Bloody Heart (Brutal Birthright #4) - Sophie Lark Page 0,122

office and scoops up the stack of folders off my desk.

“Hey!” I protest.

“This is for your own good,” he says. “Go home. Put on a nice dress. Go get your man from the hospital. Enjoy a night out. Josh will find these on his desk tomorrow morning, the lazy shite.”

“Fine,” I say, just to placate him.

I let Oran carry the folders away, and then I watch him head over to the elevators, leather satchel slung over his shoulder in place of a briefcase. But I have no intention of actually leaving. I’ve got a million other projects to work on, with or without the purchase agreements.

And this is my favorite time to do it — after everyone else had left, and the lights have automatically dimmed across the floor. In total silence, the rest of the office dark, and only the city lights sparkling below me. No interruptions.

Well — almost none.

My cell phone buzzes on the desk next to me, where it lays face-down. I flip it over, seeing Dean’s name.

You still at it? Want to come meet me for a drink at Rosie’s?

I consider. Rosie’s is only a couple of blocks away. I could easily stop for a drink on my way home.

But I’m tired. My shoulders are stiff. And I haven’t had a chance to exercise yet today. I think about a glass of wine in the trendy, noisy bar, compared to a glass of wine drunk in my own bathtub, listening to a podcast instead of a recap of Dean’s day.

I know which one sounds more appealing to me.

“Sorry,” I text back. “Going to be working late. Then I’ll just head home.”

“Alright,” Dean replies. “Dinner tomorrow?”

I hesitate. “Sure,” I say. “6:30 tomorrow.”

Dean and I have been dating for three months. He’s a thoracic surgeon — intelligent, successful, handsome. Competent in bed (I would guess all surgeons are — they understand the human body and they’re in full control of their hands).

I should want to go to dinner tomorrow. I should be excited about it.

But I’m just... indifferent.

It’s nothing to do with Dean. It’s a problem I seem to have again and again. I get to know someone, and I start picking away at all their flaws. I notice inconsistencies in their statements. Holes in logic in their arguments. I wish I could turn off that part of my brain, but I can’t.

My father would say that I expect too much from people.

“No one’s perfect Riona. Least of all yourself.”

I know that.

I notice my own flaws more than anyone’s — I can be cold and unwelcoming. Obsessive. Quick to get angry and slow to forgive.

Worst of all, I’m easily annoyed.

Like when a man becomes repetitive.

It’s only been a few months, and already Dean’s told me three times about how he thinks the anesthesiologists in his department are conspiring against him, after he refused to hire one of their friends.

“It’s these South Africans,” he complained, last time we went to lunch. “You hire one, and then they want you to hire their cousin or their brother-in-law, and all of a sudden the surgical unit is overrun with them.”

Plus, he seems to think that now, at the three-month mark, he’s owed a greater portion of my time. Instead of asking if I’m free Friday or Saturday night, he assumes it. He makes plans for us, and I have to tell him I’m busy with a work or a family dinner.

“You know, you could invite me to dinner with your family,” he said, in a sulky tone.

“It’s not a social dinner,” I told him. “We’re going over plans for phase two of the South Shore development.”

Most dinners with my family are working dinners, one way or another. Our business and our personal ties are so deeply intertwined that I would hardly know my father, mother, or siblings outside of “work”.

The fate of our business is the fate of our family. That’s how it works in the Irish mafia.

Dean has some idea about the Griffins’ criminal ties — it would be impossible not to. We’ve been one of the largest Irish mafia families in Chicago for two hundred years.

But he doesn’t get it. Not really. He thinks of it like an interesting backstory, like people who say they’re descended from Henry the Eighth. He has no idea how current and ongoing organized crime is in Chicago.

It’s always a dilemma in my dating life. Do I want a boyfriend who’s ignorant of the dark underside of this city? Who could never really understand