“Do what?” Fear lanced through me, discordant and painful. My chest ached, and absently, I pressed a hand to the left of my sternum.
Catching the movement, Ronan swore softly to himself. “I never should have done this.”
“Done what?” I sank onto the arm of one of his armchairs, feeling like I’d been smacked. “What did you do?”
“Brought you here. Convinced myself this would work.”
He opened and closed his fists meditatively a few times, like he was squeezing two invisible stress balls. The movements caused the tendons in his arms to flex and made his biceps twitch. Standing in the dark, with nothing but a latent street lamp throwing shadows across his bare torso, he looked less like an urbane CEO and more like an ancient warrior ready to pillage.
Then his words sank in. “I—what? You’re ending this?”
He looked pained. “I am such a fool.”
“What? Why?” I reached for his hand, but he stepped out of reach. “Ronan, please. Just talk to me.”
His bitter laughed echoed off the hard edges of his books, the fireplace bricks, and the carved wood lintels.
“I thought I could handle it, you know? Thought I was bred for it. Go to work, live under the microscope, compete with my siblings like dogs at the fucking track. I had a routine, see? Take the old man’s shit, but when I left, I had ways to cope. I had the gym or the bottle or… or whatever. But now you’re here.”
He started to pace, which only added to the impression he was giving of a wounded animal. Just like Simone said. The house suddenly seemed far too small, a cage for that big body, which so obviously needed to expel excess energy.
“I thought this was a good idea,” he went on. “Honestly, I thought I was a fucking genius. I needed someone like you for—just like you, and you all but dropped in my lap.” He turned. “But then I got to know you. And it’s like—fuck!”
He had turned to the fireplace now and had braced his hands on the mantel, pressing hard enough to make the old wood creak under his palm as every muscle in his back tensed in high relief. I honestly thought he might break it.
“Ronan?” I spoke quietly as I approached from the side, hands out.
His head fell like a fallen warrior’s. “What, Laney?”
Tentatively, I set my hand on his shoulder, stroking softly, urging him to relax. He did, but only slightly.
“It’s like what?” I asked. “You got to know me, and it’s like what?”
My own stomach was tied into knots. I didn’t want to ask the question because there was a possibility his answer might really hurt. All afternoon, I’d managed to keep the worst possibility at bay: that he had realized I was wrong for him after all. That he didn’t like me as much as he thought. That being married was as ridiculous as it sounded after all.
But now we were here, and I found that if that was the truth, I needed to hear it.
“It’s like… you’re made for me.” His words were almost too quiet to hear as he spoke toward the brick. “Old God or Zeus or whoever the fuck is up there said, oh, this boy likes pretty girls? Let’s show him the most luscious one he’s ever seen. Then let’s make her kind and genuine and smart as a fuckin’ whip. And after that, let’s also make her the one person who’s probably read every book in his library and gets every stupid Greek reference he makes just to appeal to his weird hyper obsessions and prevent him from ever getting bored.” He rubbed his face, like he still couldn’t believe it. “Of course I married you. What else was I going to do when the universe plays a cosmic joke on the most nihilistic fucker on the planet by presenting him the one person he wouldn’t want to lose?”
By the time he was finished, I was trying not to cry. Not because I was sad, but because the emotions were too much. Whatever I thought he was going to say, it wasn’t that, but with every word, my own mirror instincts coalesced into the thoughts I hadn’t dared admit to before now.
Things like you’re made for me too.
You’re the first man who understands my passions and my pains and doesn’t judge me for either.
I followed you across the country because even after less than twenty-four hours together, saying goodbye to you physically hurt.
“Ronan, I’m not perfect,” I started, but he was already shaking his head.
“I know you’re not. I know that. But I… Christ, Laney, I want you so bad I’m fuckin’ shaking with it, but I also know I’m nowhere near good enough for you. I woke up this morning with you in my arms, and now I can’t fake my life anymore. Not with you.”
With every word, the slight accent he generally masked so well got progressively thicker, shaking in the back of his throat. He turned, and his eyes met mine, void of dark humor, calculation, or avoidance.
All I saw was pain.
Pain, and maybe another emotion that in my short life I’d realized was so closely intertwined.
Something that looked a lot like… love.