Dirty Beautiful Rich Part Three (3 page)

After a few stiff moments, his mother had departed to dress for dinner, he’d let Julie finish her drink, poured her another, and escorted Julie to her room.

Now, he was out in the bracing air, drinking tin the sounds of the rushing river running close to the castle. He stared at the silver water speeding over the rocks, running down to the sea. He needed this to recharge after the hours staring at ipads and computers, reading reports, brainstorming, spending what seemed like his whole life in meetings. This place was why he had become a business man. He’d needed to save it. And in return, it had saved him.

It had.

Without the cold wind biting through his sweater or the sound of the river rushing just to the east of the castle, he wouldn’t be able to face the mundane trivialities of the world.

He still couldn’t believe they’d almost lost what was left of it just before his father died. Even then, when the castle had been falling apart, rotting like their family, he’d still loved it. How could he not? How could he ever turn his back on generations of Fitzgeralds and the castle that had been the heart of their dynasty?

“She’s different,” his grandmother said.

He didn’t look back at her. Over the years, he’d gotten used to his grandmother’s almost ghost like step. She saw things, heard things, all because she knew how to venture around her surroundings quietly.

“She is,” he said.

“You like her.”

He remained silent. It was too much of a loaded question to dare answer.

“She will never fit in with our sort.”

“Grandmother, the Edwardian era is dead.”

“Is it? Princess Diana was supposed common. Like your Julie. But she wasn’t, was she? Diana was the daughter of an earl. We don’t really like to let commoners into our set. You must acknowledge that.”

“Duchess Kate wasn’t titled and I’m not planning on making Julie Doyle Countess Clare”

“The Duchess of Cambridge comes from immense wealth,” his grandmother said flatly. “She was born into immense wealth. Miss Doyle is from first sight a woman who hasn’t two pence to rub together.”

“That makes her unworthy?”

“Of course not,” she scoffed. “But she will never be one of us. You know that. It would be difficult for her.”

“Grandmother, I already told you—“

“Yes. Yes,” she cut in tersely. “You don’t wish to marry her. Young people never wish to marry anyone anymore. So, why on earth did you bring her here then?”

As the sun began to set over the mountains, bathing the land in a burnished glow, he wondered. Why had he? He looked back at the night he’d slipped into the Bentley with Julie, the need to have her pulsing in his veins. But that wasn’t it. It was so much more. He’d wanted to give her something beautiful since her life had been such a wasteland of pain and Castle Clare was the most beautiful thing on earth. “I want to help her.”

His grandmother smiled. “You know, she’s very beautiful and you deserve to be happy. Aren’t Americans supposed to be good at being happy?”

“I am happy, grandmother.”

The long silence that followed was brutal.

She knew. She knew he hadn’t been happy since the day his father died. Oh, he’d been victorious, but he hadn’t been happy. His father had stolen that. And he didn’t know if he would ever get it back.

His grandmother grabbed his head and pulled it downward until she could press a quick kiss to his cheek. “I love you, my boy. Indeed I do.” She cupped his jaw in her gnarled hands. “You’re nothing like him, do you hear,” she said so softly one might have doubted she said it all. “Not at all.”

With that, as if she hadn’t just exposed what a soft old thing she was, she whipped around and marched off towards the fields, despite the cold, despite the wind, despite the growing dark. His grandmother was always walking. Always with the dogs. Always outpacing the pain of the past.

Maybe they all were.

Maybe it was the only way any of them had survived.

***

J
ulie couldn’t believe it.

Apparently, Damian had decided that dinner glaring at his mother wasn’t the best way to spend her first night in Ireland because right now, she was standing in the King’s Head packed in like a sardine in a tin as tradition Irish music filled the air.

And thank god.

The evening had started to have the feel of a ship going down. Perhaps it had been because when she’d gotten to her room, she’d realized a maid had unpacked her clothes. Her worn clothes. Her worn underwear. Her makeup bag with the zipper that had a safety pin keeping it closed. Yes. That had been special. Or maybe it was when she realized she was supposed to
dress
for dinner.

She’d had no idea that people still did that. And well, she didn’t have much more than a few pairs of jeans, sweaters, and the sparkly club dress in her bag.

Damian had somehow sensed the distress filling the castle and he’d swept in, grabbing her hand and dragging her out into the already black night to drive into Galway.

People sat at all the tables, stomping their feet, banging their glasses, and clapping in time. Whooping and hollering filled the air as the tunes of Whiskey in the Jar blasted from the fiddles, Uilean pipes, tin whistle, and bodhrain.

She felt breathless with joy.

At long last, she’d arrived. This was the Ireland of her dreams and dreams had never been so sweet since she was here with Damian.

Damian was staring at her as if he could eat her with a spoon.

He arched a dark brow. “Dance with me, Julie girl?”

The thick Irish accent he used was so delicious she nearly melted into a puddle right there onto the floor. She nodded.

He stole her onto the already packed floor and just as he pulled her to him, a group of people started in a dance that had a pattern.

She groaned.

Of course, they’d start some sort of dance she had no idea how to do.

Damiann tugged on her hand and winked. “All you have to do is follow, I promise.”

Swallowing her nerves, she eyed the other couples and then decided to just give in and not care if she made mistakes.

The music picked up and suddenly they whirring around the floor. She passed from man to man, bouncing up and down, the whole thing a daze and then she was with the girls circling around and around.

A laugh burst from her lips. When was the last time she’d had so much fun?

Why did anyone go clubbing? Bumping and grinding had nothing on this kind of dancing of fun.

And then she was in Damian’s arms again. And he was spinning her until all the lights in the room blurred into one bright beautiful star.

The music came to crashing stop and he hugged her to his hard body and she clung, so happy, she never wanted to let go.

A smile so easy graced his face, she couldn’t speak. She wondered why he didn’t always look so free.

“Come on then. Let’s get you a cider.”

He easily opened a path, women staring as he led her, men eyeing him up as if they were wondering who’d be the better man in a fight. Since they all backed up quickly, it was clear Damian was the best man in the room. They arrived at the bar and Julie looked around, absolutely in love. She’d never been anywhere like it. When they’d arrived, they’d taken the stairs that led down into the bar that was like a Gothic church, complete with ribbed arches. It was apparently the oldest pub in town. And she loved it. It had stone, and stained glass, and dark wood, and a feel unlike any she’d ever experience. After all, the place was supposed nearly five hundred years old.

Even though the bar was packed, the bartender was already over to Damian and the two were talking as if friends. Julie couldn’t understand a thing they were saying.

And then Damian paused.

The bartender gestured to the stage where one of the musicians was waving at him.

Damian raised a hand back and shook his head but the musician stomped his foot and waved again.

Damian sighed. “I’ve been called to duty.”

“What does that mean?” Julie asked as Damian slipped an ice cold pint glass of Bulmer’s hard cider into her hand. She took a deep drink, realizing she  was very thirsty after all the dancing.

He smiled, took her hand and started back towards the elevated stage.

Julie clutched her drink and tried not to step on anyone as they weaved their way back through the crowded pub.

The musician on stage was speaking in an accent so thick she couldn’t understand a word until “Our Damian Fitzgerald, Earl of Clare.”

Then though the blond man was applauding and pulling Damian onto the stage.

Damian turned, crouched down, grabbed her by the waist and lifted her onto the stage before she even realized what was happening.

She yelped as he placed her down on a barstool in the corner near the speakers.

It was incredible the way he picked her like she weighed nothing and she knew she didn’t weigh nothing. She weighed a good deal more than nothing. Still, the way he’d just lifted her made her feel so damned sexy and
everyone
had seen it.

And then, he stood between her thighs, placing his gorgeous hands on her hips and lowered his mouth to hers in a soft kiss. Claiming her. Making it known to everyone in the raucous pub that she was with
him
.

Still, she had no idea what this was all about.

Until the musician who had called them up on stage held out a beautiful violin to Damian.

He took it, holding it like a lover. He stroked the gleaming wood then took the offered bow.

Leaning into the mike, he said, his voice gruff and low, “For Grace.”

Why her mom’s name? Surely, that was a coincidence.

She was waiting for a reel or something wild like all the other songs they had played since their arrival but when Damian placed the bow to the strings the most melancholy and beautiful music began to come forth.

The entire crowd grew silent, swaying slightly.

She knew the song.

Caledonia.

It was her mother’s favorite song. He couldn’t know that, could he? How had he known? It should have been disturbing. It wasn’t. It was beyond powerful and she could barely take it in. Somehow, he’d known she needed to hear her mother’s song, here, in Ireland.

She sat frozen on the bar stool, the music washing over her ripping her heart out, and healing it at the same time.

It was like feeling her mothers’ arms around her again.

Tears slipped down her cheeks, but she was smiling all the same.

And when he drew the last note from the violin the people in the pub stood captivated. Not a word was whispered.

Damian waited just a beat and then he began a wild reel, the band joining.

The spell was broken and the pub filled with the happy cries and hollers of the drinkers.

Julie drew in a fast breath and drank her cider.

Damian was a magic maker. Maybe he’d never admit it. But the man knew the soul in a way no else she’d ever met knew it.

It made her want him all the more.

He glanced back at her, that damn smile on his lips.

With just that one look, her whole body burst into flames. She wanted him. Right now. If he’d taken her into a dark hall right this moment, she would have let him take her. Every bit of her screamed for it.

God, could she wait? Did she want to? No. She didn’t. It didn’t matter that she’d only known him a few weeks. He seemed to know her in a way that not another soul had ever done. There was no point in waiting. Tonight. She was going to be his. And that was that.

***

T
hey hadn’t even waited for O’Neil.

The bellboy at the boutique hotel had ushered them upstairs to a private suite. The door had barely shut when Damian grabbed her.

She let out a cry of surprise as his hands circled her waist and whipped her around so her back was to his front.

Something had happened.

As soon as he’d finished playing, he’d picked her up and carried her to the cobbled street. The entire way to the close hotel, he’d had his hands on her. Like he might suddenly duck her into an alley and fuck her like his life depended on it.

She was terrified and totally alive and absolutely, frighteningly in love.

It was the only emotion she could describe. The way her heart and body was responding to his demands, it had to be love.

He tilted her head, brushed her hair away, then started to kiss and bite her neck, all the while gently massaging her hips and abdomen,

It was torture. Absolute, perfect torture.

She shivered and jolted against him, as her body came alive under his touch.

“I want you,” he growled against her skin. “Did you see the men looking at you tonight?”

She shook her head,.

“They wanted you. But you’re mine.”

She groaned as his hand slid between her legs ,cupping her through her leggings.

“Mine,” he growled.

Oh god. He was too much. It was all too much. But she couldn’t stop. It was too perfect.

Without another word, he picked her up again, and strode to the wide bed.

He put her down gently, grabbed her leggings and stripped them off.

Legs, her least favorite feature, now totally exposed, Julie swallowed. Maybe it wasn’t too late to ask him to turn off the light?

“Julie,” he whispered, sliding his hand up her calf then over her thigh. “One day, you’re going to know you’re beautiful. I already know it. But the day you know it will be the happiest day of my life.”

She couldn’t reply. It was too incredible. Was that what he really thought? It was hard to believe that she could be a part of his happiest anything but if he was saying it, she was going to dare to believe it.

She didn’t allow herself to dwell on it long because he was pushing her thighs apart, crawling onto the bed, and lowering his head.

A cry of shock escaped her lips as he kissed her through her panties.

Her hands twisted into the sheets. No one had ever done anything like this too her. She’d never even really wanted it.

Now, she couldn’t imagine anything else.

“Mmmm.”

That low rumble of his nearly undid her.

When he pushed her panties aside and kissed her clitoris, she sucked in a sharp breath and arched against him