Page 94 of Bargaining with the Devil

Her heart thumped, painfully, as she caught Isobel’s meaning. “Quinn was no prince.”

Isobel laughed at that. “No, he wasn’t. But perhaps he was the one man in all the kingdom able to break through your sleep.”

Yes. He’d done that. Or perhaps he’d just prodded her into doing it herself.

She swallowed around the lump in her throat. “But there is no happy ending for us.”

Isobel tilted her head. “What if the story isn’t over?”

“It is though. He left. I—” She drew a quick breath. “I could not agree to what he wanted for the future. He wouldn’t continue as we were, not without marriage.”

“You could not agree? Or you would not? For those are two separate things.”

“You are splitting hairs.”

“Am I? Could not seems intractable to me. Would not . . . Well, that sounds like something that was true at that time but perhaps isn’t any longer. Or will not be so in the future. Would you agree to what he wanted, were you to renew that conversation with him now?”

She’d been thinking about that more and more. How she’d still been consumed by the past, by fear, when Quinn was there. But she’d had time since then to grieve and to heal and to learn this new version of herself. And now, if marriage was what it took to have Ciarán Quinn in her life . . . would take . . .

Tears welled. “What if he no longer wants a future with me in it? It’s been five months since he left.” There, she’d said it now. Perhaps her biggest fear. That she’d waited too long, and it was too late.

“You will not know unless you ask him.”

For that she’d need to travel to Ireland. “How can I leave you now, with a newborn?”

“We will manage. I can promise you that.”

The tears spilled over. “You came for me. You came for me and brought me home when no one else would have. When I’d begun to give up hope.”

“No, you hadn’t, not truly.” Isobel’s eyes filled with tears as well. “You are a survivor, Lucy.”

“How can I even think of leaving you now, when you did so much to find me?” They’d only just worked through that together, the tangle of grief and heartbreak of those months.

Isobel was quiet for a long time before she said softly, “I didn’t seek you out only to be your keeper. To chain you to me forever with anything other than the unbreakable bond of sisterhood. I will miss you if you leave, for however long, but you must follow your heart. I could never wish otherwise for you.” She sniffed, wiping away tears. “If the part of your heart that’s met its other half is across the Irish Sea, then that is where you must go.”

“What if it’s too late?” she asked again.

“I don’t know,” Isobel said. “But you won’t either, not unless you go. But you must find that out too rather than spending your life wondering. Live, Lucy. Live, whatever that means for you.”

She’d put too much of her life on hold for too long. Hadn’t known what to do with the future that lay ahead. For a long time hadn’t cared if that future ever came. And then Quinn had shown up and shaken her out of her frozen state. She’d not been grateful for that, not at first.

Now?

She wanted that future.

“I cannot travel with you,” Isobel said. “I truly wish I could, but⁠—”

“I know. But really, it’s time for me to stand on my own anyway. I didn’t, not for the longest time after France. You didn’t prop me up but only because I wouldn’t allow it. I drifted without being anchored anywhere.” And not caring that she’d not been anchored.

Isobel’s eyes glistened. “And did you find your mooring with Quinn?”

“I think . . . I could.” If it wasn’t too late. If he still felt the same way about her that he did when he left.

“Then go to him.”

“I’m not even sure where to find him. I don’t have directions.”

Except he’d told her more than once where he was from in County Dublin, where his mother still lived and his sister was marrying. Dunleary . . . Dún Laoghaire.