I, Michael Bennett (Michael Bennett 5)

I started laughing at that.

“I think the bar’s closed, Tara.”

“I like how you laugh, Mike,” she said, sounding a little more sober. “I’m so glad you came. Down at the bar, some Eurotrash creep tried to pick me up. When I blew him off, he said some nasty things to me before he left. I got afraid. That’s when I called you. That’s what you’re supposed to do when you’re in trouble, right? Call a cop?”

I laughed again.

“And here I am.”

“Exactly. Here you are,” she said, and stood and undid the spill of her hair.

As I watched it fall, I thought of a fragment of an Irish song from my childhood for some reason.

Her eyes, they shone like diamonds

I thought her the queen of the land

And her hair, it hung over her shoulder

Tied up with a black velvet band.

It was actually her robe that slipped down over her shoulders a moment later, revealing pale tan lines at the nape of her neck. I swallowed. It was a really nice nape.

CHAPTER 32

BUT AT THE last second, as Tara rose up to kiss me, for some unknown reason I suddenly gave her my cheek and turned her embrace into a quick hug.

She stiffened in my arms. Then her head sank.

“Too much?” she said.

She turned, stomping away, and collapsed back onto the love seat.

“I always push it. Always,” she mumbled into the arm of it. After a minute or two, she started to sob as if I’d just broken her heart.

I stood there, speechless, in the middle of the luxury suite. What was I doing here? First hugs and kisses, and now tears?

Well, this is another fine mess you’ve gotten yourself into, Michael Bennett, I could hear Seamus say.

But as I scrambled for a clue, I finally caught a break. I thanked my lucky stars as the muffled sobbing turned into soft snoring.

After another minute, I lifted Tara up and carried her back into her bedroom, where I laid her under the seven-hundred-thread-count ivory sheets, carefully keeping her robe properly placed at all times.

I stood for a moment and smiled down at her as she slept. I didn’t think goofballs came this attractive. Would she even remember all this tomorrow? I wondered. I thought about deleting her text messages to me, but then decided not to. It was what it was. She’d gotten a little drunk and gone a little crazy. I knew how that felt. I was the last one to judge.

“See you at the trial, Tara,” I said as I closed the door behind me.

The same stern desk clerk frowned at me downstairs as I stepped back into the lobby. I suddenly remembered who she reminded me of—my fierce seventh grade teacher, Sister Dominick.

“Do you have the time, ma’am?” I said, winking as I passed her.

“Actually, no,” the reincarnated Sister D. said, as if she were aching to put a ruler to my knuckles one last time. “Fresh out.”

The cop cruiser on the corner hit me with his brights as I got out of the taxi in front of my building back on West End Avenue. Great. It was bad enough that my doorman knew all my dirty rotten nocturnal activities; now my coworkers did as well. There goes the department’s Father of the Year award.

When I got upstairs, the house was dark, everyone snug as a bug in a rug. Even Mary Catherine wasn’t waiting up for me, which was probably a good thing, considering I smelled like Tara’s perfume.

Though when I finally completed the last steps into my bedroom, I did see something. On my bed were lumps. Highly suspicious lumps.