Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 83384 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 417(@200wpm)___ 334(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83384 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 417(@200wpm)___ 334(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
Will I be a good mum?
Who was that woman, and what does she know?
What is this club?
But the one that plagues me above all else… do I care if my sister needs me?
I’m distracted with the rest of the day’s festivities. We eat baked goods from Miss Isobel, and eat lunch at D’Agostino’s. I eat my ravioli and dip my bread in oil. It’s delicious and makes my belly feel good, but I don’t really listen to what they’re saying, my mind occupied with what I have to do.
Someone was responsible for the attack that caused the three of us to be hurt. Someone was here, spying on us, and caused Cormac to leave in the middle of the night to do whatever it is the men of the Clan do. Someone knows more about me than I do myself, as evidenced by the article I saw this morning. And someone wants to talk to me. Alone.
“Aileen.” Cormac calls my name from across the table. I look up at him quickly to find his eyes on me narrowed and sharp.
“What?”
“You’re a million miles away, lass,” he says, his words gentle but his tone hard. “You’re still thinking of that article you read, aren’t you?”
I shake my head.
“What article?” Maeve asks.
He explains, and she rolls her eyes heavenward.
“I hope it’s not that that’s got you troubled,” she says. “It’s a form of induction, as it were. None of us are true members of the Clan until the media’s dragged us up.”
“Aye,” Caitlin says, patting the baby’s back over her shoulder. “Happened to me as well.”
“I don’t like it,” I protest, pushing my plate away. “Don’t we get any privacy?”
“Aye,” Cormac growls. “I’ll see to it you do.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, son,” Maeve warns. “She’ll learn to let it slide off her is all.”
“Is that what you were on the phone about?” I ask him.
He grunts in reply. “Aye.”
He would lose his mind if he knew I was approached in the fitting room.
We get our check and walk back to the house. Maeve and Caitlin walk ahead of us, Maeve pushing the pram, making plans for the baby’s baptism, and Cormac and I linger behind.
A part of me wants to tell him, what I was told, and what she asked me to do. But I know if I do, I’ll never find out what she needs to tell me. He’ll go all over-protective and brooding, probably call his whole force out, and hunt down the woman who came for me.
No. I want to find out.
“Cormac,” I say, trying to frame my conversation just right.
“Mmm?”
“Will you take me to the club?”
He stops short. “What club?”
I have to play this just right. “You know what club.”
“No.” His body’s taut, his voice rigid. “I’m not taking you to that club.”
All pretense aside, I’m a little angry he’s taking this stance. How is this okay? “You frequent a club without me, and you think it okay not to take me?”
He holds my hand to prevent me from walking, so there’s more distance between us and the others. “Aye,” he says. “But correction, lass. I used to frequent a club I’ll no longer go to. I’m a married man now, and I have no business in a sex club.”
My heart twists, and for one moment, the feelings that blossomed for him, that I’ve buried in my weeks of misery and confusion, surface again. He’s dedicated to me and to me alone. The men of my father’s clan have no such compunctions, taking mistresses and girlfriends and cheating on their wives. But not this man. Not Cormac. He won’t even share a pint with his brothers at a club where he could be tempted toward infidelity. And God, but I love that. How could I not?
And then my mind catches up to what else he just said.
A sex club? Oh. My heart races a little faster. I swallow hard. “What does one do at a sex club?”
He snorts, his voice lowers, and he rolls his eyes. “Exactly what you’d think, lass.”
“Oh. Oh, my.”
Okay, so now I really want to go.
“Cormac, you know what they say about pregnant women,” I begin.
“I don’t,” he says, and his lips twitch. “Why don’t you tell me?”
“Supposedly after the nausea and such die down, they need loads and loads of sex.”
He raises his eyebrows, reaches for my hand, and gives me a little squeeze.
“Is that what they say?”
“Aye.”
“I take it then your nausea’s better, hmm?”
“Oh, much.” And I’m not playing at this. Just the strong, warm, masculine feel of his hand in mind is doing strange things to my body. I once confessed a fascination with sex of a kinky nature to him. What would it really be like if this man unleashed his full potential? My heart flutters in my chest.