Cillian (The Kelly Brothers #2) - Megan Wade Page 0,4

at Hazel right now or I’ll give myself away. I can’t believe I was just hitting on my boss’s practically-still-a-kid daughter. What the hell is wrong with me? “Good man. I’ll see you tomorrow at lunch.”

“Will do,” I manage, clearing my throat just as Hazel lifts her hand.

“Bye, Cillian,” she says. And as I risk a glance her way, I instantly regret it, because despite who she is, or how young she is, my body still jolts the same way. I want her. Too bad she’ll ruin me if I do anything about it.

Hazel

“What were you and Cillian talking about? That was twice I caught you hiding out in the kitchen with him,” Dad probes as we drive home through the lamplit streets. My father is my favorite person in the world. He is also the world’s most overprotective dad. And the last thing I’m going to do is tell him I’ve been swooning all over Cillian since the moment I spotted him in the kitchen tonight.

“Nothing really. We were just talking,” I reply, looking out the window and catching the neon ‘Kelly’s’ sign off in the distance. It makes my belly flutter. Cillian is tall and strong, and he’s so good-looking, I actually want to weep when I’m in his presence. Never in a million years did I think a man as beautiful and muscular—the guy has guns—as he is would want a short, curvy girl like me. A girl that no one has ever wanted before. But after two short conversations and a whole bunch of chemistry, he’s asked me out on a date. Can you believe it?

I’m so excited, I want to squeal and hug myself. But that would just make my dad get all suspicious and ask me about a thousand questions. Then he’d probably go and ask Cillian what his intentions are before this date even happens. I’m staying tight-lipped for now. There’s no need to scare the hottest guy I’ve ever been in the presence of away. I want to see where this goes.

“He’s too old for you,” he says suddenly, cutting into my thoughts like he was actually reading them.

“Who is?” I decide the best course of action is to play dumb.

“Don’t play dumb with me,” Dad says, glancing at me with his eyebrows raised. How on earth does he do that? Stop reading my mind!

“I’m not playing dumb. I just don’t know what you mean.”

“I mean that I saw the way you two were looking at each other, and it’s not happening. Cillian is a thirty-three-year-old man and you are an eighteen-year-old girl.”

“Woman, Dad. You may not want to think about it, but I am a woman now. Eighteen makes me an adult in the eyes of the law and everything.”

“I don’t care what the law says. In the eyes of your father you are still a girl. And when the eyes of your father see you making eyes at a thirty-three-year-old man, he gets concerned.”

“There’s nothing going on, Dad,” I lie, because I hope that at the end of the day, everything will be going on. I want Cillian to be my first. “We were just talking, and…he’s got big muscles and tattoos, so I was looking. Sue me. He probably isn’t interested in a girl who looks like me anyway, so calm your farm.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” he says, glancing at me momentarily, his tone calming. “Any man would be lucky to have you.”

“Any man but Cillian?”

“Cillian is fifteen years older than you, Hazel.” His voice raises again. “I’ll fire him if he touches you.”

I turn to him on a gasp. “You can’t do that.”

“Watch me. The restaurant is a family. Family doesn’t f—” He pauses. “Touch family like that.”

“Don’t you think you’re overreacting here?” I ask, frowning in his direction.

“No. I think I’m doing exactly what I have to do to protect my daughter. And if Cillian cares about his job as much as he says he does, he’ll agree.”

“And I don’t get a say in this?”

He raises his brow. “Why do you need a say? I thought nothing was going on.”

“There isn’t,” I splutter. “It’s just…you’re taking my choices away.”

“Protecting you, kid. I’m protecting you. It’s what fathers do.”

Setting my jaw, I fold my arms across my chest and stare out the window. This is unbelievable. How am I ever going to find happiness if the first person I feel a connection with is off-limits? He’s treating me like a child. And I won’t have it. He says he’s trying