Kill took a sharp turn. I followed. We were riding around what looked like an archery range—not Sailor’s, which was in the heart of the city. This one looked like some sort of a camp. I wondered if she’d ever been here, before remembering I didn’t give two shits if she had.
Cillian asked me about college, and then about Sailor (“the feisty redhead,” to be exact), then proceeded to say the most shocking thing that had ever come out of his mouth.
“The Fitzpatricks take care of their own, Hunter. Even so, I don’t need to tell you we have a strict eat-your-young policy. But Da doesn’t hate you.”
“Which one?” I inquired when we began to make our way from the woods back to the stables. “Yours, or the Eastern European fucker who porked our mom?”
“The one that matters,” he quipped. “The one that’s putting you through hell so you can walk away with the skills it takes to run one of the largest corporations in the world alongside me.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“Believe, anyway. We all have scars,” Cillian said icily. “Some of us choose to wear them like fine jewels; others hide them. You simply try to ignore them. Face your problems, ceann beag. Because guess what? They’re not going anywhere.”
“I’m glad you managed living away from your parents—from your family—from age six unscathed. But I’m not you. And let me tell you something else that might rock your world: I don’t want to be you, either. I wanted a father. A mother. A goddamn brother and a baby sister. The whole package. I didn’t want the private schools and the horses and the wealth. I just wanted a family.”
“A family was never in the cards for either of us,” Kill hissed, ramming his feet into the stirrups like a beginner. His horse bucked, unused to its owner raising his voice.
I slowed my pace, eyeing him.
“Mother has been on antidepressants since Aisling was born and was unfit to take care of a hamster, let alone three kids. Da was rarely home. He slept in the office more than half the week. The nannies were not allowed to live on Avebury Court grounds, because Mom feared Da would have sex with them, a fear that was not unwarranted. In the time you were away, she went to rehab twice. Aisling has been tossed around between nannies like a tennis ball. Calling them a mess would be the understatement of the century. They sent us away because they knew our best chance at surviving this family was having minimal contact with it. The truth is, I was born to inherit the Fitzpatrick mess and shoulder all the family issues, you were born to avenge Athair’s infidelity, and poor Aisling was born to try to patch up the chaos they’d created.”
I didn’t know my mother suffered from depression and dependency, but I was too poisoned by loneliness and neglect to find compassion for her.
“Yeah, well, worked for you.” I gathered phlegm, spitting it to the ground. I didn’t know that about Aisling, but it didn’t surprise me. My baby sister was a cactus: adaptable, easy to keep alive, and thrived on next to nothing. Kill and I were different creatures—athletic and spirited, wild and unrestrained.
“Quite,” he said, robot-like.
“You didn’t care that they tossed you aside because you think you’re above love, don’t you?” I didn’t think he was capable of feeling it. I didn’t think I could, either, but that’s because I was below love, undeserving of it.
“Love is a great marketing strategy. Sells a lot of books, movies, and diamonds. Aside from that, I do not consider myself a big fan of it.”
“No marriage for you, then?” I asked. Kill was thirty, and about as likely to settle down as a wild fucking boar.
“I will, to someone who is fit to sire my heirs and feels comfortable raising them away from the city—from me.”
“Are you going to time-travel to a century where an idea like this wouldn’t earn you a slap in the face?” I wondered aloud. He laughed, actually laughed and shook his head, muttering, “Little Naïve, so naïve. Money’s a great incentive to be anything, even a glorified slave.”
“Chauvinist much?”
“Hardly. I didn’t limit this statement to women. I could tame any man for the right price, too.”
We poured back onto the track, entangled in our own thoughts. I wanted to get away from here, but also stay longer. I hadn’t spent quality time with Cillian in years. Maybe ever. And I didn’t want to go back to a Sailor-less apartment. It always felt cold and hollow without another person there.
We got to the stables and dismounted. I thanked my brother politely.
“Their names are Washington and Hamilton,” my brother huffed out of nowhere, stroking his horse’s nose. The horse nudged his shoulder, asking for more, but Kill had already turned and looked at me. He had the rare talent of giving you just enough for you to want more, but never to bring you to satisfaction.
“Where are Franklin, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Jay?” A sarcastic smirk curved on my face.
“In the stables, resting,” he replied, dead-ass serious. He stood straight and looked grim, and I realized maybe Cillian Fitzpatrick didn’t always want to be Cillian Fitzpatrick, after all. It was probably daunting to be above everyone twenty-four-fucking-seven.
Fuck, I’d die without cursing alone.
I shook my head, throwing my arm over his shoulder. He didn’t swat it away like I’d expected him to, just stared at me with a mixture of confusion and disdain.
“Let me buy you a burger,” I offered, internally sweating my balls. A rejection would crush me.
“I don’t eat garbage,” he drawled. “But I’ll treat you to the best meat you’ll ever have.”
I very much doubted he could offer me any meat better than what I was pounding into these days, but agreed anyway. When we walked back to his car, Cillian said, “The Brennan girl is going to have you by the balls if you touch her. Do not touch her.”
“I could handle her if I wanted her.” My mood turned sour as I threw the passenger door open.
We both buckled at the same time.
“No, you can’t,” he countered.
“So who can?” I hissed, turning to face him as he revved up the engine. “You, I suppose?”
He backed out of the graveled parking lot, taking his hands off the steering wheel to attend to the task of PUTTING HIS FUCKING GLOVES ON. I couldn’t believe I was going to get killed in the name of my brother’s supreme fashion sense.
“If I thought she was worth the effort, yes.”
“Who is worthy of the efforts of the great Cillian Fitzpatrick?” I leaned into my seat, grinning venomously. “Heir to a Western oil empire, with a master’s from Harvard Business School, the face of a deity, the body of Adonis, and the wit of a thousand white-shoe lawyers?” I quoted what had been written about him in a tabloid a couple years ago, verbatim.
“No one,” he said easily. “None that I’ve encountered, at any rate.”
“You did date that princess from Monaco,” I noted.
His longest relationship had lasted six months. I suspected it was because she wasn’t close enough for him to find flaws in her in a timely manner. He finally put his hands on the goddamn wheel, two seconds before taking a sharp turn. “Your point?”
“You date, you fuck, you live—just like I do. You just hide it better.”
“We’re only as bad as the crimes we get caught perpetrating. Learn from the best, and make sure to stay away from Brennan and her friends while you’re at it—especially the two sisters with garbage for manners. Aisling has been parading them at Avebury Court like wild bobcats she caught in the hills.”
I thought it was odd that he mentioned Emmabelle and Persy specifically, but I was too riled up about the Sailor comment to care.
“Sure thing, asshole.”
“And stop cursing.”
“Fucking fine.”