An O'brien Family Christmas

“I could prove how much I still want you in half a second, Laila, but I’m not going to,” he said, his tone a whole lot more noble than the desire thrumming through him. “If we start over, and I’m sensing that might be a possibility here, then we’re going about it the right way this time. No more extremely hot, middle-of-the-night trysts.”

“You mean no sex?” She seemed a little shaken by that.

“No sex,” he confirmed, barely able to choke out the words.

“What’ll we do?” she asked, sounding bewildered.

“Now, that’s just downright insulting,” he said indignantly. “We’ve been known to have intellectually challenging conversations.”

“Sure, in bed,” she replied, then grinned. “But maybe we could compromise.”

He was fascinated by the suggestion. “Compromise how?” “We could talk first.”

Though Matthew laughed at her notion of compromise, he refused to back down. “Nope, I think we’ll do this my way. You’ll come to Ireland. I’ll share my brother’s room. And I’ll court you like the fascinating lady you are in full view of my family.”

“I’m not all that enamored with being a lady,” she complained. “That’s why being with you was such a refreshing change. You saw me in a completely different light, as an unpredictable woman who was impossible to resist. I liked that.”

“Oh, if you must know, you’re still plenty tough to resist, but I’m going to pull it off.” He looked her over with just enough heat in his gaze to make his point. “Those are the terms. Are you in or out?”

“Your grandmother says there’s no place quite like Ireland at Christmas,” she said wistfully.

“Is that a yes?”

She took a deep breath, met his gaze, held it for what felt like an eternity, then finally nodded. “Yes, I’ll go with you.”

Matthew resisted the desire to get up and do a little jig. There’d be plenty of opportunities for that once they got to Dublin.

Laila gave him a wry look. “You do know we just got manipulated by a master, don’t you?”

He regarded her blankly. “Who? How?”

“Your grandmother, of course. I didn’t see it at the time, but every word she said to me at Sally’s tonight was calculated to get me to race over here and confront you.” She shook her head. “I thought I was smarter than that.”

Matthew gave her a consoling look. “Don’t feel bad. We’ve all been taken in by Gram a time or two.”

This time, though, he was going to owe his grandmother big-time for accomplishing what no one else had been able to. She’d broken the impasse between him and Laila. Now it was up to him to make sure the détente turned into something that would last.

3

Laila arrived in Dublin with the first wave of O’Briens. The rest—Thomas and Connie, Jake and Bree, Connor and Heather, Kevin and Shanna—weren’t arriving for a few more days. There were so many of them that Mick had chartered a bus to take them to the hotel after the overnight flight.

Somehow Laila had ended up seated next to Matthew, who turned out to be a surprisingly adept tour guide. He pointed out all the sights and offered one amusing anecdote after another as they rode toward St. Stephen’s Green and their hotel in the heart of downtown Dublin.

When she managed to tear her gaze away from the ornate, colorful doorways decorated with lush holly wreaths and the window boxes overflowing with ivy, evergreens and bright flowers, she turned to find him regarding her with amusement.

“What?” she demanded.

“You’re as excited as a kid on Christmas morning.”

“You’ve been here before. I haven’t. It’s everything I imagined it would be.”

He smiled at that. “Glad you came?”

She ignored the last of her reservations about being here in such close proximity to him. “Very glad,” she said, unable to tear her gaze away from his.

He attempted a frown. “Now, don’t be looking at me like that, with your eyes all sparkly and dreamy.”

She nearly laughed at his suddenly solemn expression. “Why is that?”

“You’ll be giving me ideas, and I’ve made a promise to you to keep my hands to myself. It’s nearly impossible when you look at me like that. I’m a mere mortal, and no mortal man can be ignoring the invitation I’m seeing in your eyes.”

For a moment Laila had forgotten all about the promise, all about her own resolve to make this trip about Nell’s happiness and Susie’s, about sightseeing and enjoying a new holiday experience, and not about Matthew and her thoroughly confusing feelings about him. Now all of that ripped through her, leaving her with a whole passel of conflicting emotions.

“Good point,” she replied, trying to match his solemn tone. “I’ll have to watch myself.” She quickly looked out the window again. “Now, where are we exactly?”

Matthew leaned closer to peer out the window, deliberately crowding her, if she wasn’t mistaken. He grinned when she scowled at him.

“Lost my head,” he claimed, moving back before pointing out various highlights of the shopping along Grafton Street.

At the hotel, rooms were quickly assigned, luggage deposited. Left alone, Laila gazed with regret at the huge comfortable bed and its fluffy down comforter. It was going to be very lonely, especially knowing that she could have been sharing it with Matthew.

When there was a tap on the door, she threw it open, relieved to have her train of thought interrupted. Unfortunately, though, it was Matthew himself in the hallway.

“I thought you might be too excited to be taking a nap,” he said. “How about breakfast and then a walk through the neighborhood? Who knows when the sun will be shining brightly like this again? We should take advantage of it, and that should tire you out so you can catch a couple of hours of sleep before the family festivities get into full swing late this afternoon. Uncle Mick’s taken over an entire pub for tonight, I think. He believes we should start as we intend to finish—with Irish music, a hearty meal and a few pints of Guinness.”

Laila hesitated, then shrugged. She knew sleep was out of the question, and Matthew’s company on a busy street was no more dangerous than lying alone in that decadent bed thinking about him and wishing he were there with her.

“Give me two minutes to freshen up,” she said, hurrying to wash her face, run a brush through her hair and spritz herself with a light fragrance she knew Matthew liked.

When she walked back into the bedroom, she looked down at her clothes and frowned. “This outfit looks as if it’s been slept in, which it has. I should change.”

“You look fine,” he assured her. “If you look too perfect, I’ll be fighting off men on every corner.”

She laughed. “Now, there’s the O’Brien blarney in full force. Come on. I’m starving.”

To her surprise, they were the only members of the family in the hotel dining room.

“I thought for sure some of the others would be down here,” she said, glancing around.

“You worried about being alone with me, sweetheart?”

“Hardly,” she fibbed. “I just assumed everybody else would be too excited to settle down right away, too, especially Carrie and Caitlyn. They were bouncing up and down with energy on the bus to the hotel.”

“Oh, believe me, those two were so hyped up after the flight that Trace and Abby immediately headed to the park across the street so they could run wild.” He studied her. “Would you feel better if we joined them?”

Laila considered the offer for a split second. “No way,” she replied. “The food’s here.”

She ordered a pot of tea, a bowl of steel-cut oatmeal with fresh berries, along with scrambled eggs and toast. She studied the menu warily. “Do I want to try some of these more traditional things?”