“I don’t think such a thing exists.”
“Well, if it did, that would describe my relationship with Katrina to a T.”
“What happened?”
Mac shook his head, deadly serious for a change. “I’d rather not talk about it, if you don’t mind.”
It was tempting to push, but his expression said that if I did, he’d be following Henri out of the door. “Fine. Keep your secrets. They don’t interest me.” A lie, if ever there was one. “I’m sure it’s something dreadfully mundane like she wanted you to change,and in true Marquis de Sade style, you told her that wouldn’t be happening. I feel sorry for the poor girl. Hopefully, she’ll find herself a man worthy of her attentions now.”
“Hopefully,” Mac said. “And hopefully, it’ll be soon.”
We sat in contemplative silence for a few moments while I pretended to think about something other than Mac, my mind still very much on him. He’d made himself such a mainstay of my life over the past few days that I was going to miss him when he went back to London. But with Cillian and Finn’s arrival back from Dubai looming large on the horizon, that was only a matter of time. “When do you fly?”
Mac’s brow furrowed. “Fly?”
I rolled my eyes. “Or get the Eurostar. Whatever.” I reframed my question. “When do you leave? Tomorrow, or the next day?”
“Ah!” Mac sat back in his chair, his fingers interlocked over his abdomen. “I’ve been thinking about that and I’ve decided to stay. I’m enjoying it here too much to go home yet.”
“You can’t stay.”
Mac’s eyebrow lifted. “I appreciate your friendship, too. I had thought you might be happy to have yours truly here a bit longer.”
I shook my head. “If you stay, they’re going to know I conveniently forgot to mention your presence here. You’re going to get me in trouble.”
Mac didn’t comment, but he didn’t need to. His stare said it all for him, and his stare said I’d have to deal with it. Marvelous. This was what you got for trusting people to do what they’d said they were going to do.
I couldn’t deny that beneath my irritation, a tiny thread of pleasure existed at the knowledge that I got to keep Mac as a distraction for longer until he grew bored with Paris. Although, given what I knew about the relationship of the two brothersfrom Mac himself and from Finn, I suspected that would be the breaking point rather than the city itself.
I didn’t have to wait long for the shit to hit the fan, my phone lighting up with a call from Finn early on the Saturday morning. So early that it roused me from sleep, which provided the perfect excuse not to answer the call. He called twice more before I was out of bed with a much-needed coffee in front of me.
The next call I took. I knew Finn, and I knew that if I put it off any longer, I risked him turning up in person rather than calling. And if I had to have this conversation, I’d much rather have it over the phone than face to face.
Finn didn’t waste any time on greetings. “Cillian is extremely pissed at you.”
“Nothing new there.”
“He wanted to call you himself, but I talked him out of it. I had to promise I’d tear a strip off you myself, though.”
“When does that start?”
Finn let out a frustrated sigh. “How long has he been here?”
“Him being?” I had to be careful because there was always a chance that Mac had changed his mind about staying, and Finn was calling me about something else.
“Mac. Who else?”
“Ah, yes, Mac.”
“How long?”
“Since a couple of nights after you left.”
“That’s not what he’s told Cillian.”
Merde!“Then I’m wrong. I’ve become confused because of… environmental stressors and the current phase of the moon. Whatever Mac says is the truth. He should know how long he’s been here. What do I know?” I pulled the phone away from myear to curse Mac to high hell. The least he could have done if he was going to lie was to have let me in on it so we could corroborate our stories. “On a scale of one to ten, how pissed is Cillian?”
“Fifteen.”
