pub. The two of them had kicked back at the counter with her grandfather and best friend, Brooklyn, drinking a couple pints of Guinness each and polishing off a large order of cheese fries.

Yesterday, he’d decided the madness had to stop, and he had turned down her invitation to karaoke. Then he’d spent the whole night at home, on the couch, wondering what song she was singing and regretting his decision not to go listen.

So it was time to give in and admit this wasn’t going away. No matter how much he tried to pretend it might.

The worst part was, Darcy wasn’t only taking over his days, she’d claimed all his nights and cost him more hours of sleep than he could count. He’d played out so many sexual fantasies about her the last three weeks, his dick was actually sore from all the jerking off. It was as if he was making up for the past four years all in one fell swoop.

No. Not four years.

Five years.

That epiphany had hit him last night as he was taking his second cold shower of the evening.

He and Denise hadn’t had sex in the year prior to her death, which made sense, now that he knew she was having an affair. Back then…well, back then, he hadn’t given it much thought because he’d been too busy with work.

Spending all this time with Darcy seemed to be awakening memories of Denise, things he’d pushed down deep and refused to look at. Things he wasn’t particularly proud of. Things that proved he shouldn’t be taking lunch breaks and doing happy hours with the twenty-four-year-old graphic artist down the hall.

He wasn’t the type of guy who could do romance or true love, given the fact he hadn’t even fallen in love with his wife until he’d seen her holding his son. He’d inherited more of his parents’ attributes than he cared to admit. After all, his mother and father put their jobs ahead of everything, including the rearing of their son. Ryder had been dropped off at daycare, starting when he was just four weeks old, and it hadn’t been unusual for him to be the first kid there in the morning and the last to leave each evening.

His father had never tossed a football with him and had actually been out of town on a business trip the day Ryder graduated from high school. In his parents’ minds, providing for him financially was more than enough to prove they cared about him, and it never occurred to either of them that he might need something like love or affection.

After high school, Ryder had chosen to attend school on the East Coast, desperate to make the break from his parents once and for all. They’d paid his way through school, never once blinking an eye that he chose to spend holidays and summers with friends. He hadn’t been back to the house he’d grown up in once since leaving for college. And his parents had only seen Clint after he was born because they’d both had business trips near Maryland and managed to squeeze in a short visit to see their grandchild. That was the first and last time they’d seen Clint.

The only time Ryder had heard from them in the past decade was when they sent a sympathy card after Denise’s death.

A fucking sympathy card.

He knew it wasn’t uncommon for children to follow in their parents’ footsteps, but Ryder had always sworn he’d do better. Be better.

With Denise, he’d failed. Miserably. Expecting his paycheck to be enough to pass as proof of love.

To make matters worse, Darcy’s childhood had been the polar opposite of his. She was a Collins, a name synonymous for large, loving, in-each-other’s-business-all-the-damn-time family, so God only knew what she’d think of his fucked-up family tree.

The second he thought of her, his dick