Page 3 of Irish Betrayal

“Anyway,” Mags enunciated slowly, “something happened later that night, and yet your lips remain sealed.”

Blair tapped her lips in irritation. “My lips are always sealed. Drop it.”

“Drop what?” Ciar asked from the front door. The guys were back, and Blair had been so absorbed in the humiliating conversation currently starring herself that she hadn’t noticed.

Christ, have mercy.

Lord, have mercy.

Save this sinner, Almighty God!

Blair could feel her fiery cheeks already burning like she was standing in Hell—her fiery hair and pale complexion held no power over blushing. She briefly closed her eyes, praying for a swift, merciful death.

Giving her three best friends the evil eye, a warning to keep their mouths shut, she signed, “Nothing.”

Except that the night her friends had been referring to hadn’t been nothing. It had been everything.

The garden had always been her refuge since the moment she’d moved from her home in Bunchrew, Scotland to Dublin for school. She’d been the youngest of her friends but an acknowledged prodigy in her field. Naïve and sheltered and enamored of her best friend’s oldest brother, even when he told her it was wrong.

Tucked behind the narrow set of Dublin townhouses that Bébhinn’s father had bought his daughter, grandsons, and friends, the back garden was more wild than cultivated—climbing ivy claiming brick, herbs growing where they pleased, the faint scent of damp earth lingering in the cool evening air. Blair had been bent over a cluster of Scottish Meadowsweet she’d brought from home when movement caught the corner of her eye.

She didn’t need to turn around to know who was joining her. When she and Jonathan had come home together that evening, she could feel Daniel’s anger from where he sat on the matching front steps of his twin townhouse situated next to theirs.

She brushed soil from her hands as she straightened, slowly turning to face him.

“Blair.” She imagined his voice carried calm confidence, though she only saw his lips move. She was an excellent lip reader.

When she was a child, he would let her press her tiny fingers to his throat so that she could feel him speaking. All of her family and friends let her do that, but his vibrations always left stars in her eyes. Blair felt them from her temples to her toes.

There was something else beneath her name tonight. Something tighter. Deeper.

He looked out of place in the garden, all tailored lines and quiet wealth against her soft chaos. And yet…he’d always found his way there.

“You didn’t text,” she signed, arching a brow.

“I didn’t think you’d answer.”

That earned him a small huff of laughter. “Fair.”

For a moment, they just stood there like they had a hundred times before. Communicating came easily between them. Always had.

But tonight, the silence stretched.

Different.

Charged.

“You’ve been avoiding me. You were with Jonathan tonight. Why?” he finally asked.

“I’ve been busy, and not every part of my life is yours to know, Dan,” she countered, though her hand movements lacked aggression.

“Busy with plants? Why were you with Jonathan?”

“Busy with my life,” she answered before tacking on, “and Jon is my friend.”

His mouth twitched, but his eyes didn’t soften. “I used to be part of your life. I used to be your friend. You’ve been hiding from me, Blair. I…I hate it.”

The words landed heavier than they should have…because she knew why things were different. Why they had to be.