Mayo that had broken them apart, she admitted to herself. What he’d done to Sammie had been so insulting that, even though Nell had tried to condense it into something small enough to hide from herself, it wouldn’t disappear. The spite on his face that night haunted her. Even though he’d been drunk and upset, it felt as if she’d seen the real Liam.
Even before Mayo, he’d been weird. In the fancy hotel at Easter, he had made ‘jokey’ comments about how much she drank, or how gross her second-hand clothes were. And it had been downhill from there.
The second terrible thing was, she’d got a thing for Ferdia. More than a thing. Borderline obsession.
Ferdia, a kid. Her nephew. Sort of. Even if he was actually only a step-nephew by marriage.
She took her iPad and googled ‘Inappropriate Relationships’. Several stories popped up.
My husband made a pass at my daughter.
My husband had an affair with my son’s wife.
Nell scrolled past these.
I’m in love with my stepson.
This one. She clicked the link and devoured the details.
The woman in the piece was thirteen years older than her stepson. Nell was less than nine years older than Ferdia, so this woman was worse than Nell.
The stepson was eighteen, Ferdia was nearly four years older and four years was a lot at that age.
Whenever the age difference she read about was bigger than the one between Ferdia and her, she felt like less of a pervert … Nine years, though.
Next Friday was his birthday and he’d be twenty-two, so then she’d only be eight years older than him.
But playing those games was bullshit. She knew that. She just wanted to pretend for a while.
The only thing keeping her from totally losing her mind was her job. The day after they’d got back from Italy, she’d gone in and worked for thirteen hours straight. Every day since, same. As a project, it was not easy. But when she was engrossed in trying to work things out on set, she wasn’t beating herself up for being a terrible person.
Plus, double bonus, it was keeping her out of Liam’s way.
When, though, had this crazy crush on Ferdia started? Because, for the longest time, she’d just thought he was a spoilt fool. Was it in Mayo that she’d first felt weird about him? Just after Liam had blown bubbles in Sammie’s face? Ferdia, like some hot romantic lead, had been holding Sammie in his arms, murmuring soothing, tender words into her hair – and Nell definitely remembered feeling a pang then.
Then, jump to that crazy murder-mystery country house when Ferdia had been so great about helping Cara. Between the two of them, they’d maybe saved Cara’s life. That had to be a pretty intense bonding experience.
It must have been then that she’d decided he was sound.
But the wheels had come off good and proper during the sun-filled week in Tuscany.
Even then, she’d thought, objectively, he was hot but fancy him? No way.
It wasn’t until that last day when, in a single heartbeat, he’d shifted from being a kid she was fond of to a man she was lit for. Her fingertips literally throbbed from needing to touch his face. She wanted to taste his beautiful body with her tongue, to kiss him full on the mouth, for the palms of his hands to slide along her skin and for his voice to say her name again and again.
Stunned was how she’d felt: confused, ashamed, afraid. It had been the literal worst.
Saying goodbye at the luggage belt, she was so scared she’d lunge and start eating the face off him that she couldn’t even look him in the eye.
What she needed to remember was that these feelings couldn’t be real.
Sure, they felt real, but they totally, absolutely, weren’t.
FOUR WEEKS AGO
* * *
FRIDAY, 11 SEPTEMBER
Ferdia’s birthday
EIGHTY-THREE
‘Jessie?’
‘Mmm?’ She was trying to jam another bottle of beer inside the door of the fridge.
‘Is Barty coming today?’
‘What?’ Concerned, Jessie switched her attention from the beer to her husband. ‘No, babes. They still haven’t made up.’
‘But it’s Ferd’s birthday.’ Johnny looked woebegone.
Helplessly she gazed at him. Since they’d come back from Italy – almost from the very moment they’d landed at Dublin airport – all their recent closeness had just vanished.
‘Sweetie.’ She kept her voice gentle. ‘Are you all right?’
‘I’m grand. All grand.’
He obviously wasn’t grand. He was morose, maybe even depressed. But Johnny didn’t talk about stuff. He could be contemplating jumping off a bridge – sitting on a girder, staring down into the