Page 85 of Ruined Wrath
“She’s happy that Cormac and I didn’t kill each other while we were away,” I explain.
Riley laughs as she gently strokes Aubrey’s back with her free hand. “We did discuss it at length. We came up with a list of all the ways you might try to murder Cormac and then cover it up.”
“Why was I the one committing the murder and not the other way around?”
“Because Cormac is a grumpy bastard,” Ciara says, and I swallow a laugh.
I try to fight the smile that pulls at my lips as I remember all of the fun we had. “He was anything but grumpy these last few days. He was…perfect.”
“Gross,” Ciara mutters, and I laugh.
“I’m glad you had a good time, you know, considering…” Riley starts but she quickly trails off at the look of surprise on my face. “Sorry, was I not meant to know?”
She glances nervously at Ciara, but I quickly say, “No, it’s not that. You have every right to know the truth. It’s just… I guess I should have been the one to tell you, and I didn’t. I’m sorry.”
“Me and my big mouth,” Ciara mutters.
I let go of Ciara’s arm and quickly cross over to Riley. “After everything you’ve done for me, it’s a pretty rubbish way to repay you.”
Riley waves a hand. “What’s done is done. There’s no point in making you feel any worse about it than I’m sure you already do. But I want you to know that you don’t need to hide anything from us, Fiona. We’re all on the same side.”
“I second that,” Ciara chimes in. “Like I said before, Riley and I are far from saints ourselves. We’ve all done what we needed to in order to survive.”
“But—”
Riley shakes her head. “But nothing. All is forgiven in my eyes.”
Ciara throws her arms around both of us. “Mine too.”
My throat thickens with emotion, and I struggle to find anything to say that could even begin to articulate how much they both mean to me. They were an unexpected bonus that I wasn’t expecting, and I honestly can’t remember what life was like without them.
Ciara scowls at Riley. “Enough of the heavy. I needdetails. Are you and Cormac officially back together, or were you just having super-hot sex and pretending not to care about each other?”
“Uh—”
Riley wrinkles her nose. “Before you answer that, I’m petitioning for us to take this conversation to the nursery. I need to deal with a diaper situation, and I’ll be damned if this baby makes me miss all the juicy gossip.”
The three of us head back out to the foyer, where chaos seems to have erupted.
Cormac has barely been able to get Scout out of his coat because he’s too caught up in filling Brennan in on every detail of our trip.
“We built an igloo!” Scout throws his arms in the air just as Cormac tries to pull off his coat.
Brennan looks genuinely impressed. “Seriously? That’s so cool.”
“But Daddy said we weren’t allowed to sleep in it.”
“That’s because your dad is a p?—”
Cormac glares at his brother. “Let’snotfinish that sentence.”
Scout scoffs. “It’s only fair that he calls you a name because you called him an idiot.”
Cormac curses under his breath.
Brennan rounds on Cormac. “You saidwhat? You called me an idiot?”
I stifle a laugh as I head up the stairs behind Ciara, but Cormac still manages to catch my eye. I swear he has an unnatural ability to always seek me out.
