Three Irish Brothers: A Reverse Harem Romance (Quick & Dirty Book 1) Page 2

But he won’t.

  And neither will I.

  “Fuck you, Killian,” Fionn says with disgust. “You just love playing the martyr, don’t ye?”

  Killian’s face is turning red. He starts to hurl more insults back at Fionn, and Fionn back at him until they’re screaming over each other.

  Stop, I want to scream. Stop fighting, both of you.

  But I don’t.

  I just stand there in the doorway, watching, like I’m disconnected from it all, trapped in an invisible bubble. Sometimes it’s all I feel like I’m doing…watching as this world passes me by.

  My brothers love me, I know they do. But they don’t understand me. At least, not since “the accident.” Hell, I don’t understand me sometimes.

  Killian and Fionn start trading punches. I still don’t move to interfere. They’ll stop once they’re bloody. They always do. They never truly hurt each other. They love each other too much, deep down.

  It’s just us three on this farm in County Kerry on the west coast of Ireland. The town of Killarney is a twelve-minute drive away.

  You can tell we’re all brothers. We all have the same shock of messy dark hair, same earthy eyes, same broad shoulders and strong bodies built from growing up doing manual labor.

  We only have each other. But these days, it feels like we don’t even have that.

  Savannah

  “…and it turns out my ‘friends’, those bitches, knew about the affair. Can you believe that? They were all like, ‘sorry, ’Vannah, Cecily threatened to cut us off from her Vuitton rep if we told you.’ As if getting the latest Louis bag before it hit stores is more important than our friendship. Am I right?”

  The older woman at the car sales counter gives me a bored look. “Lady, just take your keys.”

  I let out a long breath.

  Right. Keys. To the car that I just rented. Here in Ireland, where I just got off a plane not two hours ago.

  Ireland, you ask? How the hell did I get here?

  Let me regress for a second.

  After I punched Theo in the face, I sat in the back of a cab for what felt like hours, staring into space asking myself, What the hell was I going to do?

  I couldn’t go back to work. I couldn’t go home. After finding out my friends had betrayed me, I couldn’t go to them, either.

  No way in hell was I going to my parents’ place. My mother adores Theo. She was one of those Hillary women from that era of “stand by your man”. She’d be on his side. Not mine.

  I had to get out of here. Here being anywhere that reminded me of Theodore “the fucking asshole” Prescott or Cecily “the fucking bitch” Platt, which pretty much meant the whole of New York.

  That’s how I ended up at JFK Airport, buying the earliest first-class ticket out of New York, which happened to be a flight to where-the-fuck-is-it Shannon, on the west coast of Ireland.

  I literally had only my handbag with me. I spent my airport waiting time buying new clothes, toiletries and a suitcase. Thank God for duty-free.

  I drank—heavily, thanks to free booze in first class—and pretty much passed out before we took off.

  So…that’s how I ended up here in the west coast of Ireland.

  With no plan.

  Okay, focus. I have a car, a cute baby-blue BMW Z4 convertible.

  Now I need somewhere to stay. Somewhere local. Rustic. With fresh air and green grass. Somewhere the total fucking opposite of New York.

  After buying a phone and linking into the local Wi-Fi, I scour the short-term accommodation forums and accept a volunteer position on a remote farm in exchange for food and board.

  I tap the address into my new car’s GPS and wait for it to calculate the route, blowing my hair out of my face and staring out the front windshield to the thick gray clouds that are rolling over towards me from the horizon. It’s just past nine in the morning here.

  Three a.m. in New York.

  Theo would be getting his beauty sleep in our king-sized bed. I wonder if C.C. is sleeping next to him now that I’ve disappeared. I turned my New York phone off after the seventh missed call from Theo and the third missed call from C.C.

  Stop thinking about him!

  I just want to escape for a while. To figure things out. Some fresh Irish air will do me good. And hopefully, the luck of the Irish will rub off on me.

  I’m not hiding. Nope. No, sirree. Not hiding at all.

  I’ve never been to Ireland before.

  I know no one.

  No one knows I’m here.

  And I’ve never even been on a farm before, unless you count the vineyards of the Hudson Valley.

  I can do this.

  I can.

  I’m the youngest marketing executive to ever grace the halls of Prescott Agency.

  Was. I was the youngest. I’m never, ever returning to Prescott Agency again.

  If I could do that, I can do anything.

  Besides, how hard can “farming” be?

  One and a half hours later and I’m starting to get the hang of driving on the other side of the road. Mainly because the “roads” here are so damn skinny that it doesn’t matter because there is no “side” of the road.

  The local council should be ashamed of themselves. It’s not like the cars or people here are smaller. Why do they have to make their roads this size? Are these roads for leprechauns? Where are the people-sized roads, dammit?

  To make matters worse, those gray clouds have turned black and they’ve blanketed the entire sky casting everything in a gloomy dull light. The countryside would be gorgeous—green rolling hills dotted with black and white cows, bushes covered in yellow wildflowers—if I could damn well see any of it through this rain now lashing on my windshield. I’m cursing myself for renting a convertible as the top feels much too flimsy. The rain sounds like loud drumming around me and the howling wind sounds too close.

  At least I don’t have far to go to reach this farmhouse where I’m staying for the next month or so.

  The rain is turning the dirt road into a mud trail. I’m too used to wide paved streets and street lights. I take the corner too fast and spot the cow standing in the middle of the road too late. I scream, yanking the wheel hard to the left. My tires skid, my brakes lock up. And I know in that second, my luck has truly run out.

  My rented BMW Z4 convertible crashes head first into a low stone wall.

  Savannah

  Fuck. Fuckety fuck fuck.

  I’m fine, just a slight crick in my neck. But the car is not. It won’t start and the front bonnet is crumpled to hell and this stupid rain won’t let up.

  There’s no reception on my phone.

  I can’t call a tow.

  I can’t call my new boss, who is expecting me.

  I can’t call anyone.

  I am so fucked.

  I sit in the driver’s seat of my now-wrecked car, gripping my steering wheel. What the hell do I do now?

  I let out a long scream. It echoes inside the car, my answer to the constant drumming of the rain on the top.

  I feel slightly better.

  But I’m still fucked.

  Okay, Savannah, think.

  I only have snacks in my bag that I purchased from a gas station. Tayto crisps and Maltesers aren’t going to last me the day.

  I could walk to find help. I did buy those totally cute knit Skechers at the airport. Too bad they’re not waterproof. Nor did I think to buy any waterproof rain jackets.

  Fuck. Me.

  I’d be drenched in ten seconds flat. Then I’ll catch pneumonia and die alone on the side of a too-skinny road in the middle of nowhere Ireland where no one knows I am. A fitting end to this shitty, shitty day.

  I spot a flash of something farther up the road.

  It’s a truck driving towards me. A truck, which means people, which means help!

  I don’t think twice. I burst out of the car and run into the road waving my hands at them, signaling them to stop. The rain has faded to a drizzle but I can still
feel it frosting the hairs on my skin and making my clothes damp.

  The truck slams on its brakes and halts a few meters away from me.

  The driver’s side door opens and a large man jumps out. “What the fuck?”

  That. Accent.

  Holy hell.

  Deep yet melodic, it travels through my body like a shiver.

  He strides towards me in the rain. He’s tall, around six two, I’m guessing. And looks unlike any man I’ve ever seen. He wears long rough trousers made of thick material and a rough-spun button-up shirt, clean but clearly has seen better days. The rain is already causing it to fit across his wide chest and thick torso, straining around his biceps.

  Oh wow. This man didn’t get his body from a well-designed weight-lifting program at the gym. He got it working the land and getting dirty.

  I could get real dirty with him.

  I shove aside that thought.

  Two other doors of the truck open and…oh my fucking God, another two of them get out.

  Holy crap.

  There’s three of them.

  Three broad-shouldered, ruggedly handsome, dark-haired men.

  Maybe I hit my head in the crash and I’m seeing triple.

  Triple handsome. Triple bodies like gods. Triple hot as hell. Surely, this can’t be real. They can’t be real.

  As they stride towards me like something out of an action movie, I feel myself growing faint. I’ve never swooned before. I thought that kind of thing only happened to women in Victorian novels with too-tight corsets. But the sight of them is making me woozy. And hot. It’s getting very fucking hot inside my body. I’m way too young for this to be the onset of menopause.

  The three of them come to stand before me in a wall of rugged muscled man, all with thick brows over deep, dark eyes, strong, stubbled jaws and kissable lips. They must be brothers. For a second I think they’re triplets. But then I notice the subtle differences between them.

  The tallest one has the strongest jaw under a five o’clock shadow and the deepest set eyes. He’s the one who climbed out of the truck first. The one who yelled at me with that deep accented voice.

  The second one, the one standing in the middle of the trio, is about an inch shorter at around six feet one. He’s the only one who has a smile on his face, a dimple marking his left cheek. He’s the most tanned of the three and appears the friendliest.

  The shortest one, still a good six feet tall, has the broadest shoulders, the widest torso. He has a faint scar that mars his top lip and disappears under his beard, the thickest of the three. It doesn’t detract from his attractiveness, quite the opposite. It makes him look mysterious. Sexy. Almost dangerous.

  “Are ye feckin’ mad, woman?” the first man says. “What the hell are you tryin’ to do, jumping out in front of my truck? Ye could have been killed.”

  He’s scowling at me as if I’ve wronged him personally. I frown. I gave him plenty of time to see me. It’s not like I jumped out in front of his truck. What the hell is his problem?

  “Ah, don’t be such a sourpuss, Killian,” the middle one says. His voice isn’t as deep as Killian’s, but it’s more playful, more lyrical. I imagine he’d have an incredible singing voice. “The lass needs us.”

  The innuendo in his tone is not lost on me, and my stomach erupts into flutters.

  “I need a tow and a mechanic,” I say, trying to ignore the strange feelings coursing around my body. “But I’ll take a lift to the nearest phone instead. Mine won’t get reception out here.”

  “You’re American,” the middle one says. His smile broadens into a lopsided grin. He looks on the border of laughing at any moment.

  “Don’t hold that against me.”

  The middle one laughs. He mumbles something under his breath. It might have been my imagination, but I swear I heard, “I’d rather hold you against me.”

  I think I’d rather that, too.

  “I’m Fionn,” he says out loud and holds out his hand.

  “Savannah.” I take his hand, a shot of electricity going up my arm at the contact. He must have felt it, too, because his brows furrow.

  I let out a shaky breath. “I’ve never heard the name Fionn before.”

  “A truly Irish name. Named after a legendary Irish hero. These are my brothers, Killian and Aiden.” He thumbs over his shoulder.

  So they are brothers.

  “But I’m the only one you really need to know.” Fionn grins and my heart flips.

  Careful, my inner voice warns me. This one is definitely a heartbreaker. I bet that grin has broken more than its fair share of hearts in this county and the next.

  The third brother, Aiden, still hasn’t said anything. But he has been staring at me this whole time. I smile at him and try for a tiny wave. He doesn’t smile back.

  “We can give her a lift to town, can’t we, Killian?” Fionn calls back over his shoulder, his eyes still on me.

  Killian makes a grunting noise, turns on his heel and strides back to the truck. I can’t help but notice his strong thighs in those jeans or the way he just cuts up the ground with his long legs.

  “That means yes in grumpy-speak,” Fionn says with a wink. “Come on.”

  Savannah

  Killian drives. I sit in the back with Aiden while Fionn sits in the passenger seat, twisted around to face me as we talk. He asks all the usual questions about me: where I’m from, why I’m here in Ireland, how long I’m here and am I single.

  I say I’m a tourist on an extended stay, yes, I am a single and avoid all mention of the mess I left behind in New York.

  Fionn tells me about the three of them. They’re brothers aged from twenty-seven to twenty-nine, Aiden being the youngest, Killian being the eldest, no surprises there. Irish twins, he jokes, before explaining that’s what they call children born only a year apart. They live and work on a cattle farm in the area. And what a coincidence, they’re all single, too.

  I should be scared that I’m alone in a car with three strangers, but I’m not. I’m a New Yorker. I’ve met enough assholes and bad people to know when I’m near one. These men don’t make me feel intimidated or afraid.

  In fact, the opposite. In the dry, warm truck, I feel safe. Protected. If I’m honest, very turned on at my proximity to such gorgeous, muscular men. I’m trying not to stare at the smooth lightly tanned skin of their strong forearms, biceps bulging from their shirts or their matching thick lips.

  Killian keeps glaring at me through the rearview mirror. He only talks to interject an occasional comment about ignorant drivers or stupid Americans.

  I’d be offended if I didn’t sense the way he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. The way this weight crushes him down, dampening his spirit, making him seem much older than his twenty-nine years. Killian has bigger problems than I can know, I imagine. Every time he makes a rude comment I just feel more and more sorry for him. The need to pull him into my arms grows.

  Aiden is still just watching me. I can’t read the expression on his face. It’s almost blank. But I can see glimmers of feeling in his eyes. There’s a lot more to this young man than meets the eye. A lot more going on inside than appears on the surface. He makes me strangely curious. He makes me want to peel back his layers and see what’s going on underneath.

  “You haven’t told me anything about yourself, Aiden,” I say when I can’t stand it anymore.

  “And he won’t,” Fionn says. “He won’t speak.”

  “He won’t speak to me? Because I’m a stranger?”

  “No, he just won’t speak.”

  “You mean he can’t speak?” The mysterious brother was mute?

  “Fionn,” Killian says in a low warning.

  “He can,” says Fionn, ignoring his brother. “He just won’t.” I don’t miss the slight bitterness in Fionn’s voice. And by the flash of sadness in Aiden’s eye, neither did he.

  I turn to Aiden, hoping that my face shows only curiosity and concern. “Why won’t you talk?”r />
  Aiden blinks at me, a sign that he definitely heard me. For a second he looks almost surprised. He’s surprised that I addressed him and not his brothers?

  Fionn snorts. “He’s not going to answer you. The doctors say that there’s nothing wrong with his voice. He just hasn’t spoken since—”

  “That’s enough,” Killian barks out, a hardness to his tone brooking no argument.

  Fionn snaps his mouth shut and sinks back into his seat, facing the front for the first time this whole drive.

  Something happened to Aiden. And it’s affected all three of them.

  My heart squeezes.

  I catch Killian’s dark eyes in the rearview mirror and see the wariness in them. The warning to stay away. Killian would do anything to protect his brothers, this much is clear.

  The intensity in his eyes is enough to make me pin my mouth shut even though I’m desperate to know. I push my selfish curiosity aside.

  I turn to Aiden and try sign language. “Do you sign?”

  Aiden sits up in his seat, brightening up. Light shining in his eyes for the first time since I met him. It transforms his face, animates it, makes him seem all the more beautiful, and I’m almost left breathless.

  His hands are large and strong, calluses and cuts marring the otherwise smooth skin, but they move with the gracefulness of a musician. For a moment I get a flash of those fingers playing across my body and my breath hitches.

  “You sign?” he asks.

  “Yes. I…” I pause, wondering how much of myself to give away. “I have a younger sister who was deaf.” I flinch. “Had, I mean.”

  His smile falters when he hears the word had. But he doesn’t ask me about her.

  Thank God. Because even now it hurts me to think about her. Like a knife ripping into me, the pain as sharp as the day she was first torn away.

  “Do your brothers sign too?” I ask, wondering how much of our conversation is being “overheard.” I can sense Fionn watching me and I know Killian keeps glancing at me through the rearview mirror, but I ignore them both.

  “They started to learn,” Aiden signs. “Well, at least, Fionn did. He’s so smart. But he doesn’t apply himself to anything.” Aiden’s lip twerks up. “Well, except maybe to chasing women.”