Page 3 of His Forced Irish Mafia Bride

“Depends,” he said.

“On what?”

He leaned in slightly, close enough for me to smell his cologne. “Whether I leave disappointed.”

I laughed before I could stop it. That was bad timing and the wrong reaction, because that was the moment this, whatever what it was, stopped being casual. I poured the drink faster than necessary and slid it across the bar. “You’ll live with disappointment.”

“Ouch. Cold,” he said, but he still didn’t move away.

Across the bar, Nora noticed us. She came closer, casual on the surface, but she was trying to save me from whoever this guy was.

“You want me to take over?” she asked. “You know you have something to do in the back.”

I didn’t look at her, and my pride answered before sense did. “No. I’m good.”

The man glanced at her. “Friend of yours?”

“Yes,” Nora said politely.

“Is she always like this?”

“She gets nicer after midnight,” Nora replied with a professional smile. It was a lie, and a good one, too. I almost smiled. He didn’t look at Nora as she walked away, which was a problem. Everything about him stayed focused on me, like the rest of the room didn’t exist.

“You should come sit with us later,” he said.

“No.”

His expression didn’t change. “It wasn’t really a request.”

My hands paused in the middle of stacking glasses. Slowly, I looked at him. If it wasn’t really a question, then what the fuck was it?

“It sounded like one.”

Something flickered across his face. It was quick and controlled, but in a flash, it was gone.

Around us, Murphy’s kept moving. Someone dropped a glass and a man cheered at a football replay. Life didn’t care about us. It moved on as if this corner of the bar was sealed behind a wall.

“You’ve got an attitude,” he said.

“I work in a bar. What do you expect?” I replied.

He smiled again, but the expression had lost any amusement it carried earlier. The moment stretched on and the tension between us got weirder, until he abruptly rose and left. I thought that was it until a half hour later, when I went to clear bottles near the hallway.

I felt him move behind me in a way that made the air feel slightly off. He was too close to be accidental and too deliberate to ignore.

“Maeve.”

I didn’t turn right away, holding still just long enough to register the weight of his presence. When I faced him, the bar didn’t separate us now. There was nothing left to hide behind.

“You forgot your drink?” I asked.

His eyes dropped briefly, then returned to mine without hesitation. “I think you’re misreading me.” A tired heat rose in my chest as I looked at him properly.What the hell is he doing?

“I don’t think about you enough to misread you.” That should’ve ended it, but it didn’t, because what he wanted was obviously unpleasant. At that point it was clear that he wanted someone to fuck tonight, and that everything about his earlier charm was just a deception. His smile tightened, thinning at theedges, and then his hand moved fast enough that there was no time to step back before he caught my wrist.

His grip wasn’t tight enough to hurt, and that was the first insult, because it carried the assumption that it didn’t need to be. His thumb pressed lightly against my skin, as though I hadn’t just told him to fuck off. Maybe he was trying to act tough for his friends, who watched from the booth behind him with a kind of entertained interest.

“Take your hands off me.”