The Gallaghers of Ardmore Trilogy

underestimate yourself, Darcy, then you get annoyed when others do the same. You don’t have any respect for the men who fall at your feet, promising to give you the world on a platter. You’ve filled your own platter all your life and carried it with your own hands. And you know you can keep doing it.”
    “I want more.” She said it fiercely, finding herself inexplicably on the verge of tears. “What’s wrong with wanting more?”
    “Nothing. Nothing at all.” He reached out to close his hand over hers.
    “I want to go places, see things. Have things.” She shoved away from the table, prowling the kitchen as if it were a cage. “I can’t help wanting it. Everything would be easier if I could be a little bit in love with him. Just a little would be enough. But I’m not, and I can’t talk myself into it. So I woke up this morning knowing I’d be breaking it off, and tossing away a lovely trip to Paris.”
    “That’s the right thing to do.”
    “I’m not doing it because it’s the right thing to do.” Frustrated, she threw up her hands. “I’m doing it because I’m not having my first trip to Paris spoiled by sharing it with a man who’d bore my brains out. Shawn.” She came back to the table, sat again, and leaning forward, spoke seriously. “I’m not a nice person.”
    He took her hand again, patted it. “I love you anyway.”
    It took her a minute, then her eyes lit with appreciation. “I should have known better than to expect you to list my virtues. But I feel better in any case.” Because she did, she dipped her finger in the bowl again, scooped out another smear of filling. “I wish I could find someone to have a bit of fun and frolic with, like you and Brenna.”
    She might not have caught it, the quick change in the eyes before he rose to clear the table. But she knew him as well as, often better than, she knew herself. “Damn it all. I was afraid of this. You’ve gone and fallen for her, haven’t you?”
    “It’s not for you to worry about.”
    “It is, of course it is, when I love both of you. You great blockhead. Couldn’t you just enjoy yourself, like any other man?”
    He thought of that morning, and licked a bit of apple filling himself. “I am enjoying myself.”
    “And how long will that last now that you’ve fallen in love with her?”
    Interested, he glanced back at her as he began to work. “Does the fun go out of such matters when love walks in?”
    “It does when it only walks through one of the doors and the other stays shut.”
    “You don’t have much confidence in me, for finding a way of opening a closed door if I put my mind to it.”
    “Shawn, I don’t want to hurt you, and neither would Brenna, but she told me straight out that she only wanted to sleep with you.”
    “She was clear enough about what she wanted.” This time he smiled. “I want more. What’s wrong with wanting more?”
    “This isn’t the time to throw my own words back at my head. I’m worried for you.”
    “Don’t be.” He washed the largest of the bowls by hand rather than crowd the dishwasher. “I know what I’m about. I can’t help my feelings. And before you say it,” he continued, “I know she can’t help hers either. But what’s wrong with doing what I can to change her feelings?”
    “The minute she thinks you’re courting her—”
    But I won’t be. She’ll be courting me.”
    Darcy’s first response was a snort, but then she stopped, considered. “Aren’t you the clever one?” she murmured.
    “Clever enough to know Brenna will prefer to do the persuading rather than be the persuaded.” He checked his tarts, adjusted the heat. “I expect what we’ve said here to stay here, between the two of us.”
    “As if I’d go running off to tell Brenna what falls out of your mouth.” Insulted, she grabbed a tray. His stare from under raised brows made her relent. “All right, in the general way of things that’s what I do, but this is a different matter. You can trust me.”
    He knew he could. She might try to fracture his skull with a flying plate, but Darcy would bite off her tongue before betraying a confidence. “I suppose that means you won’t be carrying back to me whatever she might have to say, about . . . certain things.”
    “It does, indeed. Look for your spies elsewhere, my lad.” Nose in the air, she started to flounce out. Then there came a hiss of breath from her and she stopped. “She doesn’t think she’s built in a