“What the fuck are you doing?” he snapped back, his eyes alight, and the half step he took towards me lit me up like a bonfire. But then he stopped. Reined himself back in. “Justin said you’d been here since ten. It’s four now.” He looked around. “And I don’t think you’ve eaten anything.”
I wasn’t hungry. But now my stomach growled.NowI was ravenous.
With his phone out, he turned, facing the window and the four o’clock sun that came in like butter to the room. A quick call and lunch was coming.
And I saw how this might spin out. We might sit down, he might have a sandwich. I might have a salad. He’d revert to the charming man he’d been at that party. I might revert to not being terrified and turned on at the same time. All of that might happen. But what I couldn’t understand was why?
I put my hands on my hips and didn’t sit down. “What are you after, Ronan?”
“Well, Poppy.” He ran a hand through his hair. The dark strands holding themselves in place for just a second before slipping down over his eyes. “I believe I owe you an apology.”
That was not at all what I was expecting, and I actually took a step back.
“I’ve shocked you. Well, frankly, the way I’ve treated you, I’ve shocked myself. I think...” He glanced around. “Is there a drink in here somewhere?”
“Water?”
“A proper drink, like.”
In the credenza behind my desk there was a pretty stocked bar. Justin thought of everything. “What would you like?”
“Is Jameson’s too much to ask for?” he asked.
I opened the cabinet and checked inside. “Apparently not. Though... there’s no ice or anything.”
“That’s fine. Will you join me?”
Who the fuck was this guy? “In straight whiskey? No.” I pulled out a bottle of fizzy water. The last time I had a drink in front of this guy things went off the rails real fast. Of course, they went off the rails the second time when I was sober-ish. Nope. I was going to keep my wits about me.
“I swear to you, Poppy. I will not touch you,” he said, like he could read my mind.
But,I thought, did I want him to touch me?
“Here,” I said and handed him the bottle and the glass from the credenza, and I sat down in my chair and twisted off the top of the water.
“So,” I said. “You were about to explain why you’ve been such an asshole.”
“Well.” He sat with his drink in the chair across from my desk. He looked so dark in this bright room. But oddly right, like he gave this space contrast and balance. “Let’s not get confused. Part of me being an asshole, you liked well enough.”
Was this... was he teasing me? All his danger was turned down to some flirty comradery. Like we were at a reunion, “remember when I called you pathetic and made you come so hard your brain broke? Good times.”
Except I wasn’t going to give him that. I wasn’t going to give him anything.
“I don’t like anything about you, Ronan.”
“Well, it’s easier to surrender when you can hate the person forcing you to do it,” he said, looking out the windows at the city.
“There is not one situation I can imagine where you give up control,” I said.
“I don’t know,” he said, his eyes still on the clouds, birds making their way across town. “The priests were fond of my surrender.”
Oh. Right. Now I felt foolish. “I’m sorry,” I felt compelled to say.
“Being hurt by people who were supposed to care for us is something we have in common,” he said. When he finally turned to look at me, I was startled to be caught staring at him.
“You’re talking about my husband?” I said. “I don’t know if he was ever supposed to care for me.”
“Millennia of married people would say otherwise.”