Brutal Vows

38

“Have you even met yourself, lass?”

“I’m not that bad!”

He snorts and scratches his beard. “Aye. And vipers aren’t that poisonous.”

I cross my arms over my chest and smile at him. “Oh, that reminds me. It wasn’t sugar I put in your coffee. It was arsenic.”

“You’re only proving my point!”

The oven timer dings. I rise, pour the egg casserole mixture into six greased baking dishes, and put them in the double ovens. Then I turn back to Quinn.

“Fruit?”

“Pardon?”

“Would you like some fruit with your egg bake, or are you strictly a proteins kind of guy?”

He quirks his lips. “You mean you don’t already know?”

I tilt my head and look at him from under lowered lashes. “I’d say you’re a big-time fruit eater.”

A faint tinge of pink stains his cheeks. He swallows. “What I really need is scotch.”

“No, what you really need is a shower and a new shirt. I’d give you one of Gianni’s, but you’re much too big across the chest and shoulders to fit into anything of his.”

“Was that…did you just give me a compliment?”

“Oh, stop gaping at me. I was only saying you need a change of clothes. We can’t go ring shopping with you looking like you crawled out from under a bridge.”

His face falls. “Ring shopping. Right.”

He looks utterly depressed by the mention of it, which is confusing, considering he’s the one who’s so insistent on this marriage. “Quinn?”

He glances up at me.

I hesitate, but decide I have to say it, no matter how much he won’t like it. “Lili’s going to need patience from you. Your marriage, at least at the beginning, will be very hard on her.”

When his look sours, I quickly add, “I’m not talking about your dizzying mood changes now. I’m talking about the fact that she’s young and naïve.”

Not to mention madly in love with someone else.

My voice drops. “She’s scared, okay? Please be gentle with her. If I won’t be around to hold her hand, you’re going to have to. And I know you can, because I’ve seen the human side you try so hard to keep buried. Give that side to her, and you’ll make her happy.”

He stares at my face with an expression on his own that’s indescribable. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was anguish.

He says gruffly, “Goddammit, woman. Just when I think I’ve got you figured out, you grow another Hydra head and knock me on my arse again.”

I throw my hands in the air. “Will you please stop calling me woman like it’s a bad word? I hate that!”

His piercing gaze on mine, he replies softly, “I’ve never said it like it’s a bad word. It’s the most beautiful word in the language.”

Then he stands and walks out of the kitchen, leaving me staring after him in stunned silence.

An hour later, I’ve fed the men, checked on a still-sleeping Lili, and splashed enough cold water on my face to cool it from scorching to merely warm.

No such luck with my panties. They’re still on fire.

Quinn called me beautiful.

I mean, I think he did. In a roundabout sort of way.

Didn’t he? Or am I making it up in my head? Has my v****a hijacked my intellect and held it hostage so that it makes everything the man says now sound suggestive?

I hate myself for not knowing. I hate myself even more for wanting to know.

I hate myself most of all for hoping I’m right.

When Quinn reappears in the kitchen in a fresh shirt and says he’s ready to leave, I can’t look him in the eye. I just nod and keep rinsing dishes.

He stands there vibrating tension until he growls, “Any time this century.”

I turn off the water, dry my hands, and walk past him, out of the kitchen.

“Where are you going?”

“To get my handbag, if that’s all right with you, Prince Charmless.”

He grumbles something under his breath that I ignore. Ten minutes later, we’re in his big black Escalade, headed into the city.

The silence in the car is deafening.

When I can’t take it anymore, I try to make polite conversation. “So where will you honeymoon?”

He looks at me as if he’s unfamiliar with the word.

“Don’t tell me you’re not taking her on a honeymoon!”

He glares at the windshield, gripping the steering wheel so hard, I’m sure he’s wishing it were my neck. Through clenched teeth, he says, “I really can’t wait until I never see you again.”

I stare at his stupid, handsome profile, forcing myself to refrain from dragging my nails down the side of his cheek. I don’t want Lili to have to look at his gouged face during her wedding vows.

“You should take her to Ireland,” I pronounce, then stare out the passenger window because I can’t look at him one second longer.

After a while, he says gruffly, “Why Ireland?”

Resisting the urge to make a crack about the joys of drunken pub yodeling, I say instead, “So she can see where you were born, Quinn. Get to know you better. You know, meet all your relatives from the motherland and whatnot.”

“I don’t have any relatives left in Ireland.”