It was a faster beat, but not unsteady. Almost as if my body knew his touch was safe, as titillating as it was.
“Okay.” He seemed unsure, but stepped back out of reach, shoving a hand into his hair where mine had just been. “My lawyers will be in touch. Like I said, you won’t have to do much. Just sign some papers.”
“Okay.” I recognized it as the goodbye it was.
Ronan walked me to the door, holding it open for me, but keeping space between us as I stepped past him and out of the beautiful penthouse. “Take care of yourself, Laney Fisher.”
I offered a smile. “You too, Ronan Black.”
When the door shut, it took me five deep breaths to calm my racing heart enough that I could walk down the hall to the elevators that would take me away.
I had just stepped into the elevator when I heard my name ring out.
“Laney! Wait!”
Ronan’s hand stopped the doors just before they closed, forcing them back open before wedging his big body between them and yanking me close for another kiss.
This time, my breath escaped me completely as he lifted me up his body, tugging my legs around his waist as he shoved me against the receded doors and devoured me whole.
The kiss went on for hours. Or maybe just seconds. Because just when I felt the pressure from the doors trying to close again, he released me back into the car and backed into the hall.
“I had to,” he said with a lopsided smile. “Goodbye, Ariadne. I’ll miss what we never were.”
Before I could answer, the doors closed completely on Ronan Black.
I stared at my ring the entire ride down.
I should have taken it off, but I didn’t.
It fit perfectly.
Of course it did.
6
THE GREEK CHORUS I NEVER FUCKING ASKED FOR
RONAN
“You ready?” Mac cut the engine of the Range Rover, and the engine gave a sigh I felt in my soul.
A familiar neo-classical fountain gurgled outside my window, a taunting monstrosity full of fake cherubs whizzing water out of their dicks. On the other side of their sprays, my father’s house loomed.
I glared at the too-big monstrosity, a schizophrenic fever dream from the nineties that included elements from at least twenty different architectural periods. Doric pillars paired with colonial bricks. Bay windows with French shutters. English gardens with Hellenistic sculptures.
I hadn’t grown up here—that privilege belonged to Shea, and she could only claim full-time residency for the first six years of her life until, like the rest of us, boarding school called. My brothers and I had come up together on harder streets, first in South Boston before it was transformed into a yuppie playground, then one step up in a house in Jamaica Plain.
“Not even a little.”
I knew what was waiting for me. Family meetings were only slightly more civilized versions of those backyard boxing matches where Dad used to make his sons beat the shit out of each other while he and his cronies placed bets from plastic lawn chairs.
Once a bookie, always a bookie. Even when you’re an eighty-year-old billionaire and the prizes are executive roles in your company instead of a Mexican Coke and one of your cigars.
Mac opened his door. “It’s better if you stay quiet.”
I snorted. “What’s the fun in that?”
“It might get you what you want, if you figure out what that is.”