The minute Astor was secured close to his chest, Cillian leaned down and pressed a kiss on his son’s head.

I realized I was jealous. Jealous of my good friend Persy, who deserved this life more than anyone else I knew—and still, I wanted what she had for myself.

Not who she had it with, obviously—I was crazy, but not the shade of crazy who was okay with incest—but I wanted it with someone I couldn’t have. Sam.

Turning away from the window, I pretended to busy myself by rearranging perfectly arranged ornaments at the center of the table.

Sam was going to arrive soon, and I needed to gather every dollop of strength to face him with my head held high and my back straight.

“Ash?” I heard a voice wonder behind me and turned around to find Persy tucking a lock of her blonde hair behind her ear. She was wearing a romantic evening dress with a beautiful floral print, holding a wide-awake baby Astor in her arms. His marble-blue eyes glittered at me with delight, a shock of chocolate hair covering his tender head. He threw his chubby arms in my direction, and I scooped him up with a thrilled squeak, pressing him to my chest and inhaling his intoxicating baby scent.

“Hey, Pers…” I rubbed my cheek against Astor’s silky strands, marveling yet again at how much he looked like his father “…how are you?”

“I’m great. You looked thoughtful through the window. Which was why I bypassed the usual hugs and kisses routine to see how you were doing. Your mother looks … preoccupied.” She took a seat at the table, eyeing me curiously.

Preoccupied was a very nice way of putting it. My mother was working me to the bone these days, asking me to help with her bath, read her books, and drive her around because she didn’t want to converse with her usual driver. But I wasn’t in the mood to talk about that.

“Where’s Cillian?” I walked around the room with Astor, who wanted to reach and touch everything.

“With Gerald in his office. I can’t believe he did that to your mom.” Persy bit the inside of her cheek. She had always been nice and gentle, and I knew she spared me the more blunt words I was bound to hear from Sailor and Belle.

“I can.” I put Astor down on the carpet, allowing him to explore his surroundings.

“Sailor told me Sam asked for your number,” Persephone continued, scanning me with eager eyes, as if looking at me would inspire me to spill more information. Merde. I knew my friends were invested in my quest to make Sam Brennan notice my existence, but at the same time, I hated how they treated me. Like I was a silly, naïve girl incapable of bagging the man of her dreams.

I felt especially pathetic, considering Persephone was happily married to my brother, the catch of the century according to People Magazine, and Sailor was married to my other brother, who treated her like a queen. Emmabelle (who was Persephone’s sister) might not have been married—but it was by choice.

I was the odd one out. The doomed girl mourning her unrequited love.

And I definitely didn’t want them to know about my current relationship with Sam, which put me in a less than a favorable position.

“It was nothing.” I waved a hand around, following Astor to make sure he didn’t bump into anything or decided to stick his fingers in outlets. “He just needed some help. Something work-related.”

“Huh.” Persephone sprawled in her seat, tapping a finger over her chin thoughtfully. “But maybe it’s a start? He never contacted you before, and you’re hardly the only person he could turn to.”

Persephone was such a romantic, anything short of Sam trying to maim me with a machete would register in her mind as a prime example of his undying love for me.

I rolled my eyes. “You’re grasping at straws, Pers.”

“Weirder pairings have happened. Look at your brother and me,” she said eagerly, making her case. “You just need more patience as you pursue him.”

“Cillian always had a boner for you. He just hid it like a thirteen-year-old. Sam is not pursuable,” I concluded, feeling like a phony since I was definitely waist-deep in this cat and mouse game with Sam.

But I didn’t want to jinx things or jump to conclusions. Plus, if nothing came out of it—which was likely; my plan was farfetched—at least I wouldn’t have to deal with more pity from my friends.

“If your brothers are pursuable, so is Sam,” Persy determined, putting her foot down. “You should go for what you want.”

“But what if what I want is everything that’s bad for me?” I turned around, finding her gaze. “What if I’m stupid to want Sam Brennan? He is a gangster. A murderer. An underground boss and my father’s right hand. So many things can go wrong. If they’ll go in any direction at all …”

“You just described love.” Persy grinned. “Love is a risk. It’s a storm that either disrupts your life or clears your path. Sometimes it does both at the same time. Focus on getting the guy. Everything else will fall into place.”

An hour and a half later, the evening was in full swing.

Everyone was at the table, digging into the delicious food Cook had made.

Honey-roasted turkey, buttery mashed potatoes, pumpkin pecan bread pudding, golden baked apples, and savory sausage stuffing.

Candlelight danced around the room, casting playful glows on familiar faces, as chatter rang from all across the table.

Sailor and Persy’s au pairs sat in the far corner of the room with the children—Astor, Xander, and Rooney—gossiping and tending to the babies. Sam sat all the way at the other side of the table from me, and even though I could feel his eyes on me every now and again, assessing, daring, challenging, I made it a point to stick to conversations with my mother, Sailor, Persephone, and Emmabelle.

Normally, I would try to talk to him, ask him questions, form some sort of a connection. Not right now and not today. I was no longer the girl who chased him. Or so I wanted him to think.

“The concept of Thanksgiving is still jarring to me,” Devon complained from the other end of the table, next to Sam, in his imperial, posh English drawl. He cut his turkey into frighteningly even pieces and looked entirely too good for a man who didn’t model for a living. “Who exactly are you lot thanking?”

Devon was what Belle referred to as appallingly gorgeous. All soft blond, sandy curls twisting at the ears and the nape of his neck, piercing blue eyes, and the bone structure of a deity.

“Um, God?” Hunter threw a piece of sweet potato into his mouth, chewing. “You’re just bitter because we have stuff to be thankful for. Big-box stores, the First Amendment, Jewish deli food, and, of course, Scarlett Johansson. What do you have to be thankful for?”

“Footie, brown sauce, and being generally intellectually superior to the Yanks,” Devon deadpanned, regarding all the food at the table like it was suspicious.

“By footie you mean soccer?” My father frowned. He’d been fairly quiet the entire night.

“No, by football I mean football. The one where you kick the ball with your foot…” Devon patted the corners of his mouth unnecessarily with a napkin “…as opposed to holding it in your hand while running, crashing into random people like a barbarian trying to sneak the rival village’s best-looking maiden.”