She rolled her eyes. “I—um, I have to open up the shop soon.”
I glanced at the clock next to her bed. “It’s only nine. You don’t open until eleven, right? That’s what your window says.”
“I—well, yeah.” She chewed on her lower lip. Clearly, she was looking for a way out of this. “I just assumed you’d want to be going.”
“Why would I want to do that? I’m in bed with a ridiculously beautiful woman after a night of marathon sex—rough start notwithstanding.”
For that, I was rewarded with a giggle. Something deep in my chest lit up.
“I’m just saying, we could grab a little sustenance, see if we can’t give you orgasm number six before work, and meet up for dinner and round two—or seven, depending on how you’re counting—later tonight. What do you say?”
Her face lit up a bit more with each idea. Okay, so she was enjoying my company as much as I was enjoying hers.
I took her hand and tried to close the deal. “Come on, Ariadne. It’s just a date. A real one, this time.”
It was the wrong thing to say.
She frowned and pulled her hand away. “Ronan, what are we doing? This isn’t a Greek myth. It’s your life. My life. I thought you were here to end this marriage, but this is more like starting something. What is happening?”
I sat up and leaned against her tufted headboard with my arms behind my head, if only to stop from grabbing her hand back on a growl. I didn’t like it when she pulled away. Not right now. “Hear me out, okay?”
“Okay…” She wrinkled her nose in a way that created the most adorable fold between her brow. I redirected my gaze out the window so I wouldn’t kiss it.
“I have a proposal. It’s kind of a crazy idea, but it might also be the most genius thing I’ve ever come up with.”
One dark brow lifted as she folded her arms and waited.
“Fuck the annulment. Let’s stay married.”
Okay, so I probably should have waited at least until breakfast to spring that on her, but she was asking, and suddenly I couldn’t help myself.
That rose petal mouth fell open.
My gaze dropped there, and I grinned. “Sweetheart, what did I tell you about leaving that mouth open? Unless you want me to put something in there again. As I recall, last night you enjoyed my?—”
“Oh my God, Ronan.” She batted my fingers away just before they reached her mouth. “How can you go from saying you want to stay married to proposing explicit sex acts?”
“Special talent, I suppose. But for the record, I amalwaysthinking about indecent sex acts when it comes to you. I cando many things at once. ‘Wisdom is the ability to stand in contradiction without fleeing.’”
She flopped back on her pillow with her arm over her face. “And then he quotes Heraclitus like it’s nothing. You’re giving me whiplash.”
Gently, I peeled her arm back so I could see her. “I think you like it, though.”
For that, I was rewarded with the world’s most beautiful scowl.
“Just listen,” I said, shaking her hand a little. “We obviously like each other. Have a good time together. Right? Why not make a go of it?”
“I don’t know. Because we barely know each other?” Suddenly, she was all movement, scooting up in the bed to sit up. “Or the fact that we live three thousand miles apart, or that we have jobs we can’t just abandon, or?—”
“Hush.” I placed a finger on her perfect mouth while it was still slightly open. I smirked.
She shut it immediately and shoved my hand away. “I’m serious.”
“So am I. And for the record, I’ve thought about all of that. For example, I know you’re struggling with your mother’s company, and in case you forgot, darling, I come with loads of cash. Now that you’re married, you’re entitled to some of it, so we could hire a manager or a creative director or whatever you need to reinvigorate the business and keep your mother’s dream alive. Honestly, it’s no skin off my back.”
Her eyes popped open. “I—but you can’t just?—”
“I can and easily will if you let me,” I informed her. “Meanwhile, you can finish your dissertation and go on the tenure track or whatever it is you wanted to do with PhD in Ancient Greek studies. My family has plenty of friends at Harvard—or we should, after having three different buildingsnamed after us. I’m sure I could fund a chair or something in the Classics department.”
