Love and Shamrocks: Ballybeg, Book 5 (4 page)

She turned those fabulous green eyes toward him and his breath caught. “I told the security guard that I’d be out of here in a few minutes.”

He gave her a measured look, then a smile. “You here to do something illegal?” he asked in a teasing tone.

Her laugh was broken and half hysterical. “No.”

“In that case, let me deal with the security guard, if need be.” Seán propelled her forward, his palm burning against the small of her back. “Come on. Let’s get that drink.”

INSIDE THE HOTEL BAR, music of the bland top-ten variety drifted from the speakers. Men in slick designer suits chatted up women accessorized with shoes and handbags that cost more than Clio earned in a month. Her gaze dropped to her ratty outfit and the ridiculous red heels. She stood out like a flickering neon sign.

Warmth crept up her cheeks, and she crossed her arms over her breasts. Her feet itched to flee, but where could she go? Her mother was filming in Galway, and Tammy was spending a couple of days with Emma’s parents in Wexford. Neither of them was due back in Cork until tomorrow. The idea of returning to an empty house after the run-in with Ray’s minion made Clio’s stomach clench and twist. She wanted to be amongst people, to bask in their carefree Friday night revelry. Anything to distract herself from what she’d done.

“Stools okay? There are a couple free at the bar.”

Her rescuer’s deep voice wrenched her back to the present. She looked up at him and gave him a brief once over. A reluctant flutter tickled her abdomen. He had a Rugby player’s build—tall, broad, muscular. Laugh lines framed his bright blue eyes, giving the impression a smile was never far from his lips. He wore his dark hair close-cropped. Chiseled cheekbones and a square jaw added to the impression of classic beauty, but his face was saved from the tedium of perfection by a nose tilted slightly to the left.

“Rugby accident?” she asked, slipping off her coat.

“Eh?” His hand flew to the bridge of his nose. A slow smile curved his lips. “Yeah. Keep meaning to get it fixed.”

“Don’t. It adds character.”

He chuckled, a rich sound that sent tingles skittering over her skin. “I’m glad you like it.”

She shouldn’t, but she did. And she rather liked him. She wasn’t in the market for a man, but a bit of harmless flirtation would take her mind off her problems, keep her from dwelling on her worries.

Clio cocked her head to the side and stared directly into his electric blue eyes. “You in the habit of rescuing damsels in distress?”

His grin grew wider. “Only ones wearing sexy shoes.”

Heat prickled her neck, and she shifted her focus to the hint of dark stubble grazing his jaw. This guy was too sexy by half. In an alternate reality—one excluding the turmoil of the past few months—she’d have been all over him. She swallowed past the stubborn lump of regret lodged in her throat.

Mr. Sexy took her bare arm. The searing heat from the skin-to-skin contact made her breath catch. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s nab those stools while they’re still free.”

He maneuvered a path through the crowd, past the well-dressed drinkers fumigating the atmosphere with warring designer scents. Clio’s nose itched, and she felt the familiar asthmatic catch in her chest. Given the stress of the evening, it was a wonder she hadn’t yet needed her inhaler.

“Here we are.” Mr. Sexy stopped before two vacant stools by the bar’s chrome counter. The warmth of his palm on the small of her back was reassuring. He guided her to one of the stools, and she clambered up, her torso brushing his as she sat. Her cheeks grew even hotter.

Gosh, she had to get a grip. She was acting like a teenager with her first crush, not the world-weary cynic life had chiseled her into. Besides, any man of sense would run if he knew the trouble she was in.

Clio inhaled sharply and focused on the bottles behind the bar. They were arranged on frosted-glass shelves, artfully lit to draw attention to the most expensive. Her mother would love this joint. It would appeal to her delusions of grandeur.

The thought of Helen precipitated another wave of panic. Clio’s heart pounded, and she reached for the inhaler in her jeans pocket.

Her fist closed round the inhaler when a barman slid into view, resplendent in a crisp white shirt and black bow tie. “What can I get you?” he asked, studiously ignoring Clio’s disheveled appearance.

“A pint of Guinness,” Mr. Sexy said. He turned to Clio. “What are you drinking?”

She took another look at the display of bottles and exhaled wheezily. They represented a past she’d abandoned twelve years ago. Avoiding alcohol when she was stressed was one of her unwritten rules. Avoiding spirits altogether was another. Her nails dug into her palms. One drink. One drink wouldn’t plunge her back into her former lifestyle. Alcohol had been the least of her issues, after all. And her past problems faded into insignificance when compared to her current predicament.

“I’ll have a G&T, please. With Bombay Sapphire.” The name tripped off her tongue in near reverence. She hadn’t tasted its sweet bitterness in over twelve years and had sworn never to do so again, but it wasn’t every day you put yourself beyond redemption.

“Not going local with Cork Dry?” Mr. Sexy asked, anchoring her in the present. His voice was very deep, very masculine, and sounded like its owner gargled with the finest single-malt whiskey.

Clio’s skin tingled in giddy anticipation. She’d always had a thing for voices. Unfortunately, that thing for voices had gotten her into trouble a time or ten. She took deep, steady breaths, but her gaze slid over the muscles rippling under her companion’s black silk shirt. Accepting his invitation had been an extremely bad idea. What was she thinking? The security guard would go ballistic if he found her in here.

“I don’t do local,” she said in a tone sharp enough to slap.

“Men or booze?” he asked, a glint of mischief in his intense blue eyes.

“Both.”

A wicked grin spread across his face. “Then it’s just as well I’m not local.”

She’d been so distracted by the events of the evening that she hadn’t registered the absence of a Cork dialect. A Dublin accent, she guessed. The north side of the River Liffey. The wrong side, as her mother would say.

She drummed her fingers on the counter, flexed them over a beer mat.

“You want to shred that mat,” he said, laughing. The deep, throaty sound made her blood hum.

She ripped the cardboard, one neat slice at a time. “You a cop, a lawyer, or a psychologist?”

He quirked an eyebrow. “Not a fan of those professions?”

“Right now, I’m not a fan of men.”

“Yeah? Right now, I’m not a fan of humankind.” His cheeky grin softened his words. “Present company excepted, of course.”

“Of course.” This guy was a charmer, albeit with an edge.

She glanced up when the barman pushed their drinks across the counter. For a moment, Clio was mesmerized by the cool perfection of the drink with its glistening slice of lemon. She tapped the glass once, then twice. Her years of partying were behind her. Long before she’d moved back to Ireland, she’d made the conscious decision to focus on her daughter, to be the sort of mother she’d always wanted. And she’d failed. God, how she’d failed. A hard lump formed in her throat, forcing her to blink back tears.

“We never introduced ourselves,” Mr. Sexy said, cutting through her thoughts. “I’m Seán Mackey.”

“Orla O’Brien.” Orla was a good, nondescript name and so common in Ireland that it blended with the damp air. O’Brien was equally commonplace and a far cry from her cursed unusual surname. Her lip curled. The last thing she needed right now was him connecting her to Helen Havelin, Ireland’s Number One Advice Columnist. Or Ireland’s Number One Nutcase, depending on where you fell on the political spectrum. Upon hearing her name, people either reacted with revulsion or with mirth. She wasn’t in the mood to deal with either.

Seán raised his pint glass. “
Sláinte
, Orla.”

“
Sláinte.
” She clinked her glass against his and returned it to the counter without taking a sip.

“What brings you to Cork?”

“Holidays,” she lied. “You?”

The merriment in his eyes dimmed. “I was supposed to spend a lads’ weekend with a friend from Dublin. Canceled, unfortunately.”

A tourist. Excellent. Her resolve not to succumb to her libido was dwindling by the second. She stole a glance at his ring finger for a glint of metal or a telltale indent. He had neither.

“I’m guessing you hail from the same part of the country as me.” He flashed a sexy half smile that made her blood hum.

“Yeah. I’m a Dubliner, born and bred.” At least that part of her story was true.

He leaned back on his barstool. “What do you do, Orla?”

Discussing jobs bored Clio.
Share as little information as possible
was her motto. If people were persistent, fib. “It’s the weekend. Time to forget work.”

“True,” he said, taking her cue with good cheer. The teasing twinkle in his eye bolstered her impression that Seán was a man with a sense of humor. The fluttery feeling in her stomach gathered pace.

“Have you seen much of Cork?” she asked.

“A fair bit. If you’re interested in history, the Old Gaol’s worth a look.”

Clio wasn’t, but Tammy would love it. “So far, I haven’t been farther than the shopping district.”

Strangely, the mindless small talk was a soothing distraction. There was something about Seán that relaxed her, something in his relaxed posture and easy smile that told her he wasn’t a threat. Slowly but surely, her heart rate was returning to normal.

“I went on one of those hop-on, hop-off bus tours,” Seán said, taking another sip of his pint. “Not usually my thing, but it was great fun.”

That did sound like fun. It was something she could do with her daughter. Try to repair the broken bridge of their relationship.

Tammy.
Dark memories surfaced with the viciousness of rubbing alcohol in an open wound. Clio shuddered. If she’d been more alert, more open to communication, she’d have guessed the truth about Tammy’s relationship with her music teacher.

And if she’d guessed the truth, he’d never have had the opportunity to hurt her daughter. Barring the invention of a time machine, she couldn’t change the past. What she knew for certain was that she would do everything—anything—to keep her daughter safe from further harm.

“Everything okay?” Seán asked, his tone laced with concern. “For a moment there, you looked haunted.”

“I’m grand,” she said with more determination than conviction. “Nothing to worry about.” She needed to shove her daughter out of her mind, at least for tonight, but if she wanted a night of mindless small talk and mild flirtation, she had to get into character. What would a generic girl named Orla do on a Saturday night, seated next to a hot guy? Clio angled her knees oh-so-subtly in Seán’s direction.

Suddenly, her mobile phone vibrated, turning the fluttering in her stomach into a churning sensation.

Clio’s hand flew to her pocket. A sense of foreboding made her pause. With a trembling hand, she pulled out the phone.

Caller display confirmed her fears. Ray.
Oh, shit.
She’d have to take the call. If she ignored him, he’d phone the house. No one was home tonight, but Ray was persistent. He’d call tomorrow, and Helen might answer. Or, worse still, Tammy. The last thing Clio wanted to do was worry her daughter on the weekend before she started her new school.

“Problem?” Seán asked, brow creased.

Clio scanned the bar. It was packed. There was nowhere quiet for her to take this call. If she went back out into the lobby, she’d risk running into the security guard. Her heart thudded in her chest, and the fingers clutching her phone had pins and needles.

The phone continued to vibrate.

Shit, shit, shit.

She slid off her barstool with more speed than grace. A spiky heel caught on one of the bars, causing her to stumble.

Seán’s strong hands steadied her. “You okay?”

He was close enough for her to smell his cologne. Something subtle and spicy, and a hell of a lot sexier than the heavy scents worn by most of the men in the bar. She drew in a breath, fought back tears. “I’m fine, but I have to take this call.”

She turned her back on him and pressed the phone close to her ear, covering her other ear to block out the noise.

“Clio.” Her former boss’s voice was sweetly insidious, the high-pitched tone belying the steel underneath.

“What’s up, Ray?” She moved to the end of the bar counter, well out of Seán’s earshot. “Your man has the envelope. I consider our interaction at an end.”
Keep calm, keep casual. That’s the trick.

“Two thousand euros doesn’t even begin to cover what you owe me.”

“I don’t owe you
anything
. I paid you when I hired you. All I asked you to do was…” She glanced around and dropped her voice a notch. “Jesus, Ray. I didn’t ask you to do what you did. Your men screwed up. Be happy with the money I’ve given you, because I’m not in a position to get you any more.”

His hyena laugh made her jerk the phone away from her ear. “I’m not interested in money, Clio. I wanted to see if I could still make you jump when I snapped my fingers. It seems I can.”

So he
had
been yanking her chain over the money. She’d suspected as much when he’d called earlier. After the risks she’d taken getting him the money at an hour’s notice. If she ever had the misfortune to meet the psychotic troll in person again…She ground her teeth to stop from screaming. “What’s this really about? We’ve established you don’t need the m—contents of the envelope your man took—and I’ve been out of the
business
for far too long to be of any use to you on that score.”

“All right,” he said smoothly. “I’ll get to the point. I want you to acquire a valuable antique for me.”

The words hit her like a punch to the kidneys. She’d been expecting this. Of course she had. She wasn’t foolish enough to think he’d let her wriggle out of his clutches without making her squirm, but she hadn’t expected him to hit her up with an indecent proposal
tonight
.