Chapter 45: One obligation.

When he woke up he was leaning sideways, his head on Cian’s shoulder.

It was nine o’clock at night.

He’d been asleep for four hours. Which meant Cian had been sitting like this, shoulder at a bad angle, circulation cut off, for four hours.

Eoin lifted his free hand and pressed his fingers gently against the shoulder he’d been sleeping on. "You’ve been here this whole time."

Cian put down his phone and looked at him. "It’s late. I could drive you back to college, but the halls will be locked by the time we get there."

Before Eoin could answer, he added, "You’re also not really in shape for a long drive. You might be sick again. There’s a hotel nearby. You could stay the night and go back in the morning."

A stranger proposing a hotel should have sent every alarm Eoin had straight into the red. But there was nothing in Cian’s face to justify it, no suggestion, no angle, just what looked very much like straightforward concern about putting a dizzy person in a car.

"I’ll book two rooms," Cian said quickly. "You won’t see me until morning."

Eoin looked at him for a long moment, told himself this was a genuinely terrible idea, and then nodded.

Cian booked two rooms. He handed Eoin his key and went into his own without a backward glance. He did not appear again until breakfast, when he knocked on Eoin’s door.

When Eoin opened it, Cian was standing in the corridor in a white linen shirt, hair loosely tied back, the morning light from the window at the end of the hall falling across him at a clean angle.

Eoin had read plenty on the forums about the young Fitzgerald. Cruel, volatile, not someone you wanted to cross. None of the write ups had mentioned that he looked like this.

Eoin stood in the doorway for slightly longer than was polite. "Mr. Fitzgerald."

Cian paused, and then smiled. "You worked out who I am."

He wasn’t surprised. Eoin hadn’t been at full capacity yesterday, but he was clearly the sort of person who caught up quickly. The number plate alone was enough. There wasn’t another car like that in Dublin.

Eoin hadn’t moved in those circles, but he’d read the same forums as everyone else. The photos that turned up sometimes. The accounts. A certain influencer’s injuries, well documented, hard to explain away.

He couldn’t make what he’d read fit the person in front of him. Yesterday, Cian had been patient, methodical, careful. Nothing like the stories. Either the stories were wrong, or Eoin was missing something, and he wasn’t sure which possibility unsettled him more.

He did know that the Fitzgerald family was one of the largest pharmaceutical concerns in the country, that they held resources and connections that most people couldn’t reach. A man like this could not be offended carelessly.

Eoin sat across from him at breakfast, carefully, and Cian talked easily about nothing in particular, drawing him in without seeming to try. He drove Eoin back to college afterwards and didn’t mention compensation once.

Eoin sat in the passenger seat wondering how you repaid something like yesterday to someone who clearly didn’t need anything you had.

Then, just as he was about to get out, Cian reached across and stopped him and put a document on his knee.

He rubbed the back of his neck. "Read it over. The terms are open."

Eoin looked down at it. He understood. He had nothing that would catch the young Fitzgerald’s eye except his face, and he’d known that all along. And yet, when the document was actually in his hands, he still felt something sink a little.

Of course. Yesterday had been an investment of some kind. The patience, the gentleness, the two separate rooms. All of it building towards this.

Cian seemed to read something in his face. He gave a small, quiet smile. "Call me when you’ve decided."

He thought Eoin would take a day or two. That night, his phone rang.

Eoin’s voice was tight and careful on the other end, a little confused. "Mr. Fitzgerald. I’ve read through it. But."

Cian said, easily, "Not happy with something? We can change it."

His voice had a warmth in it that he wasn’t trying to hide.

"No, it’s not that." A pause. The volume had dropped. Eoin sounded as though he was around the corner from somewhere, keeping his voice down. "I can see what I’d get out of it. But where are my obligations? What do I actually have to do?"

Cian sat with that for a moment.

The contract, as Eoin had read it, was straightforward on one side. Money, medical access, the trial place, enough to see his Nana into the best care available and let Eoin finish his degree without counting every euro. On the other side, nothing. No intimacy clause, no availability terms, nothing that asked Eoin to give anything at all.

It read, basically, as a gift with paperwork attached.

Cian could picture it perfectly. Eoin tucked somewhere on campus, phone pressed to his ear, going over the document again and feeling that something had to be wrong with it, because things like this didn’t exist.

He said, "There’s only one obligation."

Eoin went still on the other end.

Cian said, "One. Eat properly. Two. Sleep. Three. Keep up with your work."

A silence.

Then Eoin said, very carefully, "Mr. Fitzgerald?"

"One more thing," Cian added.

Eoin pulled himself up. Steadied the phone. The way he said "I’m listening" was so formal, so braced for whatever came next, that Cian almost laughed.

He let his voice get a shade sterner. "No double shifts. No handing out flyers in the summer heat. No wearing a foam costume on Grafton Street until you nearly collapse. And no ending up in hospital. Are we clear?"

On the other end of the line, the hand holding the phone was shaking.

Eoin’s heart was going too fast, and he couldn’t quite explain why.