Her Irish Protector Bonus Scene

As the freeport driver heads off, I realize it’s too early to eat lunch. I should just walk back to the tax haven on my own. Burn off some energy. Get the fucking squirrels in line.

I make it half a block before I stop dead in front of a store. Its pink-and-white sign looks like it was painted yesterday: Daisy Chain. A sign on the door says Open. And the display in the window shows the perfect gift for Fiona.

A bell rings as I open the door—the chime kind of bell, light and airy, not the death-knell that echoes through my brain when I’m doing something wrong. The store looks like something out of a magazine, everything neat and clean and bright. I look down as the door closes behind me, half-expecting my shoes to leave ugly, muddy prints on the floor.

A woman stands outside a fitting room, frowning as she fidgets with a dark green skirt that cuts off just above her knees. “I don’t know, Anthony. I think I’m too old to wear this.”

“Nonsense,” says the man behind the cash register in the center of the store. “It’s perfect. And that color goes so well with your eyes.”

The woman flushes and plucks at the skirt again. “I have no idea what shoes I’d wear with this.”

“How about…” Anthony leaves his station and crosses to a display of sandals. As he passes me, he offers a professional smile and says, “I’ll be with you in just a moment.”

“Take your time,” I grunt. I don’t want that woman in the store when I buy Fiona’s present. For that matter, I don’t want Anthony here either. But I’m an Irish mob enforcer, not a shoplifter. I won’t steal my feckin’ presents. I’ll buy them.

It takes Anthony an agonizing ten minutes to convince the woman to take the skirt, the shoes, and a necklace that is simply perfection. He folds everything neatly, using a metric ton of tissue paper, chattering the entire time about how much his customer is going to love her purchase.

By the time she heads out the door, she looks like she’s coming off the best fuck of her life. Cheeks rosy, eyes bright, she blows a kiss to Anthony before she makes the bell ring above the door.

Smiling like an angel, Anthony turns to me. “Thank you for your patience. What can I help you with today?”

“That dress.” I nod toward the window. “The pink one.”

I didn’t think it was possible, but Anthony’s smile grows even brighter. “Isn’t it charming?”

“Yeah,” I say.

He waits for a moment, and I know I’m dropping my lines, but the only thing I can think to say is hurry up and let me get out of this store before anyone sees what I’m buying.

Finally, Anthony says, “And you’re looking for what size?”

How the fuck should I know?

Anthony finally catches on. He walks me over to a nearby mannequin dressed in a sleek gray pantsuit. “Go ahead,” he says with a wink. “Hands around her waist.”

I feel like a feckin’ eejit, feeling up a plastic model. But after I squeeze, I’m able to say, “Smaller than that.” I flex my fingers like I’ve been lifting dumbbells. “An inch. Maybe two.”

I know how to measure inches. I count them when I’m checking how close my bullets get to the center of a paper target. They matter when I’m fitting a body into the trunk of a car.

Anthony nods. “And the bust?”

My cheeks heat, and I take three full steps to the door. I’ve wasted enough time, here in Daisy Chain. The burger joint down the street has to be open by now. I can stuff my gob with plenty of red meat and head back to the freeport, which I never should have left in the first place.

But my gaze is snagged again by the dress in the window. I need it. I need to see Fiona in it.

So I turn around, close my eyes, and squeeze the feckin’ mannequin’s tits. “Bigger,” I say.

“An inch?” Anthony prompts. “Two?”

“Four.” But I’m lying. “Make it six.”

“Excellent,” Anthony says, like I’ve just passed a maths test. He turns to a rack half-way down the store, where the dress I covet hangs with its blue and yellow twins. Fuck blue and yellow. The dress needs to be pink. Anthony selects a size and brings it to a hook beside the register.

The dress is the light pink of candy floss. A ribbon at the waist is decorated with tiny pink roses, with ends that wrap around to the back and tie in a soft bow. The sleeves are short. They’ll just cap Fiona’s shoulders, but the skirt will hit her above the knee—longer than anything else I’ve seen her wear. That skirt is filled out by three rows of white ruffles.

“Aren’t these crinolines just precious?” Anthony’s smooth fingers trace the crinkly white layers.

“Precious,” I say. “Yeah.”

What the fuck am I doing? Fiona doesn’t wear precious. She’ll laugh in my face if I give her this dress.

“What about shoes?” Anthony asks.

“Shoes?” I sound like I’ve just stepped off my spaceship, like I’ve never heard a word of English.

“A lot of our customers love these retro dresses, but they don’t have the right shoes to make the outfit pop.”

I picture Fiona’s stilettos—red ones, black ones, with a cuff around her ankles, without. “What shoes make the outfit, um, pop?”

Anthony beams, practically dragging me over to the display where he found his earlier customer her sandals. “How about these?” he asks.

They’re black patent leather, so shiny I can see my face in them. They’re dead flat, not even a hint of a heel. A strap goes across the arch of the foot, fastening with a shiny silver buckle.

“Mary Janes!” Anthony exclaims, as if he’s showing off  a newly discovered planet. “And won’t they be adorable with these socks?” He produces a pair of snow-white anklets, sized for a woman’s foot but edged in lace like a child wears at Easter.

My throat goes dry.

My need to see Fiona dressed in this pink fantasy is overwhelming. It makes my heart beat so hard, I wonder if Anthony can hear it. I don’t remember how to breathe, how to fill my lungs with actual air.

This is sick.

Perverted.

But Daisy Chain sells these clothes. Women buy them. Maybe those women are retro, or maybe this dress is the bleeding edge of some fashion trend that’s going to leave me with a permanent chub. Or maybe, just maybe, the universe is giving me a present, unveiling one perfect gift for my little girl.

I clear my throat. “I’ll take them,” I finally say. “The shoes and the socks.”

Anthony beams.

“I don’t know the size,” I say.

“The average US woman’s shoe size is eight and a half.” Anthony tosses off the number, like we’re discussing football scores, or maybe the winning time at the Monaco Grand Prix.

“Eight and a half then.” It hardly matters. Fiona will only be wearing them indoors. She’ll only be wearing them for me.

“Now I’m sure the lady in question is well-stocked with unmentionables, but…” Anthony says with a coy smile.

Fiona has corsets and bras and panties, silk and satin, leather and lace. But none of it’s right for a dress like this. So I steel myself and ask, “What should I get?”

Anthony glides over to a cabinet, a dozen narrow drawers stacked from the floor to shoulder height. “How about…” he chants to himself, opening one drawer. “No…” he says, closing that drawer, then opening another. “Not quite…”

The third drawer does the trick. He pulls out a bra and panties. They’re plain white, no lace, no design. They look soft, draped over his fingers. Saliva fills my mouth, and I have to swallow hard. I reach out to touch them but then I pull back, like I’m afraid I’ll leave a mark.

“Yeah,” I say gruffly. “That’s good.”

Anthony assembles all the treasures by the cash register. “Shall I remove the tags?” he asks.

“Please.” I glance at the door to the street. I wonder how long it will take him to get everything in a bag, to hide it all away from the world. I wonder if he’s going to talk to me, the way he did to the woman who bought the dark green skirt. I wonder if I’m going to be trapped here forever.

But Anthony seems to accept I’m not a chatty guy. He’s a model of efficiency, cushioning the dress in layers of tissue paper. The bra and panties get wrapped separately, as do the socks. The shoes stay in their box, at the bottom of a bright-pink-and-white-striped bag.

Only when it’s all assembled does Anthony gesture for me to tap my credit card against a small screen. Before I can close the transaction, though, he gasps like he’s let a kettle run dry on the hob.

“Wait!” he says. “One more thing!”

I step back, bemused, as he hurries over to another display, this one toward the rear of the store. He fusses over what he finds there, turning a small rack and clicking his tongue. But soon enough, he’s back at the register, displaying his find.

It’s a headband, the same soft pink as the dress. One glance, and I can picture it covering the tips of Fiona’s ears, holding her straight black hair off her face. I make a sound like a drowning man’s last wish.

Grinning, Anthony says, “I’ll take that as a yes.” The headband goes in tissue too, settled on top of everything else in the bag.

This time, my credit card makes it to the screen. I sign with an electronic pen, the letters of my name flattened almost to a straight line. Anthony hands me a paper receipt, which I cram into a pocket, and then he passes over the shopping bag.

“The woman who gets to wear this is very lucky indeed,” he says. He’s smiling as he says it, still playful, still overjoyed by the perfection of everything in his little shop. But there’s something deeper beneath his words, something that almost sounds like respect.

I take the bag and flee.

It takes me over an hour to walk back to the freeport. I have to check my phone twice, because I get lost on a shortcut through the Sherman University campus. The September sun is warmer than I expect, and for just a moment, I consider using the card in my wallet, the one the driver gave me when he dropped me off in town.

But I need to bleed off some of my adrenaline. I need to smother the feckin’ squirrels, the ones that tell me Fiona’ll die before she puts on the pretty pink dress; she’ll slap me silly with the Mary Janes. I need to clench my fists, then wipe my palms against my jeans, then curl my fingers tight again.

Because Fiona is going to wear the dress. She’ll do it for me. She’ll do it for her Daddy.

* * *

Thank  you for reading this super-spicy bonus scene from Her Irish Protector! I hope you’ve enjoyed reading Fiona and Patrick’s love story as much as I’ve enjoyed sharing it with you. Their story continues in Her Irish King, another Kindle Unlimited read.

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