I smiled. “Perfect.” I climbed off of his lap, reaching for his hand to continue what we had started back in bed. I jumped at the sudden burst of sound as Declan turned the projector back on. “You’re…not coming to bed?” I asked, my hand still outstretched, empty of his.

  “I’ll be there in just a few minutes,” he answered, already with his notepad and pen back in hand, eyes fixed on Dominic’s fight. “I just need to finish studying this fight first. I’ll see you tomorrow morning for our hike, alright?”

  I nodded slowly. “Okay then,” I said, leaning down to grab my robe, suddenly self-conscious of my nakedness.

  I was halfway out the door of the theatre when Declan called out to me, “Goodnight, baby.”

  It wasn’t whispered with his full lips hot against my earlobe. It sounded far away, very far away.

  So I went back to bed with his ghost. The memory of his arms alone held me as I fell asleep on a pillow quickly turning wet. And when I awoke at the first light of dawn it was not to his steady breath against my back, but the wind shuffling the curtains.

  I got dressed and packed for our hike, assuming Declan had gotten up early to get in a run before we left. But in the quiet of the morning I found the gym empty. He wasn’t in the spa, the office or even the kitchen.

  I found Declan asleep on the couch in the theatre, a video still playing and his notepad still balancing on his knee. With a sigh, I placed a blanket carefully over his shoulders, and after a ghost of a kiss on his forehead, I closed the door as quietly as I could behind me.

  He needed his sleep.

  He needed his sleep more than I needed him.

  I was rounding the corner toward the staircase when I ran into Niall with his medical bag slung over his shoulder.

  “You’re up early,” he said with a happy smile.

  “So are you,” I answered with a frown of confusion as I stared up at him.

  Niall shrugged with a good-natured grin. “Declan called me yesterday afternoon to come in for an extra session this morning. He’s been experiencing a lot of pain with the added training.”

  I nodded. He was going to hurt himself. And it terrified me. “Well, you might have come in early for nothing,” I said, leaning tiredly against the wall. “Declan’s asleep. He stayed up all night studying film.”

  “Eejit.” Niall shook his head disapprovingly.

  “I can wake him, I suppose,” I said, glancing over my shoulder down the hallway.

  “No, no,” Niall quickly said. “He needs to sleep.”

  Rubbing at the back of my neck, I smiled.

  “Looks like you could use some more sleep, too,” Niall said, staring down at me with concern in his eyes. “You going back to bed?”

  I laughed. “I was on my way to go for a hike, actually.”

  “Well, if I’m not working on Declan for a while…” Niall then glanced at his watch, set down his bag, and offered me a friendly smile. “How do you feel about a hiking buddy?”

  Declan

  After Giselle cheated on me, I never thought I’d wake up again in the arms of a woman. I was doomed to cold mornings alone, snapping upright to attention, pain throbbing through my veins, grey shadows looming in my empty room.

  But River gave me hope again. I would blink slowly awake, her skin warming my back better than any ray of sunlight ever could. Her legs, intertwined with mine under the sheets, seemed to fit better than any two puzzle pieces ever would. She was my still waters when I’d known only churning seas. She was a melody when all I could hear before was the screech of tires, the moan of warped metal, the wail of sirens on a lonely road. She was my sliver of peace in a cage of violence.

  But that morning there was no calm. There was no music. There was no peace, not even the tiniest glimmer of it in the dark.

  That morning, I jolted awake in a cold sweat at the sound of bone cracking. I cried out in terror, falling to the floor to find myself alone and confused. In the flashing light, my wide, frantic eyes darted around me as I raised my arms over my head, a protective instinct I learned from my father, perfected with my trainer, and used only in the cage and my darkest nightmares.

  I sagged against the couch, chest heaving. I was still in the theatre room. A video of Dominic’s last fight played on the wall from the projector. I must have fallen asleep by accident. Rubbing my eyes, which were puffy and stinging, I pointed the remote blindly and switched off the video.

  It was when I was plunged into silence that I remembered River, remembered the hike, remembered my promise.

  Hurrying to scramble to my feet, I stumbled over a blanket and rushed to the door. Wrenching it open, I cursed when bright light from the tall windows overlooking the garden in the back of the manor blinded me. Through squinted eyes, I saw that it must be close to noon.

  “Fuck,” I growled as I stalked toward the gym to find River to apologise. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

  I felt jittery, panicked, anxious as I hurried down the sun-filled hallway, which hurt my eyes. An invisible knife stabbed my shoulder, retribution for sleeping on a hard couch, and I oscillated from freezing cold to burning hot, and that wasn’t even the worst of it. A hammer pounded in my head that grew louder and more painful with each echoing step.

  Despite the warning signals from my body, all I could think about was all the time I wasted oversleeping. I told River that I just needed to finish this video of Dominic fighting. But that video turned into “one last one,” and that “one last one” turned into “‘just another” and that “just another” turned into a loop of teeth-shattering uppercuts, nose-breaking hooks, and crosses so brutal and violent that the poor fucker who faced him was out even before his head hit the mat. At some point, I fell asleep, only to be trapped in a maze of blood and bruises, and above me, Dominic’s taunting laugh followed me everywhere I went.

  So I got a little less fucking shuteye than I intended. That wasn’t an excuse. There were no excuses. Not now. Not anymore.

  I wouldn’t take back my title from Dominic by easing up. I wouldn’t win by being gentle on myself. I wouldn’t prove myself worthy of River’s love by sleeping in late, by sleeping into feckin’ noon, despite how late I was up working.

  I needed to work harder, push myself harder. I needed to be faster, stronger, meaner, so I could win. I needed to—

  Halfway across the wide, airy foyer, I froze mid-step. I shook my head, suddenly fearful like a child. I was hallucinating. Overtired. Because what I saw was simply impossible.

  She wouldn’t do that to me. She couldn’t.

  But when I looked back across the foyer through the windows on either side of the double door, I stared at the impossible: River returning down the gravel drive from her hike, smiling and laughing and staring up at Niall.

  My body trembled in growing rage. The only logical thought that managed to cross my mind as I rushed to the front doors in a blind fury was, don’t kill him, Declan. Whatever you do, just don’t fucking kill him.

  The door rattled on its hinges as I slammed it open. I barely heard the boom that echoed in the marble foyer and shook the crystal chandelier because of the hot, boiling hot blood that rushed past my ears. Stones cut at my bare feet but I felt no pain.

  I saw no dazzling sunlight. Heard no singing birds. Felt no cool, gentle breeze on my face.

  I was back in a hot, dimly lit room that smelled of sweat and cum. She was moaning Dominic’s name when I walked in. The perfect roses I’d held in my hand hit the floor. I felt numb, completely numb when she looked over, her tits still bouncing as he thrust into her.

  “Declan.”

  She pushed at Dominic’s chest to distance herself from him an inch or two, as if that would change anything.

  As if an inch or two would undo the deed that could not be undone.

  As if an inch or two would sew together my already broken heart.

  “What the fuck is this?” I shouted across the front lawn.

  River and Niall looked up from their intimate eye contact to see me for the first time. River’s laugh died and she moved away from Niall. It was just an inch or two that she moved. But I knew what an inch or two meant. I knew the pain an inch or two could inflict.

  “Declan,” she said.

  “Declan.”

  It was happening again. Fuck. It was happening all over again. They say lightning doesn’t strike twice, but this wasn’t like lightning. It wasn’t a jolt—painful, but over in an instant.

  This was quicksand and it was slow.

  I pointed a shaking finger at Niall because I couldn’t bear to look at River. I wasn’t ready for that kind of agony. Not yet. Not again. “You’re fired,” I shouted at my physio, who had stopped at the sight of me.

  He held up his hands in a pathetic last-ditch defence of his betrayal. “What?” he said as I walked straight up to him.

  I walked straight up to him as black played at the edges of my vision. “You’re fired,” I repeated, voice shaking. “Get the fuck out of my sight.”

  A hand at my arm startled me. River. I jerked away as if her touch burned me.

  “Declan,” she said softly, calmly. “Declan, calm down, okay?”

  I scoffed at her words. “I think I’ve been calm long enough,” I said. “I think I’m done with being calm. I’m done with letting people walk all over me.”

  Niall tried to step forward, but River stopped him with a hand on his chest.

  Look how easily she touched him!

  “Declan, we just went on a hike,” she tried to explain. “That’s all that happened, a hike.”

  I clenched my fists so tightly that my fingernails pierced the skin of my palms. “You said we were going to go hiking.”

  “Baby, you were asleep. I didn’t wake you because I thought you needed it.” She tried to reach for me.

  I stepped back out of her grasp.

  “She’s right, Declan,” Niall added, moving closer to her. “Your body can’t handle this.”

  “No!” I shook my head before pointing to each of them. “My body can’t handle this.”

  “Baby, nothing happened.” River’s voice rose higher. “It was just a hike.”

  I laughed darkly. “And tomorrow?”

  River glanced at Niall in confusion. “What?”

  “Today, it was nothing,” I crossed my arms over my chest and leaned forward. “But what about tomorrow?”

  River frowned. “What do you mean?”

  I ignored her and continued, “What about the day after tomorrow?” I said. “And the day after the day after tomorrow? Will it be ‘nothing’ then? How long before it isn’t ‘nothing’ anymore?”

  There was silence among the three of us as my implications sank in.

  River’s face darkened and I saw anger building inside of her. “This isn’t you,” she said in a low tone. “This isn’t you right now, Declan. I know you.”

  “But do I know you?”

  This seemed to hurt her worse than anything I’d said up until that point. “Don’t say that,” she whispered. “Declan, don’t you dare say that.”

  “I thought I knew her,” I said nonetheless. “She smiled at me the way you smile at me.”

  “That’s not true and you know it.” Tears came to her eyes, but she angrily swiped at them before they could fall.

  “She held me the way you hold me, too,” I continued, far past the point of stopping myself no matter how much I knew I was hurting her. I held the final dagger in my fist and I knew I was going to plunge it into her heart. “She told me she loved me,” I said with no emotion. “Just the way you tell me that you love me.”

  River glared at me for a long, drawn-out moment.

  I wanted to fight. Fuck, I needed to fight. She must have known that; she must have seen that. Because she spoke to Niall while staring straight at me, straight fucking at me. “Niall, would you mind giving me a ride to Oisin’s place?” she asked. “I can’t be here right now.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Niall nod as he mumbled, “Yeah, sure,” before stuffing his hands into his pockets, ducking his head, and walking toward his car.

  I continued to stare at River. I kept my face blank, expressionless, nonchalant and uncaring, but inside my mind, I was begging her to fight back. I screamed for her to slap my face, to curse me out, to swear me out of her life forever. I wanted her to tell me I deserved to be alone, I deserved to be betrayed, I deserved to be unloved.

  Above all else, I wanted her to say something…anything.

  Without a word, River turned and followed Niall.

  I stood there, motionless, as he held the passenger side door open for her and she got inside. I stood there, silent, not even opening my mouth to stop her, as the car disappeared between the trees. I stood there, numb, completely numb as she left.

  She left because of me.

  The vase of flowers she picked during our last hike—arranged delicately as I watched her in the kitchen and placed on the marble table beneath the crystal chandelier in the manor’s foyer before I swept her over my shoulder and carried her giggling to my bedroom—was the first thing I destroyed.

  With a roar, I hurled it against the wall, relishing the sound of the glass shattering and the water dripping down to pool amongst the petals that would shrivel and die. I upturned the marble table. It cracked the floor when it fell.

  I destroyed the art hanging along the curved staircase on my way to the second floor next. I punched a hole in the drywall of the hall outside my bedroom before destroying the antique clock she loved, the nightstand where she’d left her stack of books with the dog-eared pages, the four-post bed she gripped with those petite hands the last time I fucked her.

  I hadn’t known at the time that it would be the last. I would have let my eyes linger on her for a moment longer. I would have kissed her a little more sweetly. I would have held her just a bit tighter as she called out my name.

  My name…she called out my name.

  I destroyed it all because I couldn’t destroy the one thing I truly wanted to destroy fast enough.

  Me.

  River

  A verifiable barrel of carbonara sat in front of me on the round wooden table in Oisin’s airy kitchen nook, and all I could muster was a despondent sigh as I twirled my spoon around and around in the pasta.

  Next to me, Oisin looked from me to the food and back, frowning with his chin resting in his hands. “Not enough parmesan?” he asked.

  I shook my head.

  “Wait…” He leaned back against the cushioned banquette as the rain made pitter-patter sounds against the shuttered windows overlooking an impressive herb garden. “Wait, too much parmesan?”

  I managed a sad smile as I glanced over at him. “I’m afraid this is a pain that can’t be cured with carbonara.”

  “Bullshite.” Oisin contradicted me with such gusto that it took me by surprise.

  “Every world problem can be solved with more carbonara, my little voodoo queen,” he said, and then tapped the tip of my nose. “I’ll just go get more bacon.”

  I laughed as Oisin slid out of the banquette with a snap of his fingers and crossed the short distance to the kitchen. His cottage on the edge of the closest town to Declan’s property was 80 percent kitchen, 15 percent wine cellar, and 5 percent bed.

  As he grabbed a frying pan from the hanging rack above the massive marble island, I sighed again and pushed my pasta away to rest my forehead against the table. “I don’t know what to do,” I mumbled. “I thought I knew him. I really thought I saw the real Declan past all of that irritability, anger, and dark, moody stares. I thought there was…more.”

  More kindness. More gentleness. Softness, tender caresses in the morning, more rough, callused fingers tracing circles along my palm on a starlit balcony, more whispered “I love you’s” when he thought I was asleep.

  “But the man I saw on the lawn when I returned from my hike with Niall,” I continued, squeezing my eyes shut to push away the image. “I just don’t know, Oisin. I just don’t know anymore.”

  Bacon sizzled in the pan and not even that glorious smell could revive my normally cheery outlook.

  Oisin glanced over at me from the stovetop. “I do know one thing,” he said. “Declan takes the weight of the world on his shoulders. Sometimes it weighs just a little bit heavier than he can handle, than anyone could ever handle.”

  I chewed at the inside of my cheek and sagged against the back of the banquette as I considered this. In my head, I pieced together a timeline and pinpointed the change in Declan’s behaviour to one moment…setting the date of the fight with Dominic for his title.

  “Why won’t he let me take some of that weight from his shoulders?” I asked Oisin as he flipped the thick bacon. “I can handle some of it. Why won’t he let me help him?”

  Oisin shook his head. “You’ll have to work some of that voodoo magic of yours to get Declan Gallagher to let even you help, little lady.”

  I leaned forward and scooted to the edge of my seat. “But why?” I pushed. “Why?”

  Before Oisin could answer, my cell phone in my back jeans pocket vibrated. Irritably, I pulled it out, ready to press “Ignore” so I could finish my conversation with Oisin and perhaps stomach a few bites, or a few bowls, of healing carbonara. My thumb above the cell phone screen froze when I saw the name on the caller ID.

  “Who is it?” Oisin casually asked over his shoulder.

  I looked up at him with wide eyes. “University Hospital Kerry.”

  Oisin dropped his spatula and rushed over to me as I forced myself to answer, “Hello?”

  “Is this Ms River Moore?” a female voice asked curtly.

  I glanced fearfully at Oisin, who was huddled in close to me to hear. “Yes,” I said, throat tight.

  “Ms Moore, I’m calling from the ER at University Hospital because you were listed as next of kin for, um, yes, for a Mr Declan Gallagher. Are you his wife, ma’am?”

  “What?” It was all I could manage to say as cold fear swept over me.

  “What happened?” Oisin whispered. “Is he okay?

 

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