Page 80 of The Endless Want

She sighs. “Always.”

We stay on the phone a little longer before she insists I eat something. She makes me promise to text her every hour. She makes me take slow breaths, grounding breaths, until the panic subsides enough for me to move.

I stand. I walk to the bathroom. I splash water on my face. I stare at myself in the mirror, pale and puffy-eyed and exhausted, but still standing.

And that’s when the knock comes. Two soft taps. Then silence.

I tense. “Mack… someone’s here.”

“Don’t open it,” she warns. But the familiar cadence of the knock tells me exactly who it is.

Liam.

I open the door. He stands in the hallway, not guarded, not commanding—just steady. His expression is serious but not angry.

“Ailish,” he says quietly. “May I come in?”

I nod. He steps inside and closes the door behind him. He takes in my swollen eyes, the tissues on the counter, the discarded envelope on the table.

He sees everything. His voice drops. “Are you hurt?”

“No.”

“Threatened?”

“Not… exactly.”

He nods slowly. “Then this is personal.”

I sit on the edge of the couch. He sits across from me, elbows on his knees, hands loose between them. Not a leader interrogating an asset. A man worried about someone he cares for. “I heard something,” he says. “Someone spotted Declan leaving your building. He was… upset.”

My heart thuds.

“You don’t have to tell me,” he adds gently. “But I want you to know I’m here. Whatever’s going on—you have a family behind you. Irish, Italian, the girls, me. You’re not alone.”

My throat constricts. “He was angry,” I whisper. “We fought.”

He nods, waiting.

“And… I’m pregnant.”

Liam closes his eyes. When he opens them again, his voice is thick but gentle. “Ailish…”

“It’s Declan’s,” I add quietly.

“I know.”

I swallow. “How?”

“Because you’re not a liar,” he says. “And because I know how he looks at you.”

A tremor moves through me. “He didn’t take the news well.”

Liam exhales slowly. “He won’t stay that way.”

“He accused me of manipulating him.”

Liam’s jaw tightens—not in anger toward me, but toward Declan. “I’m sorry,” he says softly.