“Oh, let’s give her a bit of peace,” Nikki said, a smile dancing on her face. “I think we’ve pestered her enough about it.”
“Hmph,” Dana grumbled, sulking and reaching for her wine glass. “That’s no fun. I want to be nosy.” Still, mercifully, she let it drop, taking a sip of wine while Nikki deftly maneuvered the conversation away from choppy waters.
Her friends continued gabbing, laughing delightedly with one another. Amber’s thoughts continued to wander. Her mind drifted back to the night she had tended to his wounds, what he had said.
What if there had been more to it than the drugs?
Her heart pounded, Cillian’s words that night continuing to echo in her head. She thought back to everything he had done for her, how it had felt the night that they had slept together, that warmth and need and feeling of safety for the first time in what felt like forever. T
“You all right?” Nikki asked at one point, pulling her back to the present.
“Yeah,” Amber said. She hesitated. “You and Jasper. Was it easy at first?”
Nikki snorted. “No. Absolutely not. He was a pain, and we butted heads all the time. He always had to be right, and trying to get him to listen to me and what I needed was like pulling teeth.” She smiled and took a sip of her drink, her voice quiet, as if she knew Amber didn’t want the others to overhear. “But it worked out. I think it’s hard to see that they really care sometimes.”
“You don’t feel weird for falling for a guy who forced you to marry them? You don’t wonder about their motivations?”
“I did at first,” Nikki said. “But not anymore. He’s a good man, and I love him. In the end, that’s really all that matters.”
Amber nodded, forcing a smile while her mind remained far away, trying to parse out thoughts about a man she had refused to let herself think about for weeks.
Those thoughts continued to follow her the rest of the evening, lingering after she said goodbye to her friends and clambered into the car to drive home. She tried to stop, to focus on the rough surface of the steering wheel, or the upbeat tempo of the song blasting through the radio. Except her thoughts kept going back to Cillian.
Sure, things had started out strangely. She was still angry at him for forcing her to marry him. But that frustration felt muted, dimmer, and she realized that her fury had softened the more she got to know him. She even understood the logic.
What would happen if she gave in to those wants? What would happen if she opened her heart to Cillian and they agreed to give a relationship a shot? Would it work? Would it make things worse? Maybe it would be better to talk about it after the Eric situation was over. But what would happen once they took care of Eric? They had never discussed it. Amber had avoided it, uncertain she wanted to know the answer. Now, an overwhelming need to know began to grow inside her.
She bit her lip as she pulled into the garage and sat there for a moment. She was being silly, a childish schoolgirl. This wasn’t the time to start entertaining those thoughts, not with Eric still out there. Once that was over, they could talk about it. Still, thoughts of the other night loomed large in her head, and she wondered if indulging in that primal need for him wouldstill be all right. A blush spread across her cheeks, a smile somewhere between a smirk and a grin spreading across her face when she stepped out of the car and walked into the house.
Cillian was sitting on the couch, staring at the coffee table in front of him. She smiled wider.
“Hey,” she said.
But then she saw Cillian’s sober expression, and her smile evaporated.
“What’s going on?” she asked. Her body felt like a tightly coiled spring being put under more and more pressure.
She waited to hear what he would say, her eyes fixed on him. Time seemed to come to a standstill. She knew that he had to be able to hear her pounding heart.
“You should probably sit down,” he said.
Chapter 17 - Cillian
Amber listened with a blank, neutral expression as he told her about Eric and the Night Pack coming to them. Though her face might have been a mask, her eyes betrayed her fear, as did her hands, which wrung in her lap even as her gaze remained fixed on him. When he had finished, she didn’t say anything for a long moment. Instead, she simply stared, dumbfounded.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “A lot of this is my fault. I fucked up. I should have been more careful.”
“It’s all right,” she muttered, her voice distant. Her fingers clenched, then relaxed. After she let out a slow breath, she straightened, her jaw tight. “So we’re leaving, right?”
Already, she was standing and heading toward the stairs, as if she were already going to fetch her suitcase.
“No,” Cillian said.
She froze at the word, as if unable to process it. Slowly, after a long moment, she turned to regard him.
“What do you mean, no?” she asked. He could tell she was trying to remain strong, but the quaver in her voice was impossible to miss. He also didn’t miss the way her arms had wrapped around her stomach or the way her hands were white-knuckling her biceps, as if she were grasping them to stop her hands from trembling.
He let out a deep breath. Part of him wanted to do what she asked because he didn’t like seeing her this frightened. But he knew it was the wrong move. He just needed to make sure she understood.