“Well…”
“Well what?” he asked with a pouty face.
“Well, I’m kind of fond of you,” I said with a devious smile. “Wait a minute… How did you know I was here? How did you make this happen?”
“Your friend Monique told me you came home for the holiday,” he said. “It’s St. Patricks’ Day. It was sort of a no brainer.”
“She’s such a blabbermouth,” I said.
“Well, at first she told me to fuck off and die.”
I giggled. “The girl does have a way with words. But how did you convince Reed and the partners to restructure the deal? I still don’t understand.”
“I simply pointed out that pissing off Allen Benson was not the smart thing to do. Allen’s a brilliant chip designer. If we made him mad enough, he would just design another chip that would make ours run like an old Radio Shack computer. It was like trying to steal the light bulb from Edison, just a stupid thing to do. It was always about the patents for us. The manufacturing operation was never a concern.”
“Well, you were right. Uncle Allen would have buried you guys. One way or another. He is all Irish, you know. And he has six very large nephews and one very pissed off niece.”
“She said with great pride.” He smiled and bobbed his head. “Anyway, after Reed convinced the partners to approve the restructure, I got Allen on the phone and pitched him the new deal. At first, he also told me to eat shit and die, then I got him to listen to reason, and he realized I was trying to make things right. We’ll sign the papers on Monday back in New York, but it’s a done deal.”
“Promise?” I asked, kissing him softly on the lips.
“You have my personal guarantee as a good Irishman. Your Uncle Allen is going to be a very happy, very wealthy man. And hopefully, so will I.”
“That’s just… amazing,” I said, sighing the words as Conner pulled me into his arms and pressed his lips to mine. We stared into each other’s eyes.
“Do you forgive me, Katie O’Hara?”
“I forgive you, Conner McGee,” I said. “Just don’t ever do anything like that again.”
He smiled and rubbed his nose to mine. “You have my word, lassie. The word of a good Irishman.”
Epilogue: Katie O’Hara McGee
Conner’s house in the Hamptons had become my favorite place on Earth, maybe because that was where my love for him first caught spark. Admittedly, there was no love between us the first time we slept together. We didn’t even know each other then. I was Mollie the paralegal and he was Brad the banker.
Neither of us thought we would ever see the other person again. Maybe that was what made it so exciting, so incredible. We both went into it with abandon and recklessness. I did things with him that night that I had never done with any man before or since, at least until we reconnected as Conner and Katie two months later.
That first night was an incredible experience, and one I do not regret in the least. But it was supposed to be a one-night stand, all about the spontaneity and the excitement of having sex with a total stranger. I loved the experience, but at that time I didn’t love the man because I didn’t even know who the man was.
Now, I knew him intimately, inside and out, with no mystery or pretense.
I had never imagined loving someone so much.
By the end of our first weekend at the Hamptons house, I could feel a little spark for Conner McGee igniting in my chest—and in other places. I could make myself wet just by thinking of him. And he could make me cum with a single touch. The electricity between us, the animal magnetism, was unlike anything I had ever experienced before. It was truly magical in so many ways.
When we were alone, he was not the pompous, rich, cut-throat, playboy I initially thought he would be. Beneath all the wealth and trappings and bravado was a good man with a heart of gold.
We were like Beauty & the Beast, with me being Beauty, of course. And like the Beast, once the spell of his own reputation and ego was broken, a wonderful man emerged from underneath. That’s why the Hamptons house was so special to me, because I considered that the birthplace of our love.
We travelled to the Hamptons house every weekend that we could get away in the spring and fall, and spent long weekends there in the summer when the weather was hot, and the ocean was warm.
We had our own little stretch of private, secluded beach away from the rest of the islanders. I can’t tell you how many hours we had spent lying on the sand, lounging naked in the sun, and skinny dipping in the ocean.
We always ended up making love at the end of the day. Sometimes I found sand in the strangest places. It always made me smile.
Conner kept hinting that we needed a bigger Hamptons house where we could bring up a large family, i.e. kids, but I disagreed. We lived together in his spacious penthouse in the city, and he had humongous houses all over the world: Paris, London, Madrid, Malibu, Vegas, and Aspen. We did not need a larger place in the Hamptons.
I did not disagree with the big family part, of course. I was a good Irish Catholic girl. I wanted a houseful of kids. To not have them would have been considered a sin in my family. My father and brothers would have never let me hear the end of it. But for me, this house was plenty big enough for a brood of Irish lads and lasses. And the memories we’d made in this house over the past year were ones I’d cherish for the rest of my life.