Who would help me?

  “How are you going to do this without family around?” I asked softly.

  She laughed as if I just said the funniest thing in the word before she glanced at me out of the corner of her eye. “Are you kidding me right now? First off, my parents barely even raised me. That was all Nana. But I have family here. The Murphys. I know anything I need, they’ll help with. No matter what.”

  “Must be nice,” I muttered, trying not to let jealousy cloud the happiness I should be feeling for my best friend and the family she always wanted.

  She rolled her eyes. “Oh, stop. You know they’d do the same for you. If you needed anything, one of the brothers or me and Grace would be there ASAP.”

  I opened my mouth to speak, but Fallon was quicker. “Look, I know you don’t want to be all ‘Oh woe is me,’ so you put on this tough girl act, but we both know you’ve gone through a lot of shit in your life. Because of that, I’ve tried to help you every way possible, once I finally got the ability to do so. So has Sean, for that matter, giving you the job with him and the flat for free. Hell, that’s more than your ex ever did. If you still wanted to stay here and work, I know Grace has positions in her publishing house, or we’d find you something in Murphy’s. You’re not alone in this.”

  I wasn’t used to tough-love Fallon. She was always the friend who agreed with everything and tried to make the best of things. I was weirdly proud of her but at the same time pissed because this wasn’t what I wanted to hear.

  I sighed, staring out the window, letting the silence drift between us.

  “We may need to pick some things up at Sean’s,” Fallon said, breaking through the tension. “Do you want to just stay there tonight, or maybe even up at the hospital while he has surgery?”

  “I’ll stay at the flat tonight. My stuff’s there, and I don’t have a key for Sean’s. Just the door code—which I hope he didn’t change,” I blurted.

  Realization hit me. The cold chill of worry.

  He never gave me the key to his place. Just a code for the garage door, written on a Post-it note. I had nothing concrete between us but this baby.

  “Are you sure? You know I have a guest room if you’d rather stay with us tonight. And I’ll probably swing by the hospital in a bit if you wanted to get a bite to eat then go together to bring Sean’s stuff. Might be easier.”

  I let out a breath, looking out the window so she couldn’t see the lie written on my face. “I’m really tired. I just want to lie down, then I’ll head to see Sean later.”

  “Fair enough,” Fallon replied in a voice barely above a whisper.

  Once she pulled up to my building, we said our goodbyes and I climbed the stairs to my flat.

  Opening the door, I walked the few steps to my bed and plopped down.

  The reality of the day came crashing down on me along with a dark wave of nausea and sadness.

  Pulling my phone out of my purse, I looked at the time.

  Dublin was six hours ahead of Chicago. It was morning back home, but not so early that Mom or Abuela wouldn’t be up.

  I placed a video call and stared at my puffy reflection.

  Mom’s face finally filled the screen.

  She was smiling, even had a coat of lipstick on, but her face fell as soon as she saw me.

  “Leah, what’s wrong? Is everything okay with the baby?”

  I shook my head, biting back tears. They’d been falling so hard all day, and just when I thought I didn’t have any left, my whole body shook, trying not to break. “The baby’s fine, Ma. But I’m coming back home.”

  “Oh? I thought maybe you and that handsome rugby boy were going to settle down, since I hadn’t heard anything more about you moving. What did he do? Does Abuela need to call Tia Louisa about that curse? She’s still practicing brujería in Tijuana, you know.”

  I smiled, despite all of the heartache. At least Ma wasn’t yelling at me about being irresponsible.

  She never did.

  She just accepted my faults, picked me up, and helped me move on to the next thing.

  Like she would do now.

  Even if I couldn’t send as much money as I used to, I’d still find a way to help them in return. Even if I felt like everything was crashing down.

  “No need to call Tia Louisa. But if you and Abuela have any airline miles to spare, I’d take them.”

  She nodded solemn. “If this is really what you want to do, mija, I’ll see what we have.”

  “I do. And thank you.”

  I may have said the words, but every part of me twisted inside.

  Leaving was the best thing for all of us. Not just me, but Sean, too.

  He could go on to find a wife and help his brothers to get the company.

  It was going to be me and my baby against the world, and I promised myself I would never let her feel the heartache I was feeling right now.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Sean

  Of all the feck ups of my life, this had to be the biggest.

  As I awoke from a surgical haze, the first thing that came into focus was Jack’s steely glare.

  “You done being a gobshite or need to get more of your eejitness out?”

  A pale hand swatted his chest. “He just got out of surgery. Let him wake up before you start interrogating the man.”

  Ah, the sweet British accent of my best mate. I may have still felt a stinging pain in my shoulder, and my brain might be mush, but hearing Grace’s voice at least made it a bit better.

  “Thanks, Grace,” I managed to garble, my throat scratchy and dry.

  She handed me a glass of water with a straw from the stand by my bed.

  I greedily slurped down half of the water before letting out a satisfied “ah.”

  “Okay, now he’s up and you can have at ’im,” Grace quipped, hitching her thumb in my direction.

  “I’m pretty sure he knows how much he fecked up and doesn’t need us to tell him. Now he can go back to rugby after he’s done with physical therapy, we’ll lose the business, he’ll lose the girl, and everything will just be fecking grand,” a gruff voice said.

  I turned toward the voice to see Connor in a chair, with his phone in his hands and a scowl on his face. The seat next to him was empty.

  “What?” I asked, slowly trying to sit.

  Grace spoke before Connor could open his mouth. “Well, good news is, like Connor said, the injury wasn’t career-ending. No nerve damage, so you can still play. You know, if you wanted to.”

  “Of course he does. Always been the most important fecking thing to the guy. Not the company. Not finding a wife. Definitely not the pregnant bird he started spatting with.” Connor’s words dripped with venom.

  Realization hit me, coming with an even bigger surge of pain than the one in my shoulder.

  Fallon wasn’t there because she was with Leah.

  The woman I’d lashed out at in my pain-induced haze.

  I couldn’t remember what I said. I barely remembered wheeling into the hospital or coming out of surgery with the doctor talking about therapy and going back on the field. But I knew it was bad.

  If the ache in my shoulder weren’t enough, now guilt raked my stiff body.

  “Where’s Leah?” I asked, the pounding in my head now a dull roar.

  “Was your concussion that bad that you can’t remember?” Connor asked, standing up and coming to my side of the bed.

  I froze.

  Shite.

  It was worse than I thought.

  Grace eyed both of my brothers. “See, we didn’t need to give him shit if he can’t remember.”

  “I remember I was royally peeved and probably said some things I shouldn’t have.” My words trailed off as it came back to me, exactly every fiery word I’d spat out.

  How the hell could I lash out on the girl who I had just asked to marry me not even an hour before? The one who I said I’d protect and promised I’d take care of along with our child?

  If I weren’t already nauseous from anesthesia, now there was a spasm of guilt curdling my stomach, adding to the pain that coursed through me, not just from my injured shoulder.

  A sharp burn of knowing that I had just fecked up and could lose the girl I truly cared for. Might never see my future child.

  “I might be pissed if I thought my rugby career was over, too, if I didn’t have a very large whiskey franchise waiting for me,” Connor grumbled then snapped his fingers. “Oh wait, if you keep fecking up and pissing off the mother of your child and woman you love, then we won’t have it.”

  “Connor, seriously,” Grace hissed, knocking me back to reality.

  If the guilt wasn’t already curdling within me, now it was a full-on, gut wrenching pain that burned through me.

  I was the lowliest fecking man on the planet.

  I raked my fingers through my hair, knowing where this conversation was going. “Look, I didn’t know about the baby until after I asked her to marry me. Instead of answering the proposal, she told me she was pregnant. We only had sex the once. After Jack’s wedding and before I went to Rome. She said she was on the pill…”

  “Didn’t you learn anything in uni?” Connor asked. “The pill doesn’t always work. Has she been to a doctor?”

  “She has…” Jack answered, and I glared in his direction. How the feck did he know?

  The hair stood up on my neck.

  Did my brothers know this woman better than I did?

  Why hadn’t I seen the signs?

  “She asked me the other day about seeing a doctor. I thought it was just whatever allergies Fallon had,” he muttered. “Which I guess makes sense, since Connor’s already shown us all his ‘Daddy’ shirt.”

  “It would have been better if Fallon was here, since this guy had to get injured and ruin the surprise,” Connor said, shaking his head.

  “Am I missing something?” I asked, my brows furrowing as I looked between my two brothers.

  “Fallon and I are pregnant, as well. We were going to announce it at dinner tonight, but that’s not happening now.” He blew out a breath, shaking his head.

  “Wow. Congrats. I guess we’ll both have kids growing up together? That is, if I didn’t royally piss off Leah.” My voice strained as the searing pain from my shoulder and aching heart traveled through me.

  I’d really fecked it up this time and now I didn’t know how the hell to fix what should have been a happy moment for everyone.

  “Feck, Sean, how could you be such an eejit?” Connor’s fist slammed against the back of the chair.

  “Connor,” Grace chided.

  “I’m not just saying about getting her pregnant, but then instead of being a grand guy, he goes and lashes out at the girl. Probably the only girl who would put up with his annoying arse. Hell, the past couple months, she’s even been a better business partner than Sean was,” Connor added.

  I swallowed hard, a cold chill running over my heated body.

  She really was the best of the lot.

  A great business partner.

  Wonderful companion.

  “He’s right about all of it,” Jack added. “You know you fecked up, Sean, now the question is, what are you going to do about it? Finally time to own up to your mistakes and tell the girl you really do care about her.”

  “What the feck do you know?” I asked, wincing as I tried to turn toward my brothers. They might have been right, but I wasn’t going to tell them that.

  “That you hired her as an assistant, but we all know that she’s the only girl you’ve seen regularly in years,” Grace said, leaning against Jack as he put his arm around her.

  “That’s not true,” I protested, but knew they were right. The pain in my shoulder was still sending pins and needles down my arm, but not half as bad as the guilt crawling through my stomach.

  “You should fix this, before you lose her,” Connor said, holding out my phone to me.

  I sat up, wincing as my vision blurred, then managed to focus on my phone screen. I tried to think of what I could say to make this all better.

  Though, nothing would save me at this point.

  Whatever I said, it was bad. That in the moment of losing my rugby career, I forgot what I was gaining. A child.

  A wife.

  The woman I did love.

  Now, I had to hope she’d talk to me at all. I had to find a way to win her back.

  Some way. Somehow.

  “Grace,” I whispered, my voice hoarse as I tried to gather my emotions.

  “Yes?”

  “Would you go and check on Leah and Fallon? She’s not going to answer my calls, and if I can’t get out of this bed, I don’t want her to leave.”

  “Do you think she would? Leave, that is?” Grace asked.

  I swallowed hard, sucking in a breath slowly and letting it out before speaking. “I don’t know. But I don’t want to take that chance of her running because I’ve been such an eedjit.”

  She glanced at the clock above the bed. “It’s late now, but we can get Fallon and go in the morning.”

  “Hopefully, I can get out of here by then,” I grumbled.

  Jack nodded, putting his arm around Grace. “Don’t worry, brother. We’ve got your back. We’ll do what we need to do to get Leah back and you the feck out of here.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Leah

  I didn’t go to visit Sean at the hospital, but I received a mass of texts when he woke up.

  But I couldn’t go see him.

  Not just because it was pretty damn late, but after all of the emotions of the day, I just needed some time by myself.

  To go forward with my plan.

  Ma and Abuela didn’t have any airline miles that would work for the trip, so I used my last paycheck and bought a one-way ticket home, set for later in that week.

  Packing my life up was different than the first time around.

  I may not have lived in the flat very long, but there was something about it that was now a part of me.

  This was where Sean used my shoes to explain rugby to me. It was the first place I lived without a million roommates, outside of my mother’s basement.

  Tears welled in my eyes as I thought about what I was leaving.

  No, not what, but who.

  Dammit, Sean, why did you have to make me like you?

  But was liking him enough to look past his faults?

  He wanted rugby and an obedient wife. I was neither.

  Even if we were having a child together, it wasn’t enough to stay.

  That was the thought that constantly raked through me and brought me to the brink of tears just about every waking moment.

  There was a knock at the door, kicking me out of my own thoughts. Before I could even turn, the door opened.

  I cursed myself for not locking it.

  In walked my wide-eyed best friend, flanked by Jack and Grace, two people who I’d never seen at my place.

  “If this is some sort of intervention to get me to stay, it’s not going to work,” I muttered. Still, I let them in the apartment. After all, they did kind of own it.

  “Wait, what? You’re leaving?” Fallon asked, her eyes widening as she walked into the flat. The others followed and shut the door behind them.

  I nodded, looking at the ground instead of my friend and the two Murphys next to her. “Yeah. I was going to message you…”

  “You know, you don’t have to leave because of what Sean said in his angry delirium because the man just broke several parts of his body. He’s not the only reason to stay,” Grace said, and I looked up to see her fidgeting from one foot to the other then looking at Jack.

  He cleared his throat. “Grace and I were just in the area to look at some investment properties. New business endeavors.”

  I raised an eyebrow, wondering what this had to do with Sean. Or me, for that matter. “The Murphys are becoming flippers?”

  “I’m not exactly sure what you mean by that, but, no, we aren’t flipping anything. Just looking at a possible office for Grace’s small press.”

  I stood up straight, clasping my hands, and I tried to muster excitement when my world was literally falling apart around me. “Oh, awesome. Fal said you guys were doing that. Congrats. Murphys really are entrepreneurs.”

  Jack laughed, but it was short. “I guess you can say that. But that was all Grace before she met me. She’s always been a fighter, going for what she wants, no matter what.”

  I forced a smile on the outside, but inside I was screaming.

  I was always a fighter.

  When my business floundered without a backer, I fought to save it, even started selling stuff online, hoping I could run it out of my mom’s basement as a virtual boutique.

  But it still failed.

  Then I came all the way across the ocean for a clean start, and look how that turned out. Now I was going to be right back where I started.

  The fighter was now just another washed up, Southside girl. What a freaking cliché.

  “Leah,” Jack started, folding his hands in front of him, his jaw tensing so his dimples poked out under those high cheek bones. If he didn’t scare me so damn much, he might be attractive.

  “I don’t know if you actually put in your notice as Sean’s assistant. I’m guessing it’s a given after all that has happened.”

  I let out a deep breath. Well, at least he wasn’t here just to check out the apartment. He was here to fire me, too, if I already hadn’t quit. Guess that might get me some unemployment.

  If they had that in Ireland.

  I froze, realizing this was the first time I’d been without a job. Without a real plan. Now it just wasn’t me taking care of myself, either.

  How was I going to work, support a baby, and do this all out of my mother’s basement?

  Jack raked his fingers over his meticulously styled hair. “There are other options in the company. If you want to stay, that is, which we’d like you to. No matter what happens with you and my brother…and…”

  His dark blue eyes trailed over my crepe ruffle blouse and down to my pregnant stomach. But only for a second. So brief that I might not caught it if I hadn’t already noticed how often he kept glancing at her since we’d been there. Like, all of a sudden, his future niece of nephew might just pop out of me and say hi.