CHAPTER 19: AOIFE KAVANAUGH
920 Words
Valentina
Aoife Kavanaugh arrived with four suitcases, two guards and the confidence of a woman who had never wondered whether a door would open for her.
It opened.
I watched from the upper landing while Mrs. Brennan hurried downstairs. Men appeared from nowhere to take the luggage. Someone brought towels. Someone else took Aoife's wet coat before she had both arms out of it.
I had been in the house less than two days and still had to ask which hallway led back to the clinic.
Aoife knew where to stand while people arranged themselves around her.
She was tall. Dark red hair, pale skin, green eyes. Beautiful, obviously, but that was not the worst part.
She looked comfortable.
Nothing in this house frightened her enough to show.
Cillian came out of the study behind her.
He was supposed to be resting.
He was also walking without the cane Mrs. Brennan had left outside the clinic, because apparently surviving a collapse had made him more committed to bad decisions.
Aoife looked at his leg first.
Then his face.
"Cill."
The name hit me strangely.
Too short. Too familiar.
Nobody else called him that.
She crossed the hall and touched his cheek.
He did not move away.
He did not move closer either.
I noticed both things and immediately hated that I had.
The casual way her fingers touched his skin made something hot and ugly twist low in my belly. He had put his hands on me only to restrain me, only to hold me still while he got hard against my ass and promised to take my cunt. She got to touch him like she already owned the right.
"You look awful," she said.
"You drove through a storm to tell me that?"
"Father said you fell over in front of a stranger. I came to confirm the humiliation personally."
Her eyes lifted to the landing.
Straight to me.
So much for hiding.
Cillian followed her gaze.
I should have gone back to the clinic. His repeat blood work was due. Thomas needed another check. I had an entire black file to pry out of Eamon's hands.
Instead, I went downstairs.
Maybe because she had already looked at me like she knew where I fitted.
I did not know where I fitted.
That seemed unfair.
"Valentina Romano," Cillian said when I reached them.
He did not add captive, nurse or woman I stole because I was dying.
Small mercy.
"Aoife Kavanaugh."
She held out her hand.
I took it.
Cool fingers. Firm grip. No attempt to crush mine or prove anything.
"I know your name," she said.
"Most people here do."
I heard the edge in my own voice and tried to pull it back.
Too late.
Aoife did not seem offended. "Your paper on delayed marrow recovery after toxic exposure was very good."
That surprised me enough to make me honest.
"Thank you."
"My father said it was speculative. Then he quoted it during a consultation two weeks later."
"That sounds like him."
"You met already?"
"He called me frightened and told me to move out of his way."
Aoife looked at Cillian. "And?"
"She did not move."
"I gathered."
No clever finish. Just three people standing in a hall, each pretending the air was not crowded with the word marriage.
Mrs. Brennan returned. "Your usual rooms are ready, Miss Kavanaugh."
Usual rooms.
Of course.
Aoife handed her gloves over. "Thank you, Maeve. Is his medication still upstairs?"
"Most of it is in the clinic now."
Aoife sighed. "Father moves it every time Cill refuses to take it."
"That suggests a pattern," I said.
Aoife glanced at me. "He hates the clinic."
"He hates instructions."
Cillian looked between us. "I am standing here."
"We know," Aoife said.
I nearly smiled.
I did not want to like her.
That was going badly already.
Ronan came from the dining room. His expression was guarded until Aoife saw him.
"Ronan."
She hugged him.
He accepted it, but his eyes remained on Cillian over her shoulder.
No joke. No performance.
He was worried about what her arrival meant.
So was I.
That was also annoying.
Aoife stepped back. "Father says the counts are severe."
"Your father says a lot while showing very little," I replied.
"He still has the black chart?"
I looked at her. "You know about it?"
"Everyone knows about it. Nobody is allowed to touch it."
"That is reassuring."
"It was not meant to be."
Cillian shifted his weight.
A small movement. Pain.
I saw it.
Aoife saw it too.
She opened a silver case from her handbag and took out a tablet.
"For the nausea," she said. "You still refuse the dissolving one?"
Cillian looked at the pill.
Then at me.
I did not know why that made my stomach tighten.
"What is it?" I asked.
Aoife named the drug and dose.
Correct.
Standard after transfusion.
She held it out. Cillian took it.
The movement was ordinary. Familiar.
That made it worse.
She knew what he needed without checking a chart. She knew which version he disliked. She knew where the medication used to be kept.
I knew his hemoglobin.
Apparently we all had our specialties.
"You need to go back downstairs," I told him.
"In a moment."
"Now."
He looked at me.
I almost added something sharper. The hall had too many witnesses and I suddenly felt foolish standing there giving orders to a man beside the woman he was supposed to marry.
So I tried again.
- Writer
