Seduced by the Baron (The Fairy Tales of New York Book 4) Read Online Free

leave a lasting legacy. “It’s a family affair,” she said vaguely.
    “She’s being too modest,” Mercy said, dismissively. “The whole pub would fall apart without her. She loves this place like crazy.”
    Faith smiled at Mercy. Her friend was right – she did love this place. Deeply. She had, after all, lived in this big old pub in this working class neighborhood in the Bay Ridge area of Brooklyn for her entire life. Some of her best memories were encapsulated within these four walls. And her mother was also here in every nook and cranny.
    She loved Sully’s. So why, suddenly, wasn’t it enough?
    Faith glanced at Rafael. He was watching her intently, a little line tugging two sandy-colored eyebrows together. She wondered if he could see her disquiet? See the growing despair she felt that she was going to be stuck here forever, a spinster barmaid, her fine arts degree a distant ambition.
    She plastered a smile on her face. “Drink?” she asked Mercy.
    Mercy glanced at Raf’s beer. “You’re drinking Guinness?” She tutted playfully. “Isn’t that sacrilege to a lager man?”
    “Good beer is good beer,” he said with a grin. “And when in an Irish pub…”
    “Absolutely,” Mercy agreed. “I’ll have the usual.”
    Faith grabbed a half pint glass and pulled Mercy’s favorite brand of Guinness. If they stayed for a second, Faith knew Mercy would switch to orange juice thanks to her strict self-imposed, one-drink policy she’d developed after growing up in and around the wine industry.
    Not to mention the Great Altar Wine Debacle.
    Faith eavesdropped on their conversation while she waited for the beer to settle. They obviously knew each other reasonably well. Faith wondered just how well and was surprised to find it bothered her. She placed the beer in front of Mercy and once again waved the payment away.
    “On the house.”
    Mercy tried to protest. “You can get the first round tomorrow night,” Faith insisted.
    On the second Thursday of every month all four women got together at Sully’s for a girl’s night. Faith had worried that it would stop now her friends were in relationships but the tradition was going strong.
    “Salud,” Mercy said raising her glass to Rafael.
    “Salud,” he responded, tapping the rim of his glass to hers.
    Faith was excruciatingly aware of him as he drank. Aware that his sandy-blonde hair was a little longer on the top than the sides. Aware of a tiny little scar beneath his chin that cut a smooth swath through the rough of his stubble. Aware of the way his gaze kept straying to her t-shirt and how he’d tried to flirt with her and the way he’d looked at her before as if he could see past her I’m-fine exterior to the not-fine beneath.
    Aware that he was from outside her world and just how damn enticing that made him.
    Lordy. This was bad.
    A man from outside the neighborhood paid her a little attention and she was already thinking of…what? Running away with him? Preposterous. She couldn’t leave. Not when her father, the pub, relied on her so much.
    “Is JP around?” Mercy asked as she licked Guinness from her mouth like she was born to it – not bad for a wine girl.
    Faith tensed. “He’s upstairs. He was feeling a little… tired earlier.”
    Her father’s worsening heart condition caused its usual flurry of panic inside her. The doctor had increased his medication last week but Faith worried about him constantly. He was seventy-four and looking every one of those years. She’d already lost one parent. She couldn’t bear the thought of losing another.
    “You think he might be up to meeting Raf?”
    Faith frowned. “Meet Raf?”
    “He has a proposal he thinks your dad might be interested in.”
    “A proposal?” She looked from one to the other. Mercy looked excited, her dark eyes shining but Faith had a very bad feeling. Pop had a real soft spot for Mercy but she tried to keep the stress of decision making off her father’s shoulders as much