The Wedding Pact (The O'Malleys #2) (11 page)

“It was a shitty order.” Ricky’s blue eyes, the one thing all the members of their family shared, glittered in hate. “Bringing in more girls is good for business.”

It didn’t matter if it was or not. That wasn’t the point. The point was his dumb-ass brother was putting himself and everyone around him in danger. And no matter how potentially profitable it was, they were
out
of the fucking slave trade—for good. “Except it’s not. If you bothered to do some fucking research before you charged blindly ahead, you’d know that business is up since I disbanded the flesh trade.”

Ricky spit again. “Your stomach’s just too weak for what needs to be done.”

That wasn’t his problem and they both knew it. “What else have you been doing?”

“Nothing.”

Damn it, he should have played this better. James crossed his arms over his chest, hating how his brother flinched at the sudden movement. He’d tried with Ricky. He’d tried reasoning with him. He’d tried restricting him. He’d even gone so far as to take a page out of their father’s book and beat the shit out of him. Nothing worked. If there was some magical way to get through to his brother, he sure as hell didn’t know what it was. Hitting Ricky might feel satisfying in the moment, but it wouldn’t change anything—anything except pushing James closer to monster territory. “You’ll stay down here until I figure out what to do with you.”

Ricky’s head snapped up. “What the fuck?”

“You heard me.” He turned, giving his brother the insult of his back. “And if I hear about you taking a woman without permission again, I’ll kill you myself.” He walked out of the room to Ricky’s cursing and locked the door behind him. James passed the key to Michael. “He gets a meal a day. That’s it.”

“Sure thing.” Michael slipped the key into his pocket. “How long you going to keep him down here?”

“As long as it takes.”

Chapter Eight

C
arrigan chose her clothing with care. She always did—too much of her life depended on other people’s perceptions of her—but tonight was especially important. Tonight she was going out with the poorly named Chauncy Chauncer. Short of a miracle, she didn’t expect to see him again, but she still had an image to uphold.

An image she despised.

She grabbed a long dress from the back of her closet. It was—naturally—white, and the only thing daring about it was the square neckline that allowed a little cleavage. The rest of it would cover her from wrists to ankles—a straitjacket of her own choosing. She kept her makeup light, and styled her hair in careful waves.

Stepping back from the vanity, she sighed. “I look like a virgin sacrifice.” The first part was laughable. The latter was all too accurate.

She stopped in front of her dresser, her hand going to the drawer where she’d stashed James’s album. She hadn’t touched it since she got back into Boston. After running into him, and then talking to him…and then letting him coax her into an orgasm over the phone, it felt like a betrayal to dig through his personal property.

Besides, she’d already practically memorized its contents.

There was only one person the blond woman in the old photos could be—the three boys of varying ages she always had her arms around only confirmed it. James’s mother. Carrigan didn’t know much about her beyond she was dead and had been for years, but the way the woman looked at her sons…there was love there. A whole hell of a lot.

And she’d taken the reminder of that love from him.

She should give it back. It was the right thing to do. But if she did, there was no guarantee that he wouldn’t live up to his word and leave her alone.
That
, she didn’t want.
Maybe I’ll just hang on to it for a few more days. It’s safe enough here. I’ll give it back. Eventually
.

Satisfied, she glanced at the clock on the nightstand and confirmed that she was almost late. There was nothing left to do that she could pretend wasn’t stalling.
Damn it
. She slipped on her heels and headed downstairs. As expected, her father waited at the front door. He took her appearance in with a single sweep of his gaze. “Excellent.” He gifted her with one of his rare smiles.

That smile used to be something she strove for. When she was a kid, she’d lived for her father’s approval. She’d bent over backward with piano lessons and good grades and anything that she thought would impress him to get that smile. Now? Now she saw it for what it was—his approval of having a possession polished up to show off for a peer. He didn’t see her as a real person. He never had. If she’d been a son…

Well, she’d stopped wishing for that right around the time she accepted that she’d never be enough for Seamus O’Malley, no matter how
good
she was. It didn’t matter how good her grades were in college or how worthy her ideas for the family were. All that mattered was her value as a trading piece with his allies—and her ability to give them heirs.

She stopped at the bottom of the stairs, feeling like a prize cow he was about to put on the market. The comparison made her stomach turn over, because it wasn’t too far from reality. Her father finally nodded. “The car’s waiting outside.”

Carrigan waited a half second before she realized he wasn’t going to say anything else. Disappointment soured her stomach, made worse because she knew better than to expect anything else. Twenty-eight years, and hope still got the better of her on occasion. Determined not to let anything show on her face, she walked out of the house and down the steps to the waiting car. Liam held the door for her, and she pretended she didn’t see the pity in his eyes.

The ride was far too short for her peace of mind, and her nerves were still raw when they pulled up in front of La Coupole. It was a French restaurant that got its kicks from mimicking its famous cousin in Paris. She’d never been there before, mostly because the whole thing gave off a stink of new money, and Carrigan had better things to do with her limited free time than have men and women parading around like peacocks, each determined to prove that he really deserved to be in Boston’s upper crust. Chauncy obviously numbered himself among them, which wasn’t giving her high hopes for the meal.

One meal. You can do one meal.

She let Liam help her out of the car and stepped onto the sidewalk. A deep breath did nothing to shore up her failing courage. The whole thing was suddenly so much more
real
. The truth that she’d been fighting off since her father handed her a list of names hit her in the face. He was really selling her off in marriage, even though he’d have to be blind, deaf, and dumb not to see the value she could bring to their family and its various businesses. He didn’t care that being forced into this would kill a part of her she’d barely let off the leash, didn’t care about anything but the bottom line. Carrigan had thought herself beyond the point of being able to be hurt by her father and his ambitions.

She was wrong.

“Miss O’Malley?” She did her best to wipe any expression off her face, but something had to show through because Liam looked distinctly more uncomfortable when she faced him. He cleared his throat. “If you want to go somewhere after this, I’ll fudge the times for you.”

There it was again. Even her father’s muscle pitied her. She wanted to throw his pity back in his face, to insist that she was
fine
, that she was totally in control of her life.
Lies
. So many lies. Worst of all, she couldn’t afford to do that—not when Liam was offering her an unexpected escape.

Just get through the dinner
.

She managed a smile. “Thank you.”

He opened his mouth like he was about to say something, and then reconsidered and strode around the car to climb behind the driver’s seat. With nothing left to keep her from the restaurant, she walked inside. The heat slapped her in the face as soon as she made it through the door, just this side of sweltering. She shrugged out of her coat and handed it to the hostess hovering just out of reach. “I’m meeting—”

“Mr. Chauncer. Yes, we know. Please, follow me.” She turned without another word and marched deeper into the building, leaving Carrigan to follow her or be left behind. She was forced to hurry to keep up, nearly tripping over her stupidly long dress in the process. The hostess wove through tables, finally stopping in front of one in the middle of the room. Carrigan would have preferred something a little more private. As it was, the place was packed even for a Saturday night and her skin twitched at the feel of people’s eyes on her, real or imagined.

To distract herself, she focused on the man sitting at the table. He grinned at her like he’d just won the lottery, revealing teeth that were too white and straight to be real. It took her a full five seconds to realize he wasn’t going to stand or try to get her chair. Every single man in her family would have done it, from her father down to…

No, she wasn’t thinking about Devlin right now. She needed to be strong and have her walls firmly in place in order to deal with this prospective husband.

Carrigan sank into the seat across from him…and he still didn’t say anything. To buy herself time, she glanced at the menu. She wasn’t opposed to driving the conversation, but this was passing strange and shooting straight into Looking-Glass territory.

A waiter appeared at her elbow, and she set the menu down. Before she could speak, Chauncy cut in. “She’ll have a Riesling, and I’ll have scotch—the most expensive you have.”

She barely tolerated wine as it was, and she despised white wine. Especially
sweet
white wine. The waiter nodded and moved off, and Chauncy took that as his cue to actually speak
to
her. “You’re just as beautiful as your father promised. A little thicker than I’d like, but there are personal trainers for that kind of thing.”

Carrigan stared, too shocked to be pissed. He was no prize, his skin too orangey from excessive tanning, his teeth too perfect, his comb-over not doing a single thing to hide the fact he was balding. He was carting around a thick middle that was more barrel than six-pack, and he was going to criticize
her
body? She took a sip of water, more to buy herself time than because she was thirsty. What was she supposed to say? Half a dozen careful responses flitted through her mind, but what came out of her mouth wasn’t anywhere near polite. “With all due respect, I don’t know if I’d be willing to take personal trainer recommendations from you.”

He turned a mottled shade of red. “You have a mouth on you.” But then he smiled. “Good. I like them spirited.”

Good lord, she could actually feel her blood pressure rising by the second. She wasn’t a horse to be broken. The waiter appeared with their drinks, and she gulped hers down, doing her best to ignore the sticky sweetness clinging to the back of her tongue. “So, Chauncy, you invest in real estate?” Maybe if she could get him talking about himself, he’d stop saying things that made the hair on her arms stand on end.

“Yep. Us Chauncers have an eye for a good investment, especially when there’s land attached to it.” He chuckled like he’d made a witty joke. “Don’t you worry your pretty head, my dear—I have more than enough money to keep you decked out in diamonds and whatever you could possibly want.”

Carrigan finished her wine and resigned herself to a hellish evening. Once Chauncy got talking, he didn’t shut up. Part of her was grateful she wasn’t expected to do more than make inquiring and agreeing noises when he paused for breath, but the misogynistic comments he kept tossing her way made it hard to keep the bland expression on her face. By the time he told the waiter that no one at their table
needed
dessert, she was ready to throw her drink in his face. Hell, she would have, but the Riesling had stopped tasting like shit two glasses ago, and she was loath to waste good alcohol on a pathetic excuse for a man like Chauncy.

She pushed to her feet after he paid the bill, doing her best to ignore the head rush that accompanied the movement—and Chauncy’s hand touching the small of her back. When James did that, it made her want to arch into his touch like a cat demanding to be stroked. With Chauncy, all she wanted was a bleach bath. They made their way back to the entrance, and she used the excuse of putting on her coat to create some distance between them.

He’d apparently decided he approved of her, though, because he was hot on her heels when she hit the door. “Carrigan.”

She gritted her teeth and turned, an unforgivably weak gasp flying from her lips when he grabbed her arm and pulled her close. She smelled the scotch on his breath a second before he kissed her. She went completely still, her mind buzzing with white noise at how
wrong
this was. He forced his tongue into her mouth, licking her teeth.

That
snapped Carrigan out of it. She pushed on his shoulders, trying to get some distance between them. Despite being on the soft side, Chauncy held her against him with apparent ease.
Stop panicking and think, damn it
. She willed her body to go soft, letting him back her against the wall.