in her head. Despite her reaction to him just last night, who was to say if it went further he wouldn’t have exactly the same effect as every other man had had? Ultimately one of disappointment.
If she slept with him—if she got him out of her system and negated his hold over her, restored the balance of his initial rejection—perhaps then she could walk away, not look back, and find the peace and happiness she craved in her life. Find someone to love, settle down with.
She’d had a fantasy vision of the life she wanted to create for herself ever since she’d been a small girl and had realised that her mother loved herself far more than she loved her, and that her father cared only about his work—to the point where it eventually killed him prematurely. Her life would be as far from her emotionally barren childhood as she could get, and while she knew that a man like Tiarnan Quinn was never going to play the starring role in that scenario, was this in fact an opportunity to gain closure? His words last night came back to her: Unfinished business. Wasn’t that all he was to her too?
For the first time all night, as dawn broke in earnest outside, Kate felt peace steal over her like a complicit traitor.
‘Are you going to tell me what’s really going on?
Kate sat down heavily on her bed and bit her lip. Her knuckles were white around the mobile phone she held to her ear. Her open suitcase, half packed on the floor, said it all, and she didn’t have to look at the clock to know she’d already missed her flight to New York.
She closed her eyes. ‘Tiarnan’s invited me to go to Martinique with him and Rosie for a holiday, and I’ve said yes.’
‘Yes, I know that, Kate.’
Kate’s belly felt queasy. Sorcha never called her Kate unless she was upset.
Her friend continued. ‘I’ve just been talking to Tiarnan, and—oh, I don’t know—a few things aren’t exactly adding up: like the fact that little more than a week ago my brother paid a fortune to kiss you in front of hundreds of people when he avoided a public display of affection even on his wedding day; like you’re still in his house in Madrid and tomorrow you’re heading to a tropical paradise together.’
‘With Rosie too,’ Kate quickly asserted—as if that could save her now.
‘Kate Lancaster, please give me some credit.’
The hurt in her friend’s voice was unmistakable, and Kate’s heart clenched painfully.
‘Don’t you think it’s always been glaringly obvious to me that you’re never exactly overjoyed when Tiarnan is around? You close up tighter than an oyster protecting a pearl.’ Sorcha’s voice changed then, became more gentle. ‘Look, I know something happened between you two all those years ago in Dublin.’
Kate could feel the colour drain from her face. ‘Sorcha, I—’
Sorcha sighed audibly. ‘It’s OK, you don’t have to say anything. I just knew … and when you never said anything I didn’t want to push it. But I just … Katie, you were there for me when I needed you, and I always wished that you’d trusted me enough to be there for you too.’
Kate’s stomach had plummeted to the ground. ‘Sorch, I’m so sorry. I do trust you—of course I do … I just—he’s your brother, and I was just so mortified. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust you …’
‘OK, look, we can talk about it again—but right now just tell me: do you know what you’re doing?’
What could Kate say? She felt a bubble of hysteria rise. She was lurching between excoriating confusion and being absolutely sure that this was what she should be doing every two seconds. When she’d gone down to see Tiarnan in his study, after he’d come home from dropping Rosie to school, all rationality had flown out of the window. Yet despite her early-morning revelations, she’d been so determined to resist the awful temptation to give in and bring to life her greatest fantasy.
He’d stood from behind his desk, tall and intimidating, and so gorgeous that her mouth had dried up. Like watching a car crash in slow motion, she’d heard herself blurting out, ‘You said that night that you don’t sleep with your sister’s friends—so what’s changed?’
Instantly she’d cringed at how she’d given herself away so spectacularly, proving that she remembered every word he’d said.
Tiarnan had come around the desk slowly, to stand lethally close. His eyes so blue it had nearly hurt to look at him.
‘Everything. You’re no longer an innocent eighteen-year-old. You’ve matured into a beautiful woman and the boundaries I would have respected before around your friendship with my sister have changed too. She’s married, getting on with her own life … Don’t you want to do the same, Kate? Haven’t you always wondered what it would be like?’
Hurt lanced her at his uncanny ability to strike at the very heart of her most vulnerable self. And the fact that what he said underlined the biggest understatement of her life had rankled unbearably.
‘So I’m good enough to take to bed now, just to satisfy your curiosity, Tiarnan? From what I recall there were two of us in the room that night, and there was a significant amount of time before you called a halt to proceedings. To be perfectly honest, I don’t think I do want to give you the satisfaction of filling a void in your memory.’
And right at that moment Kate had felt as if she really did have the strength to walk away. The pain of his rejection was vivid all over again—right up until Tiarnan had hauled her into his chest, captured her close and kissed her, turning her world upside down and all her lofty intentions into dust. Desire had quickly burnt away any remaining paltry resistance.
He’d pulled back finally, when she’d been pliant and dazed in his arms, and said mockingly, ‘What about giving yourself the satisfaction, Kate? Can you be honest enough with yourself to do that?’
Shockingly aware of his arousal, and knowing with an awful sense of futility that she didn’t have the strength to walk away, she’d just said shakily, ‘If we do this, Tiarnan, it’s going to be on my terms. This affair ends when the holiday ends …’
‘Katie? Are you there? Did you hear me?’
Kate came back from the memory of the bone-shattering intensity of that kiss. ‘I heard you, Sorch. I know what I’m doing.’
She just hoped she sounded convincing.
‘Katie, you know Tiarnan almost as well as me. He’s always been adamant that he’s not going to settle down again. And I just don’t want—’
‘Sorcha.’ Kate cut her off before she could go any further. ‘Look, I know what to expect. I’m going into this with my eyes wide open. Please just trust me. It’s something we both need to … get closure on.’ She winced at how trite that sounded, even though they were exactly the words she’d used to rationalise all this to herself only hours before.
Kate heard a baby’s mewl in the background.
‘You’d better go, Sorch. Molly sounds like she’s waking up.’
Sorcha finally got off the phone, grumbling about the fact that she should have noticed that there’d been more to the tension between Kate and Tiarnan over the
