The Big Apple in late June was sunny and hot, nothing like Balbriggan was right now. I dabbed at my forehead with a tissue and wished for one of Ireland’s brisk winds off the sea. It was only eight thirty in the morning, and I was already sweating as I walked from the corner to the bodega. The traffic was awful, so it made more sense to walk the short distance to get the coffee for Alix and myself, and then go on to the studio a couple blocks down.

Alix.

As it had for the last week, the thought of him made me smile.

We hadn’t talked about what any of this between us was, but we’d talked about other things. Many things, actually. I had been pleasantly surprised at the conversations we’d had. He wanted to know about Ireland, having never been there. About my family and our business. Whiskey was something of which he had some knowledge, but more of the drinking kind than the making. I told him that he and my family would get along famously, but both of us had shied away from any conversation that talked about them actually meeting.

He told me about his family too. How he was an only child whose closest relative was a cousin, Erik. How his parents were older and had retired to Philadelphia, and another cousin of his, Izett, ran the family business.

The two of us came from such different worlds, and every new thing we discovered seemed to only enforce that. How we’d been raised. How we interacted with our families. Even though I was an ocean away from my family, we were still closer than he was with his. He loved them, I could see that in the way he spoke about them, but he’d always been such a solitary person. He didn’t have to tell me that. I saw it in him, the way he tended to turn into himself when he worked.

Except I saw him turning more and more to me this week. A new side of him. And I’d discovered a new side of myself through him too.

Tough. Strong. Independent. Self-reliant. These were all words that I believed described me.

Submissive.

Absolutely no one who had ever met me would have called me submissive, but when I was with Alix, that word didn’t frighten me. He made me feel safe, even when he was taking away my control. Or what I perceived as control, anyway. I hadn’t needed him to explain that in a D/s relationship, the sub had most of the power.

I was in the middle of the line at the bodega, lost in my thoughts when my phone went off. I cursed under my breath as I scrambled through my bag. Sometimes Alix would call to ask me to pick something up on my way in.

Except it wasn’t Alix.

I frowned as my brother’s name flashed across the screen. It was early afternoon in Ireland, which meant Donald should have been at work, and he was always careful to not make personal calls on company time.

“Donald?”

“Sine, Mam’s in the hospital.”

I stepped out of line as an icy hand grabbed my heart. “What happened?” My voice was barely a whisper as I struggled for air.

“She and Da were touring the factory, and she collapsed. Patrick was there and called an ambulance. She’s still unconscious.”

He didn’t sound panicked, but there was an edge to his voice that I didn’t like. Of all my brothers, he was the one the family went to for tricky PR situations or to soothe hurt feelings. The fact that he was the one to call made me think that things were bad enough that my siblings didn’t want me to freak out.

“I’m coming home.”

He was in the middle of patiently explaining to me why I didn’t need to do that when I hung up on him. I didn’t need to be handled. I needed to get back to my family. Immediately.

I flagged down a taxi and gave my address before pulling up a travel website on my phone. When I’d moved, I hadn’t thought about what I would do if something happened to my family and I wasn’t there. I’d only been thinking of myself. What I wanted. What would make me happy.

Now my mother was in the hospital, and I was thousands of miles away.

I did my best to ignore the snail’s pace at which we were moving and focused on finding a flight. I needed to leave today. The flight alone would be around seven hours, and I would need at least an hour to go through all the security steps. The absolute best I could hope for was to see my parents in nine to ten hours. And that would be if everything I needed fell into place.

Even though I knew I wasn’t to blame for what happened, I couldn’t completely stop the guilt. I should have been there. Showing up right alongside the others. Helping care for my mother. Being there for my father. Taking care of my family. That was where my responsibilities were. In Ireland.

I never should have forgotten that.

I blinked back the tears as the cab pulled up in front of my building. I couldn’t afford the luxury of giving in to my emotions. I had managed to put myself on standby for a flight leaving in a little over an hour, so I needed to pack. I hadn’t left much behind when I moved here, and I didn’t want to have to make a stop between the airport and the hospital, which meant packing was a necessity. Especially since I had no idea how long I would be there.

Or if I would return to America at all.