“I’m coming back tonight to get a drink with her.”
“That’s a lot of fucking driving.” We live thirty minutes from the city centre. Whatever.
I shrug. “I don’t much care. Whatever. It’s worth it. I have to do this. Strike hard and all that.”
He chuckles. “Strike hard, is it? Is it that type of thing, already?”
I immediately conjure up a vision of her naked and on her knees, her gorgeous arse bearing the marks of my palm.
“We’ll see about that.”
We fucking will.
He chuckles.
I’m actually looking forward to seeing her again. There's something about her that attracts me, and it isn't just her stunning beauty, though God, she is a beauty. I enjoyed the brief time I spent with her, and I’m eager to do it again.
“Did you check on MacGowen?” I ask, changing the subject.
“Aye, he’s doing well. Thanked me for the bodyguard. Says there hasn’t been a robbery of the food pantry or the church offering since we put a guard in place.”
“Should’ve done it a long time ago.”
MacGowen’s the Clan chaplain, youngish for a man of the cloth, but witty and bright. He’s covertly friends with the Clan. He’s baptized us, performed weddings, anointed the sick, and buried our dead. He’s as much a part of the Clan as any of us, and we check on him when we head to the centre.
Tate drives quickly, quicker than’s really safe as we go up the steep incline that takes us home, but my mind is preoccupied.
We’re just supposed to be getting a drink tonight. Still, I’ll make sure I butter her up. Pay good attention to her. Do my part in making her fall for me.
I look at her Instagram and find she’s posting pictures to some sort of Save a Turtle fund or something. Why do turtles need to be saved? Why does any type of wildlife need to be saved? Still, I take note. If it’s important to her, it’s important to me now.
Make a donation to the Wildlife Sanctuary. Mention it casually.
Check.
Find out her best friend’s full name and what she’s like.
Next up on the list.
There’s one particular woman she’s friends with, I can tell, because she’s in half of the pictures with Bryn. She’s a buxom lass, a year or two older, with glasses and a ready grin. Name’s Ines, and she lives in the poorest part of the inner city.
Ah. Likely she’ll be sympathetic to the plight of the downtrodden, hmm? Figures I end up needing to seduce a woman with a bleeding heart.
Still, it’s something I can work with, no doubt.
She likes alternative music and jazz, and posts all sorts of pictures of her vegetarian concoctions. I don’t understand the appeal of what should be side dishes alongside the main course involving meat, but whatever.
I scroll back through her posts, and feel my brows rising at the pictures of the things she’s sewn. She’s bloody talented. There’s a little white baby christening gown, hand-sewn, and a little toddler jumper. But most impressive is the wedding dress, a delicate affair with lace and pearly buttons. I laugh at the next picture, though. It isn’t a full-sized dress, but one on a doll. Still impressive.
There isn’t one post on her entire page that has anything at all to do with her family, and I’m not surprised. Her father’s one of the most brutal mobsters in all of Scotland. If I were her, I wouldn’t publicize that either. I’m surprised he even lets her have this. I suppose he may not know.
She has two sisters, much older and already married, a younger brother, and a mother as well as her father. I don’t know much about her brother, but I’ve asked about the older sisters at length and gotten very little feedback. They seem to have fled the roost at an early age and not looked back. No surprise there. Her mother suffered a stroke a little over a year ago, and that’s all I could get. William’s giving me a full account soon.
“Have you considered renting a flat?” Tate asks, frowning.
I shake my head. “Maybe? She knows literally nothing about us, and visiting us won’t tip her off at all, will it?”
“I don’t know,” Tate says, frowning. “I think you ought to give her more credit than all that.”
“I’ll fish for details tonight,” I tell him with an exasperated eye roll. He’s always the most cautious brother, and it shows.
We get home in time for me to meet with William. The coffee and shortbread from earlier are long gone, and my stomach growls at the scent of chicken soup, roast, and potatoes coming from the kitchen. William joins me in the library, as I shoot Bryn a text.
Hello, gorgeous. Still on for tonight?
She doesn’t answer at first.
Will she?
“Y’alright, Mac?” William asks, coming into the room. He’s an older member of the Clan, my dad’s bookkeeper since I was a wee lad. His blondish hair’s gone a bit gray at the temples.