Page 84 of The Endless Want

And I’m losing my goddamn mind.

I lean against the edge of the polished walnut bar, pretending to scan the week’s profit summaries, but I haven’t actually read a line. The columns keep swimming. The figures blur. My head has been a wreckage site for weeks now, but after last night—after Ailish looked me in the eye and told me I was going to be a father—there’s no silence left anywhere inside me. Just noise, teeth, and panic.

She told me. I ruined it. She threw me out. And now she won’t see me. Won’t speak to me. Every word passes through Liam as if I’m a contagion everyone’s afraid she’ll catch.

I can’t breathe around it.

Rory sets down another stack of invoices. “You hearing any of this, man? We need to approve a double shipment next weekend. Italians want confirmation before midnight.”

I nod without hearing myself do it.

He sighs, heavy. “Christ, you’re useless tonight.”

He’s not wrong. I’m here because Liam insisted I work, insisted I keep busy, insisted I anchor myself to something practical before I burn down half the city by obsessing over Ailish.

And I tried. I fucking tried. But every bottle on the shelf looks like a countdown. Every shadow in the room looks like a threat getting closer to her. Every moment she isn’t in the building feels like another failure I can’t undo.

She should be here. She normally is. But she made it clear to Liam—very clear—that she doesn’t want to risk ‘crossing paths’ tonight.

I drag a hand down my face, trying to ground myself, but the edges of the world keep tilting. The memory of her voice fractures through me, sharp as glass—I’m pregnant, Declan. It’s yours.

The floor doesn’t feel steady anymore. Hasn’t since her words hollowed out my chest and left something violent in its place.

Rory catches me zoning out again and mutters a curse. “Okay, that’s it. Sit your ass down before you knock something over. You look like you’re about to break.”

I go to snap at him, but the back door slams open before I can get the words out.

Conor walks in like he owns the place—and maybe he does, in the sense that Liam sent him here as my handler, my guard, my goddamn babysitter.

He sees us, takes in my posture, my expression, the untouched whiskey glass sitting in front of me, and a grimace of disappointment drags across his face. “Figured,” he says. “I knew you’d be spiraling.”

“Did Liam send you to check on me?”

“No,” Conor says, hanging his jacket on a hook. “He sent me to keep you from lighting a match in a room full of explosives.”

Rory snorts. “He’s already halfway there.” I shoot him a murderous look, and he scurries to the stockroom.

Conor walks over, drags a stool next to mine, and sits. “She doesn’t want to see you,” he says, blunt as a knife to the sternum. “And if you keep drinking yourself stupid, you’re going to make this worse.”

I bristle, jaw ticking. “I had one drink.”

“You poured one drink. Big difference.” He nudges the glass away with two fingers. “Talk.”

“No.”

“Declan.”

“I said no.”

He lets out a low exhale and rests his elbows on his knees. “She told Liam it’s because she needs space.”

That slices deeper than it should. “She shouldn’t be telling Liam anything before she tells me.”

“Well, she did. And I don’t blame her. The way you lashed out…” He shakes his head. “You scared her. Not physically. Just—emotionally. You turned everything into a war strategy.”

I close my eyes. “I know.”

“So fix it.”