Unshackled

Sweet Jesus, I wasn’t prepared for those nerves.

“You know I want the same, right?” I grinned, only to swallow a bout of unease the next second. The emotions came and went, and it was fucking annoying.

“Do you?” The genuine worry that seeped through in his voice made me feel like shit. “You have to tell me if something’s changed, sweetheart.”

Oh my God. He couldn’t think that—but all of a sudden, it was difficult to find the words. I’d been walking around for months with two rings in my wallet, waiting for the right time to somehow tell him that I loved him and wanted to spend the rest of my life with him, that I didn’t care about marriage because I didn’t, but that I wanted us to wear some kind of symbol of our relationship. I just wasn’t as good as he was at speaking with elegance.

“The only thing that’s changed is that I love you more today than I did before.” I cupped the back of his neck and pressed my lips to his, and I hoped against hope that the right words would appear out of nowhere like magic.

Instead, I heard a gasp.

I broke the kiss with panic surging through me, and I saw Emilia’s wide eyes right before she slammed the door shut.

Fuck!

I untangled myself quickly from Shan and darted after her.

Turned out, she hadn’t gone far. She was standing right outside the office in the basement’s seating area, looking as if she was about to freak out.

“Don’t tell Finn, Emilia.” I rushed out the words and put my hands on her arms. Her belly was growing fast. Couldn’t help that she was expecting twins. “Do you hear me? I’m begging you. I need time—”

She held up a hand. “Say no more. I won’t say a word, but he’s on his way down. You’ll have to follow my lead. I’ll make sure you get time. I’ve been practicing.”

Hot damn. I didn’t know where her calm had come from, but I appreciated it. It was one less worry.

We heard the sound of feet coming down the stairs a beat later, and I watched in confusion as Emilia whimpered and—what the fuck? She began crying. Hands shaking, a sob came out, and then the tears were falling.

“Princess?” Finn sounded alarmed and instantly ran over.

“I’m tired,” Emilia cried. “I’m so tired, Finnegan. I c-came down here to ask if they wanted anything to drink, and then I just started bawling my eyes out.”

My eyebrows flew up.

“I need a vacation,” she wept.

“Okay—okay, we’ll, uh, we’ll go away somewhere, yeah?” Finn scrambled to do whatever it was she wanted, clearly not on board with her being upset. “I’ll make reservations for this weekend.”

“I miss Killarney!” Fucking hell, she was laying it on. At this point, I wasn’t sure she was acting anymore. “Or do you want me to lose my mind? Is that what you want?”

“Of fucking course I don’t want that, baby.” Finn hugged Emilia to him and widened his eyes at me over her head. “What the fuck?” he mouthed.

I was wondering the same.

“I’m sure a weekend will make shit better,” I threw out there. Going to Killarney seemed…excessive.

“What do you say, princess?” Finn asked. “A weekend, just you and me? I’ll book us one of those couple’s massages and—”

“No, I want to go to Killarney,” she sobbed. “A weekend isn’t a vacation. It’s a fucking lunch break!”

Yikes. I automatically took a step back, ’cause fuck that haunted hormonal mansion.

“All right.” Finn was surrendering. “We’ll go call your doctor and see if you can fly.”

“She’s gonna end up giving birth in Ireland,” I said.

“I only need a week or two,” she said, sniffling. “A little bit of time.” At that word, she threw me a glare over her shoulder.

What the fuck had I done wrong? I didn’t need that much time. I needed twenty minutes to get Shan out of here so we could go home and talk in private.

But it was a done deal. What Finn’s princess wanted, Finn’s princess got. And I suspected she actually wanted to go there, ’cause that display had been too damn good.

Had she been practicing crying or lying?

Now that Finn’s head had been sufficiently fucked, he and Emilia excused themselves to go pack their bags and check airline tickets. I returned to Finn’s office, feeling a bit fucked myself, and found Shan in the same spot as I’d left him.

I closed the door behind me. “I don’t know if you heard any of that, but—”

“Would it have been so bad if Finn found out?” he asked, interrupting me. “I can’t help but feel like there’s something else bothering you.”

Maybe Emilia’s performance had robbed me of energy. Maybe I’d simply reached a limit. Either way, I didn’t care about fumbling or phrasing myself wrong. I had to get this out; he’d make sense of it somehow.