“Obviously.” Something flickered across Ronan’s face that looked almost like disappointment? But it was gone so fast that I couldn’t be sure.
“Can we get an annulment, do you think? Or is this going to require a divorce?”
“Divorce.” He said it like he had just bitten into a lemon, then shook his head. “No, we won’t need to do that. I know every judge in the city. I can get us an annulment with a phone call like that.” He snapped his fingers as if he had just performed a magic trick.
My lips tingled. And so, oddly, did other parts of me much lower down.
Why did I have the feeling that he had, in a way, done some kind of magic with those fingers last night? And why couldn’t I freaking remember any of it, even as my body tingled with hidden memories? It would have been funny if it wasn’t so frustrating.
When I looked up, he was staring at me, thumb rubbing meditatively over his full lower lip, like he too was struggling with the same sensations.
I shivered. I had to get out of here before we did something I would regret. Again. “So, can we call them?”
Ronan frowned. “Now? It’s not even ten in the morning. This is Vegas. Civilized business hours are between two and five.” He picked up a cup of coffee and took a sip as he sat back and elegantly crossed one ankle over his knee. “I’ll call later this afternoon and have it taken care of. We can just hang out until then.”
Hang out.
It was such an innocent statement. So why did it feel so suggestive?
“I…” I found myself searching for a reason to leave. And failing.
Until a plane soared through the sky in the distance.
“I can’t,” I said. “I’m leaving today. Going home to Seattle.”
His cup was set back on its saucer with a sharp clink. “What? You’re going now?”
I nodded, standing and abandoning my croissant. “My flight’s at two, and I need to get back to my hotel to pack.” I stood up, and the torn slit in my dress fell over my leg, showing even more of my thigh than last night and certainly more than was appropriate for ten in the morning.
Ronan’s dark eyes tracked my skin. His jaw tightened. “I can get you another flight, Laney. As you pointed out, I have plenty of money to burn. Stay. We’ll figure everything out, and then I’ll use my plane to drop you wherever you need to go.”
My plane. He said it like he was offering me a ride home from school.
I shook my head. “Um, that’s all right. I think we can just share contact information so I can pass it on to a lawyer.”
Was it the wisest course?
Probably not.
But I also couldn’t stay in this room, alone with this man who had clearly done things to me and whose expression alone was making me want to jump his bones.
I swallowed hard.
Ronan stood too. He was close enough that his clean, spicy scent beckoned me forward, his body mere inches from my own. I didn’t have to look to know that goosebumps had broken out all over my skin and that my braless chest was certainly betraying my thoughts through the thin silk.
“You sure about that, baby?” His voice wrapped around me like a cloak.
My voice was barely above a whisper. “I—yes. I have a business to run. A, um, a cat whom well, he doesn’t need me at all, but I like to pretend he does. Bills, responsibilities… I need to get home.”
He floated a hand over my shoulder, then up to my neck. I tilted my jaw without even thinking about it, letting him trace what he would.
“Need.” His finger toyed with the strap of my dress. “Is that what we’re calling it?”
I shuddered as his finger stroked my collarbone. How could that touch feel so strange and yetsofamiliar? “What else would you call it?”
“‘Running away’ sounds appropriate.”
“I’m not running away.”
