“The only reason.” Her laughter was bitter and broken.
Beside her, Megan looked ready to tear me a new one. “You bastard.”
I couldn’t argue with that. “Laney, please. Let’s go home. We’ll talk. I’ll tell you everything?—”
“Home?” Her voice was still quiet, but underwritten with a note of hysteria. “Home? We don’t have a home, Ronan. We have a secret playhouse where we pretend to be in love. But a home is welcoming to others. It’s not just a refuge for you, but it’s a place where you open your doors to the people you love.” She shook her head. “I’m not sure you know what that really means.”
“Laney—”
“No.” Her answer was short but final. She stood and picked up the black clutch she’d brought with her, then swayed a little as she pressed a hand over her heart.
“Laney,” I tried again. “Do you have your pills? Or do you need to breathe?—”
“Just stop!” she sputtered before taking a long, deep breath. “Megs?”
“I have your pills and already have a Lyft waiting.” Megan took her friend’s hand, but she hadn’t stopped glaring at me.
I ignored her completely as I watched Laney take the pills and clap them to her mouth. “Baby, you need to sit down. Please, let’s just take a minute?—”
But they had already turned toward the door.
Laney didn’t even look back, though Megan did for just enough time to snarl, “Do not follow us, asshole.”
I was already lunging for Laney’s hand, but Liam stopped me with a hand on my shoulder. “Think about who’s watching, man,” he murmured. “Let her go and blame it on too much to drink or something. You can make it right later.”
It was true. People were no longer watching us, other than those at the table—my father especially, as his black eyes dartedbetween me and Laney, watching, measuring exactly how I was going to react.
There was only one choice. And it wasn’t to bring that maniac down on Laney again.
I had to let her go.
Even if it was ripping my soul apart to do it.
31
A FATHER’S TALE
LANEY
“You going to be okay?”
Megan swung our hands between us a few times, tipping her head while she watched for my reaction.
God, I was tired of her looking at me like that. It was the same expression she’d worn all the way to her hotel in Boston to get her things (including some ill-fitting sweats for me so I wouldn’t have to go near Ronan’s house), then to the airport, where we’d caught a redeye home to Seattle.
I’d been on edge expecting Ronan, or at least Mac, to find us. As phantom-like as he was from the start, it really would have been just like him to step out from behind a pillar or a random TSA agent.
But he hadn’t shown up, and I hadn’t given him any other ways to find me after turning my phone off as I left the reception, then keeping it off the entire way home. Now, hot off a flight that Megan had managed to get us on last minute, I was exhausted and in no mood to be disappointed.
“I’m fine,” I bit out as I took out my keys, managing to fit them in the lock on the third try. “I just need some sleep and a lawyer. In that order.”
“Kennedy’s boyfriend is a lawyer.”
I gave her a look. “Isn’t he an environmental lawyer?”
Megan shrugged as I opened the door to the stairs leading up to my apartment. “They all probably know each other.”
She was antsy, bouncing on her toes in a way that told me she was eager to get home to her own husband, as if the bomb that had just dropped on my marriage made her want to check on the health of hers.