“Is that all it is to you?”
“No. And I don’t want to let her go,” I say. “I don’t give a damn about the contract or the territory or any of that shit. I just... I don’t want to lose her.”
Wolfe tilts his head. “Have you told her any of that?”
I shake my head. I haven’t. I’ve shown her, or at least, tried to. But I’ve never actually said the words.
“Come on.” Cillian pushes off the car. “You need ice cream.”
We end up at a 24-hour ice cream parlor near the harbor. Three grown men hunched over a small table, eating bowls of mint chocolate chip. My nose stopped bleeding, but my ribs ache every time I breathe, and I remember Ronan’s cold and distant glare every single fucking time.
“He’s always been like this, hasn’t he?” I say. “We just didn’t want to see it.”
Cillian taps his spoon against the side of his bowl. “He was always Dad’s. Even when we were kids. He always tried to impress him, always looked for his approval. The rest of us figured out pretty quick that Dad’s approval wasn’t worth chasing. But not Ronan.”
“And now they’re fucking clones,” I mutter before shoveling another bite into my mouth.
“Maybe he always was and he just hid it better when Mom was around.”
I think about that. Mom died when I was seventeen. Ronan was twenty-one, already deep in Dad’s world. Maybe she was the only thing keeping him human.
“I can’t save him,” I say. “Can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved.”
“No,” Cillian agrees. “You can’t.”
My phone buzzes. I pick it up from the table and see Adriana’s name flash on the screen.
Everything okay? You’ve been gone a while.
I stare at the screen, Ronan’s caustic words looping through my mind.
Placeholder. Expiration date.
Then I think about the way she looked at me this morning. The way she wore that dress because she knew I needed something good today. The way she said, “I’m not going anywhere.”
Fuck Ronan. He doesn’t know her. He doesn’t knowus.
This thing between us is real, contract or no contract. At least, it is to me.
And there’s only one way to find out if she feels the same way.
I shoot off a response to her.
Yeah. With Cillian and Wolfe. Be home soon.
She responds right away.
Okay. I’ll be here.
I slip the phone into my pocket.
“I need to talk to her,” I say. “About what happens next. About what we are.”
Cillian nods. “Probably a good idea.”
We pay and head to the parking lot. When we get to my car, Cillian claps my shoulder. Wolfe gives me a nod.
“Good luck,” Cillian says.
