Or… Laney.
That was when I realized the car had come to a stop outside the Quayden.
“Stay here,” I told Mac.
If the penthouse wasn’t empty, it would be soon. This couldn’t wait until we got back to Charlestown.
I needed my girl, and I needed her right fucking now.
The factthat the penthouse was still full of people didn’t help my mood. Voices echoed off the marble edges and gold fixtures—a mausoleum of wealth that was supposed to go with being a member of this family, decor I used as a mask for the life I had in the shadows.
Per usual, I wanted to leave the moment I stepped inside. But not without Laney.
I followed the voices down the bedroom wing until I reached the opened doors of the primary suite. Three people dressed in black were laughing and joking over some Al Green crooning in the background. They surrounded someone standing in front of the big mirror hanging from the far wall.
One of them turned, and I recognized Kate Zola, the stylist out of New York my brothers and I had all been using for a few years now.
The dark-haired woman pushed a pair of thick cat-eyed glasses up her long nose. “Mr. Black. We weren’t expecting you today. I do have some new suits, however. Dario can run down to get them from my?—”
“I just want my wife,” I interrupted. “Where is she?”
The other two people had turned nervously, revealing a woman between them in nothing but a simple black dress that flowed to the floor, her dark hair twisted elegantly up without so much as a tendril out of place above her swanlike neck dripping in diamonds.
Laney turned, green eyes bright with anticipation.
Her skin had been painted and smoothed into porcelain, her eyes rimmed with enough black to shine a shoe. Her cheekbones were sharper, her brows thinner, her lips shinier. Even her nails, usually simple and elegant, had been painted a garish red that reminded me more of a midlife-crisis Corvette than my soulful wife.
She looked beautiful. Of course she looked beautiful—there was no way she couldn’t.
But she didn’t look like her. And I needed my Laney. Now.
“Do you… like it?” she asked.
I frowned. “I do. Now, take it off.”
Laney’s brow crinkled. “What?”
Two of the stylists hid their mouths as they giggled.
“Babe, I think that means yes,” said the one I assumed was Dario.
I strode forward, not bothering to acknowledge either one as I grabbed Laney’s hand and yanked her out of their circle.
“Ronan!” Unsuccessfully, she tried to twist out of my grip as I towed her toward the bathroom. “Ronan, we aren’t finished.”
“Oh, you’re finished,” I pushed her inside before I turned to the stylists, who were all watching us with open mouths. “If you can give us a minute.” Then I slammed the door before turning back to Laney.
“Ronan, what is going on?”
I grabbed her waist and moved her so I could turn on the faucet. Then I picked her up easily and set her down on the counter before I went in search of a washcloth.
“Ronan, talk to me.”
She wriggled down from the sink, but immediately I picked her up and set her right back where she was.
“Stop that,” she said, unsuccessfully batting me away.
I yanked open drawers in search of washcloths. No dice. “Stop what, Ari?”
