Amberlyn

To say that Mr. and Mrs. O’Callaghan freaked out when Lena told them that she and Micah had decided to part ways would be an understatement.

It was if they went through the five stages of grief.

First was the denial. They didn’t believe her; Mrs. O’Callaghan went looking for him, calling him constantly. It was rather insane. Second was anger. They ripped Lena apart, telling her she had made the biggest mistake of her life. Micah came from old money, would be a great husband, blah, blah, blah. Then they decided to hit the third stage, bargaining. Mrs. O’Callaghan thought up every situation that would bring Micah back, while Mr. O’Callaghan tried to talk her into loving him. No matter what, they weren’t listening. Mrs. O’Callaghan hit the fourth stage, where she blubbered all over Lena and begged her to take Micah back.

Declan decided he finally had to step in because they were not listening to Lena. Bless her heart, she was crying so much, snot coming down from her nose as she begged them to listen to her. That she didn’t love Micah. I held her, my heart breaking for the girl as Declan took the authoritative role and told them this was the way it was going to be. She wasn’t going to be with Micah, and that was final.

Which led to the final stage, acceptance. Well, at least Mr. O’Callaghan accepted it. I’m pretty sure Mrs. O’Callaghan is still trying to figure out a way to fix Lena. Crazy. It’s been three weeks since it happened, and things are still so tense in the house. Lena doesn’t come out of her room much and neither does Mrs. O’Callaghan. Except, of course, to barge in on Declan and me. I’m pretty sure my future mother-in-law is not supposed to walk in on me taking it from behind. It’s driving me crazy, but I’m counting down to our wedding. After that, I’m out of this mad house.

Between Mrs. O’Callaghan walking in on us and driving me insane with this wedding, I’m pretty convinced I can’t live a decent life with her here trying to dictate it. Like she does with Lena, she’s tried it on me. How I dress, how I act, what I do, and even when I’m gonna have kids. Sorry, but I’m not sorry, I’m not dealing with this. Like today, I’m standing here, looking down at the clothes she has picked out for me, and I want to just cry. I am so tired of these ugly, plain tea dresses, the damn shoes that hurt my feet, and just being so proper all the time. I don’t even want to go to tea, but I’m trying to make my life easier.

A happy Mrs. O’Callaghan means she doesn’t bitch at Declan.

“You don’t have to go,” Declan calls from bed. He’s gloriously naked, only the sheet covering his naughty parts, from where we just caught the bed on fire with our lovemaking. While I was a beginner before, I’m catching on and can make his body sing with my touches. Smiling at him, I shake my head.

“If I don’t go, she’ll flip her shit,” I say, crossing my arms over my stomach, trying to decide which dress I want to torture myself with.

“This is true, but I don’t care. You obviously don’t want to go.”

“I don’t.”

“Don’t, then,” he says, sitting up and pulling me down on top of him. Grabbing my butt, he presses himself into me, a grin growing on his face. “Stay in bed with me.”

I laugh as I glance at the time while he nibbles on my neck. “For what, ten minutes? You have a meeting this morning.”

He groans into my neck, biting softly before pulling back to look at me. “Fine. I’ll go to the meeting, and when I come back, I want you in this bed, naked.”

I scoff. “So you want me to lie in bed, naked, all day, waiting for you?”

His grin grows. “Now that’s a vision to keep me warm all day, yeah?”

He rolls me over, getting on top of me before kissing me hard against my lips. Pulling back, he kisses the side of my mouth before looking down into my eyes. “Ya happy, my love?”

I grin up at him. His eyes are shining, his face flushed, and I can’t believe how much I love him. It’s all-consuming. Life-altering. Wow, that last thought is truer than I realized. Cupping his face, I know I can’t lie to him. “I am when it’s me and you.”

He leans into my hand, his lashes kissing his cheeks as he rests in my hand. “They still driving you mad?”

“I don’t like that while I’m having sex with you, I worry about your mom walking in on us.”

“Yeah, I tried talking to her about that, but she doesn’t think it’s her fault. It’s ours for not waiting till we are married. Apparently when we’re married, she won’t be coming up here.”

“I don’t believe that,” I say quickly and he smiles.

“Didn’t think ya would,” he says, kissing my palm before looking back down at me. “I really don’t want to move out of this house.”

“I know,” I say, biting my lip. “But I don’t think I can stay.”

“That’s a problem.”

“It is.”

“So you still want to move out?”

“I do. Buy our own furniture and make a house a home.”

He pulls in a deep breath through his nose before rolling out of bed. He reaches for a towel, throwing it over his shoulder. He looks down at me, and I smile as I drink him in. I kinda feel bad for asking this of him, but am I wrong? I’ll have to talk to Fiona. We are going to pick out her bridesmaid dress tomorrow. I didn’t want her to have a traditional one; I wanted her to have one she could wear later to a ball or something. We’ve both been busy with registering for school and then starting that, so this is the first day we can do it.

Three weeks before the wedding.

“I gotta get in the shower, but we’ll talk more later?”

I go to nod but before I can, a knock comes to the door and then it opens, Mrs. O’Callaghan poking her head in. Covering myself with the blanket, Declan glares as she laughs, saying, “Declan, my goodness, son, put some clothes on.”

“Ma! I don’t know if ya realize, but this is my room, our room. We’re gonna be naked. Knock on that damn door and wait!”

She keeps laughing as she waves him off. A part of me is starting to think she likes catching us. “Ah, you’re fine. I’ve seen ya naked before.”

“For fuck’s sake,” he mutters as he ties the towel around his waist. “What do ya need?”

“Checking to see when Amberlyn will be down for tea,” she says, looking at me.

I go to answer, but Declan beats me to it. “She isn’t going. She’s tired, Ma, working and going to school plus planning the wedding is taking its toll. She’s gonna sleep a bit more this morning.”

I want to kiss him even more than I usually do.

“Oh, that’s disappointing,” she says and her lip actually juts out, looking at me as if I am going to do the opposite of what he says.

I’m not.

“Yeah, too bad. Now please leave.”

“Declan!” she scolds, but he shakes his head.

“I’m naked, my fiancée is barely dressed. Let us be, Ma. Start knocking.”

“Well, lock the door if ya don’t want people coming in,” she says before shutting the door. To make a point I guess, he goes over and locks the door before turning to look at me.

“When I’m about to take ya to bed, remind me to lock the damn door!”

I laugh as he heads for the bathroom, but before he reaches it, I call out, “Or we could move. At least then we can have sex on every surface and no one can say anything.”

“Ah, knowing my ma, she’d come all the way there just to walk in on us.”

The door shuts and I roll my eyes. He’s probably right, but I’m sure it wouldn’t happen that much. When the door opens again, he looks over at me and says, “But I’ll think on it, okay?”

I smile. “Thank you.”

His mouth pulls up at the side and then the door shuts. As I lie there, I’m a little torn. A part of me wants to leave so that I can be with Declan with no interruptions, but the other part of me wants him to be happy too.

* * *

I did sleep some, but when I wake up, I can’t just stay in bed naked. I check my online schooling and text Fiona, but she doesn’t answer me back. I know I can’t bother Declan. He has meetings all day, and I think my uncle is supposed to come to the distillery today too. Declan was really excited for that. After getting dressed, I decide to head to the library, explore the house a little bit. Since I have come to live here, I’ve seen one room and that’s Declan’s. Time to check this place out.

Maybe I can find a room no one knows about so that I can have sex with my fiancé in peace.

I’m just kidding.

Kinda.

After spending two hours in the library, I find a whole stack of books that I want to reread. Putting them in a basket that is by the door, I walk out to head upstairs, but before I can go, someone stops me.

“Ms. Reilly, I’ll take those to your room.”

She reaches for the basket, but I hold on to it. “Oh no, you’re fine. I’ll do it.”

“It’s really no trouble,” she informs me. “It’s part of my job.”

Her name is Annabelle and is almost my staff, I guess. She is the one who was assigned to me, and it’s really weird to have someone who wants to wait on you hand and foot. She’s sweet and I enjoy her company, but I really don’t think I need someone to do things for me.

Plus, I truly don’t understand why she chose this as a job. Couldn’t she do something more? Go to school? Anything other than work for a family that is fully capable of taking care of themselves. But then, who am I to judge her? Declan told me once that the staff here are paid very well with full benefits. So she could be very happy, and I’m over here judging her. How very wrong of me.

Giving the basket to her, my grin grows. “Yes, of course. Thank you.”

“You are very welcome. Have a good day, ya hear? Let me know if ya need anything.”

“I will, thank you,” I say as she turns to head upstairs. I want to say that made me feel good, that I enjoyed that, but I didn’t. I hate it. Crossing my arms, I hold myself as I walk through the house, discovering each room and wandering around. The estate is very big, and every room is filled with all kinds of neat things to look at. Be it a book, a gorgeous painting, or beautiful pictures of Declan and his family, I find that I am fully entertained for a few hours.

That is, until I reach the sitting room on Mr. and Mrs. O’Callaghan’s floor.

Entering it, it seems just like Mrs. O’Callaghan, a very expensive and floral perfume. I figure this is her room to sit and get away from it all. There are books scattered everywhere, even a little spot for knitting. There is a desk with a computer and mounds of wedding books. This must be where she has been planning my wedding. Going to her desk, I look at each of the books and smile at all the Post-it notes and little notes on her desk about who to call. I wonder why she is doing this herself. Why doesn’t she just hire someone to do it all?

Sitting in the chair behind the desk, I reach for one of the books but pause when something catches my eyes.

It’s a picture.

A picture of my mom.

Reaching for it, I blink a few times, trying to figure out if I am really seeing what I am seeing. But it is. My mom in all her young glory. She couldn’t be over the age of sixteen, so fresh-faced and happy. Her arms are wrapped around a girl I know to be her best friend, Marla. She had died when my mom was twenty-one in a car accident, and I can still remember all the stories of trouble they had gotten into. I had even seen this picture. It was on the table by her chair where she knitted.

Why in the world does Mrs. O’Callaghan have it?

“Amberlyn?”

Looking up, I look across the room at Mrs. O’Callaghan through the tears that have gathered in my eyes.

Turning the picture, I stand and ask, “Why do you have a picture of my mom?”

She looks at the picture and then at me before running her hands down the front of her skirt. In the short time I’ve known her, I know that it’s a nervous tic of hers, but I’m not worried if she is nervous. I want to know why she has a picture of my mom.

Coming toward me, she reaches for the picture, taking it from me before gazing down at it. “You know what the great thing is about pictures, my dear?”

She doesn’t look at me or wait for me to answer before she continues, “Everything is standing still. Time hasn’t passed. It instantly takes ya back to that moment. This was taken, by me, over thirty years ago. I remember that after I took this, Ciara jumped into the lake and hit her head on a stone. Had to get three stitches, while Marla and I cried and cried.” A small smile comes over her face as she gazes at the picture. “We were so worried, ya see. She just passed out on us, and my goodness, her ma was so upset, and so was my ma because we weren’t supposed to be swimming in the O’Callaghan lake. We were supposed to be doing laundry, but we got bored and Ciara talked me into it.”

She runs her finger along the picture and lets out a sigh. “It’s funny ’cause Ciara said that, while she did get hurt, it was meant to be because if she wouldn’t have gotten hurt, then Mr. O’Callaghan wouldn’t have come up to the hospital with Ivor and we would have never fallen in love.

“We were the three musketeers back then. Everything we did was together, and we promised never to part. But when Ivor fell for me, he decided that I wasn’t going to be out of his sight. At first, it didn’t bother him that Ciara and Marla were there, but it was hard. When the three of us were together, it was us, no one else, and I tried to include Ivor, but he was so quiet, very stern, but man, did I love him.

“He told me to choose between them and him. I had every intention of picking Ciara and Marla, but my ma, she talked me out of it. We were poor, ya see, very poor, and a rich heir to a very profitable whiskey business wanted me. Ya don’t turn that down. So I chose Ivor. I broke their hearts when I told them. Marla hated me, but Ciara, she told me she understood. That I had to follow my heart. She always had such a good soul, one that you instantly loved.”

My lip had started to quiver as I sat there listening to her. Tears run down my cheeks because she is right. My mom was a beautiful soul, but I find it so hard to believe that she could be friends with someone like Noreen O’Callaghan.

“I tried to stay in contact with them. Marla, not so much, since she hated me for choosing a man over them, but I sent Ciara letters. But once Ivor and I got engaged, it became very difficult. There is so much that is expected of an O’Callaghan woman.”

“You can say that again,” I mutter and she finally meets my gaze.

With a small smile, she nods. “We are to be the one who lifts our man up, loves him, even in his darkest hour, have babies, and plan parties. We don’t get to go out with our friends, do what we want. It isn’t about us; it’s about them.”

I shake my head, my blood boiling. “That’s not how it is with Declan and me.”

“Maybe not to that extent, but one day it will be.”

“No, it won’t,” I say back, and it won’t. He wouldn’t do that to me.

“He idolizes his father. Wants to be him. I used to be like you. Had a plan, but I allowed love to take that from me.”

I shake my head, holding her gaze. “I can love him and still be me.”

“I thought so too,” she says sadly, shaking her head before glancing at me. “Do ya think Declan will want ya to work once you have a baby?” she asks, and I don’t answer her. I don’t care what she thinks. Declan won’t make me do something I don’t want to do. “No, he won’t. Do you think he is actually okay with you working and going to uni? No, he is not, but he does it because he loves ya, and losing you would not only mean breaking him but also losing his distillery.”

“That’s not true. He loves me and cares what I feel,” I spit back, but she is already shaking her head. How does she know how to hit me where I am weak? Why is she doing this? When I ask her that, she shakes her head, holding her palms up to me.

“I don’t mean to do anything to you, my dear. I am trying to warn you. I thought like you do. Ivor was so charming, loved me and cared about what I wanted.”

I stand up, the chair falling behind me as I glare at her. “I don’t doubt that, but you were submissive to him. You let go of your friends, my mom! So please don’t talk to me about how Declan is gonna treat me.”

She nods slowly. “I’m sorry,” she says softly.

“You should be. How dare you try to pit me against Declan?”

She looks up at me and shakes her head. “That’s not what I am doing. I am warning ya, Amberlyn. Once you’re married, you won’t go anywhere because you love him. Soon it will be one thing after the next that you’re willing to let slide because he’ll tell ya what’s best. It happened to me, and as much as I don’t want you to go through what I went through, I also know that my son will not be happy with anyone but you.”

“He won’t do that to me,” I say, and the tears start to roll down my face once more as I hold her gaze.

I don’t know if it is the fact that she knew my mom and didn’t tell me. Or that she betrayed her friendship, or that she is scaring the living shit out of me, but I am overloaded with emotions. I always thought she was a snob from the start, but if my mom loved her, she must have been a good person at one time. Which means what she is saying is true. Did Mr. O’Callaghan really change her that much?

And as much as I hate to ask it, will Declan do that to me?

Will I lose me and become a hateful snob?