SEAN: A Mafia Romance (The Callahans Book 3) by Glenna Sinclair Read Free Book Online

comes to experiences differently. I think I might want to try it, figure it out for myself.”
    “So you’re open to having children?”
    She touched my arm lightly. “First date is a little too soon to be asking questions like that, isn’t it?”
    I felt heat flash over my face. I hadn’t meant it that way, but…
    She laughed. “Just kidding.”
    We ducked into the restaurant a minute later. It was a small English-style pub run by an old friend of my father’s. The place was busy, as it always tended to be, but the owner himself was standing just inside the door, and he came rushing over when he recognized me.
    “Sean, me boy!” He patted me on the shoulder as he pulled us inside. “It’s been too long.”
    “Hello, Patrick. How have you been?”
    “Good, good! And you?”
    I shrugged. “As good as ever.”
    Patrick beamed, his thoughts clearly spinning when he spotted Delaney. “And who might this be?”
    “Delaney Doherty. She’s a friend.”
    “Delaney. What a beautiful, Celtic name.”
    Delaney blushed as she accepted his enthusiastic kisses near her cheeks.
    Patrick turned and yelled to someone, then he came back to me.
    “We’ll get you the best table in the place. Have anything you want, it’s on the house.”
    “Thank you, Patrick.”
    “You’re well known here,” Delaney said, as I took her hand and led her into the loud, boisterous place behind Patrick’s waiter.
    “He’s a friend of my father’s.”
    “Comes in handy, having friends in high places.”
    I smiled, as I led her deep into the dining room, finally finding the table Patrick meant for us. The waiter took drink orders, then disappeared. Delaney’s eyes were bright as she looked around, taking in the dark room with its cheesy décor. The place was filled with anchors and ropes, a nautical theme that seemed especially out of place when you realized there was not a bit of fish on the entire menu.
    “The Shepard’s pie is good,” I said.
    “What about the corned beef?”
    “Excellent.”
    We ordered and then sat back to enjoy the bottle of wine the waiter had brought. It was a white this time, a lovely, crisp wine that went down smoothly. I finished a glass as I watched Delaney continue to look around, the amusement on her face like that of a child meeting her hero for the first time. I poured myself a fresh glass and topped off hers, then leaned over the table to catch her attention.
    “What do you think?”
    She shrugged. “It’s fascinating. I’ve never been to a place like this.”
    “Not your usual hangout?”
    She laughed. “I grew up poor, so my idea of eating out was McDonald’s. Then I got into business and it became French bistros and hundred dollar tabs.”
    “Quite a contrast.”
    “I went from poor to not so poor pretty quickly.”
    “With Heavenly Match?”
    Her eyebrows rose. “How’d you know that?”
    “You aren’t exactly unknown in this city, Miss Doherty.”
    She inclined her head slightly. There’d been an article about her in a well-known business magazine just a few weeks ago that caught the attention of the local newspaper. It sported a picture of her and a brief history of her business. I read it three times, telling myself that I needed to know her if I was going to protect her. The truth, though, was a little simpler. I liked looking at that picture of her.
    “You started the company in college?”
    “How cliché is that?” She smiled as she settled back in her chair and lifted her wine glass. “I had a roommate who was having trouble finding a date for the homecoming dance. So I created this algorithm that we could use on the student information database on the administration computers—”
    “You hacked the college’s computers?”
    “Sure,” she said, a proud smile making it clear that she wasn’t ashamed of her actions. “Everyone does it. In fact, half my programming class had already done it by the time I got around to it.”
    “Did it work? Did you get her a