They were as much a part of me as my coal-dark hair and my diamond-blue eyes. Ingrained as they were, it didn’t mean they weren’t irritating as fuck.
As I rifled through the folder on the table in front of me, staring down at the life of one pesky tenant, I wanted to toss it in the trash. I truly did.
I wanted not to be interested in her.
Wanted my focus to return to the matter at hand—business.
But there was something about her.
Something. . .
Irish.
I was a sucker for my own people. When I was a kid, I’d only dated other Irish girls in my class, and though I’d become less discerning about nationality and had grown more interested in tits and ass, I’d thought that desire had died down.
But Aoife Keegan was undeniably, indefatigably Irish.
From her fucking name—I didn’t know people still named their kids in Gaelic over here—to her red goddamn hair and milky-white skin.
To many, she wouldn’t be sexy. Too pale, too curvy, too rounded and wholesome. But to me? It was like God had formed a creature that was born to be my downfall.
I could feel the beast inside me roaring to life as I stared at the photos of her. It wanted out. It wanted her.
Fuck.
“I told you not to get those briefs.”
My eyes flared wide in surprise at my brother, Aidan O'Donnelly’s remark. “What?” I snapped.
“I told you not to get those briefs,” he repeated, unoffended. Which was a miracle. Had I been speaking to Aidan Sr., I’d probably have lost a finger, but Aidan Jr. was one of my best friends, as well as a confidant and fellow businessman.
When I said business, it wasn’t the kind Valley girls dreamed their future husbands would be involved in. No Manhattan socialite, though we were wealthy as fuck, would want us on their arm if they truly knew what games we were involved in.
My business was forged, unashamedly, in blood, sweat, and tears.
Preferably not my own, although I had taken a few hits for the Family over the years.
“My briefs aren’t irritating me,” I carried on, blowing out a breath.
“No? You look like you’ve got something up your ass crack.” Aidan cocked a brow at me, but his smirk told me he knew exactly what the fuck was wrong.
I flipped him the bird—the finger that I’d have lost by showing cheek to his father—and he just grinned at me as he leaned over my glass desk and scooped up one of the pictures.
That beast I mentioned earlier?
It roared to life again when his eyes drifted over Aoife’s curvy form.
“She’s like your kryptonite,” he breathed, tilting his head to the side. “Fuck me, Finn.”
“I’d rather not,” I told him dryly. “Now her? Yeah. I’d fuck her anytime.”
He wafted a dismissive hand at my teasing. “I knew from that look in your eye, there was a woman involved. I just didn’t know it would be a looker like this.”
I snatched the photo from him. “Mine.”
My growl had him snickering. “The Old Country ain’t where I get my women from, Finn. Simmer down.”
Throat tightening, I grated out, “What the fuck am I going to do?”
“Screw her?” he suggested.
“I can’t.”
He snorted. “You can.”
“How the fuck am I supposed to get her in my bed when I’m about to bribe her into selling off her commercial lot?”
Aidan shrugged. “Do the bribing after.”
That had me blowing out a breath. “You’re a bastard, you know that, right?”
Piously, he murmured, “My parents were well and truly married before I came along. I have the wedding and birth certificates to prove it.” He grinned. “Anyway, you’re only just figuring that out?”
I shot him a scowl. “You’re remarkably cheerful today.”
“Is that a question or a statement?”
“Both?” The word sounded far too Irish for my own taste. My mother had come from Ireland, Tipperary to be precise—yeah, like the song. I was American born and bred, my accent that of someone who’d been raised in Hell’s Kitchen but, and I hated it, my mother’s accent would make an appearance every now and then.
‘Both’ came out sounding almost like ‘boat.’
Aidan, knowing me as well as he did, smirked again—the fucker. “I got laid.”
Grunting, I told him, “That doesn’t usually make you cheerful.”
“It does. I just never see you first thing after I wake up. Da hasn’t managed to piss me off today.”
Aidan was the heir to the Five Points—an Irish gang who operated out of Hell’s Kitchen. It wasn’t like being the heir to a