Colm froze. “Shit,” he muttered.
Padraig frowned. “Wait—you said them, right?”
Colm shook his head. “No. I…fuck…I said everything else.”
Emmy stopped typing and looked straight at him, one eyebrow raised in disbelief. “You did all that arguing for a relationship and babies and you didn’t tell her you loved her?”
“I should have told her,” Colm moaned, realizing he’d dropped the ball in closing arguments.
“Dude,” Padraig said. “You should have led with that.”
Emmy sighed. “Rookie mistake.”
Colm ran his hand through his hair. “I’m an idiot.”
“So tell her,” Padraig said.
Colm nodded, then glanced at Emmy. She was a romance writer, though she’d never told any of them her pen name. Not even Padraig, who was chomping at the bit to read one of her books.
“She asked for time to think, but she doesn’t have all the facts. So…I should go back tonight, right?”
“What do you think?” Emmy asked.
“I’m going back.”
She laughed softly. “Good call. I think it’s safe to say you’ve hit the point in this romance where the hero tells the heroine he loves her, and they live happily ever after.”
“Oh damn. Yeah. This is an important turning point. So set me up with a plot. Are you a fan of a big gesture?”
Emmy rolled her eyes. “No. I’m a fan of the words. Just go, you big fool.”
Colm stood, walking to the end of the bar to give her a hug. “Thanks for the advice.”
He didn’t miss the tiniest glimmer in Padraig’s eyes—jealousy?—as he did so.
“Good luck,” Padraig called out as Colm headed back out the door he’d only entered twenty minutes earlier.
Kelli had returned to the couch two seconds after Colm left, wishing she could channel her previous zombie state. That was an easier state of mind than her present one.
Too many things were bombarding her.
She hadn’t realized how much her dad’s departure had bothered until her argument with Colm. She’d been pissed off ever since learning he’d been in Baltimore recently and he hadn’t visited, hadn’t called to see if she wanted to do something with him. She would have met him for a lousy ten-minute chat over a cup of coffee…if he’d asked.
But he hadn’t. And as much as it bugged her to admit it, that hurt.
Kelli leaned her head back. She really thought she’d gotten to a point where her parents couldn’t hurt her anymore. Annoy her? Yes. Embarrass her? Absolutely. But hurt her? No.
She was suddenly awash in feelings she had no clue how to deal with—and it occurred to her that what she really wanted was to talk to Colm about it.
Colm. Who wanted a relationship with her. A long-term, let’s-make-babies relationship.
No one had ever wanted that with her.
Like, no one.
Ever.
She’d dated so many here-one-day-gone-the-next guys, she hadn’t even known how to respond to Colm’s suggestion. Because it had taken her slightly off guard and surprised her. Even when it shouldn’t have.
“God, I’m the world’s biggest idiot,” she muttered.
Mojo, who’d been curled up in a ball in her lap, glanced up as she spoke, then promptly went right back to sleep.
Colm said she knew him…and he was right. She did.
Which meant she knew he was perfect for her.
Colm Collins, her lifelong frenemy, was the man of her dreams. And instead of telling him that, she’d been a complete tool and told him she needed time.
Time for what?
She picked up Mojo, placing her on the cushion next to her and standing up, looking around the living room for her shoes. She was going over to the pub and she was going to—
She heard a key in the door of her apartment and immediately fought to school her features, to hide the smile fighting to erupt.
Colm was here. He’d come back.
He stepped inside, pausing when he found her standing there.
“Jesus, Colm. It hasn’t even been an hour,” she joked, so happy it was taking everything she had not to run across the room and leap into his arms.
She expected him to smile, but he didn’t. In fact, he looked far too serious.
Shit. Had she screwed things up by asking for time? Had she hurt his feelings by rebuffing him?
“Colm—” She started to apologize, anxious to set things straight as quickly as possible.
He raised his hand to cut her off. “No. Wait. I had to come back because I realized there was something you don’t know about me. Something I didn’t tell you.”
Oh God. Here it was. She should have known better, should have realized this was all too good to be true. She’d pushed Colm away and he’d wised up already, discovered a reason why this wouldn’t work.
Her heart thudded painfully in her chest. If he told her he didn’t want to see her anymore, she wasn’t sure she could take it. She’d thought her heart had been broken a few times over the years, but she knew now her heart had never even been bruised.
“What is it?” she asked, hating how thin her voice was, how panicked she sounded.
Colm walked over to her, grasping her hands in his. “I…” She watched as he took a deep breath. “I’m going to say something to you that, well, I might have said it to other women in the past, but…I realize now I lied.”
“Okay,” she whispered.
“I love you, Kelli.”
She gasped, but he wasn’t finished.
“No. It’s more than that. I’m in love with you. Completely, ridiculously, aggressively, obnoxiously in love with you.”
Her heart, which had previously been thudding so hard she’d had trouble hearing, suddenly stopped beating. “Obnoxiously?”
He nodded. “It would appear…you’re my curse.”
She laughed. “You know, if any other man said that to me, I’d kick him out on his ass. But…” Her words got wobbly, and she felt tears forming in her eyes. “But with you…God. I’m your curse,” she said, repeating the words she simply couldn’t believe.
He stepped closer to her, reaching up to cup her face,
