“Poppy?”
It was Ronan, and there was a spark in me. A dangerous dark spark that even as it blazed I did my best to put out. That spark would only lead to humiliation. Embarrassment. Pain.
The first glass of champagne went down easily, and I just dropped the glass soundlessly on the carpet. The other glass I only drank half of it before doing the same. Wild, I felt wild. Just a breath away from being out of control, and I could sense him behind me. A heat. A force at my back.
Ignoring him was delicious.
I was electrified by his following me.
“Poppy,” he said, and then once we were out of the ballroom he grabbed me by my elbow and pulled me down a darker hallway. I fought him, yanking my arm free, only to have him grab it harder in a grip that would leave a red mark on my skin.
I was an expert in such grips.
But still I kept fighting. If this guy was going to hit me, let him. Let him try and hurt me. There was nothing left of me to hurt.
“Poppy, goddamnit, stop,” he said, and so fast he had a key out. He swiped it through a door, and we were in another room. A dark office with an empty desk. No windows.
All right. Now I was a little scared.
“What are you doing?” I asked, putting my hand over my elbow where he’d grabbed me.
“Did I hurt you?” he asked, watching me touch my skin. God. I not only felt outrageously alone with this man. I felt stupidly naked. This dress was nothing. Where was a suit of armor when you needed it?
I reached behind my back, pressing the doorknob lever, but he was there quick, putting his hand against the door right beside my head, keeping it shut. His breath stirred the small hairs escaping my too-tight bun.
The champagne only gave me so much courage, and I looked, not in his icy blue eyes but at his square chin with its five o’clock shadow. There was a scar there, just beneath his jaw line. It ran a straight line near his ear to nearly the point of his chin. Another jump from a window, I wondered. Or worse. Because Ronan seemed incredibly capable of worse.
“I’m going to ask you again,” I said, my voice only a little shaky. “What are you doing?”
“Giving you a second to catch your breath,” he said.
“Well, I was leaving, so why don’t I just do that?”
He reached over and turned on a small lamp, the golden pool of light illuminated his face. And I’d talked to this man for what? A half hour, total in my life. A half hour over two and a half years. I owed him nothing. I pushed down the lever and pulled open the door.
“You’re making a fool of yourself out there,” he said, and I gasped in outrage, turning to face him.
“Fuck you.”
“It’s the truth. And you know it. You can’t show them how much they’re under your skin.”
“What the hell do you know about anything?”
“I know I’m under your skin.”
Said skin blazed hot and undoubtedly red. Right. This was the expected embarrassment. The humiliation right on cue. The ice cold look on his face melted and what was left was something so much worse. Something horrible.
Pity.
“Don’t,” I spat at him. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?” he asked.
“Like the rest of them look at me. Like all I am is something to be pitied and whispered about. Something to be used and shuffled around.”
“I’m not—”
I shoved him. My hands against his rock-solid chest, and I shoved him. Hard enough he stepped backwards, and everything ignited in me. Everything. I looked at my hands, surprised they weren’t flames.