She tipped her head. “If you’re an addict, that’s one thing. But I think you’re just alone.”
“Both things can be true.”
“But are they?”
I chewed on my lower lip for a long moment. It would be so easy to let her believe the worst about me.
But I found I couldn’t. Not quite.
“No,” I said truthfully and bent to sign the document. “Done.”
She took the pen from me with the cutest smirk I’d ever seen and signed with a flourish. “Me too.” Then she stood up. “I’m going to powder my nose, and then we can go. In the meantime…” She glanced down at the papers. “You might want to read through your addendum. I suspect you’ll find it illuminating.”
She got up and sauntered out of the room, conscious, had to be, of the fact that I couldn’t stop staring at her ass in that dress. My assistant deserved a raise for finding it.
When she was gone, I turned to the top of the survey Liam had included.
That asshole had included an encyclopedia of kink.
“Liam, you’re going to get your ass beat for this,” I muttered as I started reading through the checklist. “Wax play. Knife play, for fuck’s sake? Laney probably thinks she married a deviant.”
Or maybe she didn’t. Because as I scanned back over the list, I couldn’t help but notice that there were a fair amount of Yes boxes checked, a whole lot of Maybes, and only one… two… nope, just three Nos. Out of more than fifty.
And then had included several more pages of written answers to the places asking for specific fantasies or other thoughts.
And I’d already thought I was the luckiest man alive. Holy fucking shit.
“Ronan?”
I looked up to find Laney had returned and was watching me by the door. She was holding a small clutch, obviously ready to go.
I stood. “You little vixen. You tell me to read that and now we have to go? Fuck the party. I want to explore fantasy number four.”
She smiled, a slow, wily expression that nearly had me shoving her up against the wall, dress bunched to her waist,while I made good on orgasm number one for the week. She had checked yes for wall sex and had drawn a star next to it for good measure…
“I just wanted you to know I’m not the savior you think I am, Ronan.” She turned to the door and opened it as she spoke over her shoulder. “Maybe I can be a little bad, too.”
22
AN INCONVENIENT CONSCIENCE
RONAN
“So, what exactly is this party for?” Laney asked as Mac pulled the Range Rover to a stop outside the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.
I gazed up at the building near Fenway that was originally built to mimic a Venetian castle. Like so much of this sort of faux-architecture, it was a shadow of the real thing. “Officially, it’s a celebration of my brother’s so-called ‘retirement.’”
“The one who just stepped down as CEO? How old is he?”
I snorted. “He’ll be forty in September.”
“He’s retiring that young?”
I glanced back at her. Laney was watching the busy entrance of the museum, where the event planner was checking guests off a list, her sharp eyes darting quickly down the line of guests. Evaluating. Noticing. What, I couldn’t say.
“Not quite. His girlfriend’s family has a farm in Vermont, and he moved there with her. He decided he’d rather milk cows than be on Forbes Richest People list,” I replied dryly. “Hence, they turned to me.”
I still didn’t get it. Fine, Simone was cute and all. Actually, if I were being completely honest, the first time Brendan brought her around to meet the family, watching the two of them together made me want to tear my eyeballs out with envy.
