Just like last night, it was supposed to be a private joke to myself, considering I was basically a two-bit Dionysus. I’d found the girl at Naxos, after all. And the moment she’d let me kiss her, I’d been just as star-struck as the god in the stories when he found his future wife asleep on that island.
Little had I known that my father’s Girl Friday was going to call me in the morning and inform me that not only was I the new nominee to take over his seat at the table, but that apparently I was expected to play the family man to curry the conservative boards votes.
Hmmm. Maybe finding my wife wasn’t such a bad thing after all…
The girl’s frown deepened, causing a slight mark to appear between her brows. God, she was cute. “You remember that too?”
I grinned. “Sure do, sweetheart. Like it?”
She shrugged, cheeks pinking adorably. “It’s just not every day I’m compared to a Greek god’s wife.” She waved her left hand through the air, cheeks pinking adorably. “Ironic, isn’t it?”
Apparently, the joke was on me. Waking up with a wife in Vegas was one thing—crazy, but probably not allthatuncommon here. Waking up with one who got my obscure Greek mythology references was another.
For the first time in a long time, I felt genuinely rattled. And I couldn’t have said why.
“My name—myactualname—is Delaney. Fisher,” she broke through my sudden daze.
“Delaney. Irish too, I think?” I resumed my seat on the couch, unfazed by my near-nakedness.
At least she seemed as startled by my physique as I was by her beauty. Frankly, I enjoyed the way her gaze flickered over the shoulders, abs, and muscles built in the ring. Taking punches for hours every week to banish my demons had to have at least one perk.Enjoy it, cutie.
Our eyes met. She coughed and averted her gaze. “Sort of? I think I have a great-great-grandmother from Cork.”
“Excellent county. Great whiskey. Smoked fish. All sorts of tops to their mornings.” I was talking out of my ass. Yes, my family was Irish, but all I knew about it was the fact that my grandfather was from Derry, had been a part of the IRA, and had settled in Boston along with a bunch of other Irish gangsters. “So, Delaney Fisher from…”
“Seattle,” she completed. “And everyone calls me Laney.”
“Got it. Laney. Do you follow your name too? Enjoy the fruits of the sea, as it were?”
“I—what?”
Fruits of the sea? Was I a tuna salesman? Like an idiot, I kept trying. “Your last name. Fisher. I’m asking if you’re pescatorially inclined.”
“What? I, uh, eat fish sometimes, I guess. And I run my family’s clothing shop. We don’t, um, fish. Is that what you’re asking?”
I had no fucking clue what I was asking. Or what I was doing. I just wanted her to keep talking.
I wanted her to stay.
“So, the name’s generational?” I continued. “Aspirational? Either way, I like it. Fisher. Fisher. Good strong name. Very salt-of-the-earth.”
It was a stupid conversation. And yet, I kept going. Babbling like a teenage girl in front of the highschool quarterback.
What in the actual fuck was happening? I was Ronan Black. Chaos agent. Family jester. Angel of death.
I could smooth-talk anyone—or put them in the ground. I did not. Fucking. Babble.
Our staring contest resumed. Her staring at me. Me staring at her. Me wondering how much of last night she remembered. If she’d be willing to clue me in.
“Look,” she interrupted. “I know this is weird.”
“Oh, it’s beyond weird, gorgeous.” I stretched my arms over my head and affected the greatest yawn in my life, if only to stop trying to recall the exact size and shape of her tits. “But I’ve woken up in weirder situations.”
“You’ve woken up in a weirder situation than waking up married?”
I shrugged. “I once found myself on a traveling Cirque du Soleil bus sleeping in a nest of five-foot-tall acrobats.Thatwas weird. They hadn’t even removed their body paint. We were halfway to Kansas before I managed to untangle myself.”
She blinked, clearly thinking I was certifiable. Possibly she was correct. Likely, in fact.
