didn’t really expect her to. He raised her hand, ignoring the pain the move brought, and pressed his lips to her knuckles. “The fact that I understand means it’s entirely possible we’re both too foolish to live.”
“Saint Lucia.”
He blinked. “What?”
This time, her smile was real and stretched across her mouth. “When you get a clean bill of health, I’d like to spend a week down in Saint Lucia drinking ourselves stupid and making love all over the house.”
“Sounds like one hell of a honeymoon.”
“Yes.” She leaned down and kissed his forehead. “And when we get back, we’ll start putting things right.”
About the Author
New York Times and USA Today bestselling author KATEE ROBERT learned to tell her stories at her grandpa’s knee. She found romance novels at age twelve and they changed her life. When not writing sexy contemporary and speculative fiction romance, she spends her time playing imaginary games with her children, driving her husband batty with what-if questions, and planning for the inevitable zombie apocalypse.
Please turn the page for a preview of the next book in Katee Robert’s The O’Malleys series, The Wedding Pact!
She wasn’t here.
James Halloran drank his beer and did his damnedest not to look like he was searching the dance floor below for someone specific. Just like he hadn’t shown up here five nights a week for the last three months, even though he was needed elsewhere. With his old man in the slammer and his little brother causing more problems than he fixed, all of James’s attention should have been on getting his people back onto stable ground.
Instead, he couldn’t get her out of his head.
Carrigan O'Malley.
He didn’t know what he would say to her if he did see her. Apologize? Considering the last time they’d seen each other, he’d kidnapped her, tied her to his bed, and his father had sentenced her to a horrifying death…Yeah, there wasn’t a fucking Hallmark card that covered that.
And she’d taken something of his, something irreplaceable. The last link he had to his mother. It was a stupid sentiment, but he’d never been able to fully pack away the old photo album. To know it had been in her possession for the last three months…It left him feeling edgy and strangely vulnerable. He couldn’t admit to anyone that she’d taken it without admitting what it meant to him, and that was handing a loaded gun to the O'Malleys. No fucking way was he going there.
He reached for his beer, only to realize it was empty.
“Want another?” The short bartender didn’t look old enough to drink, but she was good enough at her job not to give him shit for showing up, having a single drink, and leaving. Over and over again.
“No, thanks.” She wasn’t coming tonight, just like she hadn’t come any night since the one where she’d blown his fucking mind in a supply closet. Before he realized exactly whose ear he’d been spilling filthy words into. Before she said her name and everything changed. Before he made the decision that labeled him just as cold a bastard as his old man.
Carrigan O'Malley. The daughter of the enemy. The one woman he sure as hell needed to keep his hands off.
Her absence made sense. If he had sisters, he would have gotten them the hell out of Dodge before shit hit the fan, and he would have kept them somewhere safe while things played out. The power situation wasn’t stable in Boston—not like it had been a year ago—but it was evening out. It had to. He was all too aware that war among the three families was the least of their concerns if some outside threat decided to take advantage of the power fluctuation. He knew the Sheridans and O'Malleys—knew how they thought, knew what they wanted, knew how they’d react to a given threat.
Better the devil he knew than the devil he didn’t.
He’d been in talks with Colm Sheridan and his daughter, Callista, about securing peace. She, at least, wasn’t willing to let the past get in the way of the ultimate good. The reluctant admiration he’d first felt when she turned herself over to him, admitting to be the one who pulled the trigger that ended his older brother’s life, had bloomed into full-fledged respect. Teague was a lucky son of a bitch—and so was everyone under Sheridan protection. Callista Sheridan was a force to be reckoned with.
Somehow, James didn’t think Carrigan would be as willing to let the past go. She was prickly