Page 126 of Cruel Lies

Isabella beams. Then she reaches up and grabs his sleeve.

"Mr. Ronan."

"Yes?"

"I wish you would stay forever."

I'm standing in the doorway, so I see how her words freeze him in place. "Forever?" he asks carefully.

"Forever," she confirms. "You make the good pancakes and you know about Doctor Fuzz and you're not scary even though you're big."

"I'm not scary?"

"No. You're nice." She yawns hugely. "You should just stay with us forever."

Ronan is dumbfounded for a moment. When he speaks, his voice is rough. "That sounds like a very good deal, Isabella."

"So you'll do it?"

"I'll do my best," he says. "I promise you that."

She seems satisfied with this. She's asleep within a minute, one hand still resting on the edge of the shoebox.

Ronan stands. He looks down at her for a while, then at Hayden in the other bed, and then he turns and finds me in the doorway. Whatever's on his face must be on mine, too, because his eyes catch and hold without either of us speaking a word.

I take his hand and lead him out of the room. I pull the door most of the way shut.

In the hall, in the dark, I put my arms around his neck.

"You okay?" I ask him.

"No," he says, and laughs low. "Not even a little."

"The good kind of not-okay?"

He presses his forehead to mine. "I didn't know therewasa good kind. Until recently."

My heart is so full it hurts. I've spent months waiting for the floor to drop out, for the thing that would prove this was all too good to be true. And it just never comes. He just keepsshowing up—cleaning fish and grilling burgers and saying goodnight to a caterpillar in a shoebox and telling my daughter he'll do his best to stay forever.

"Come to bed," I say.

He follows me down the hall to the room at the end, the one with the window that looks out over the black water. There's moonlight on the lake.

He kisses me slow, hands on my hips, rocking me slowly back and forth like we're dancing. He undresses me by the window, the lake light on my skin, and he doesn't ask if I want the lights off, because he knows I don't anymore.

"Look at you," he murmurs against my throat. "I can't believe you're here."

"That makes two of us."

"I've never brought anyone here." He pulls back and looks at me, his eyes dark and serious. "Not once. Nobody's ever been in this house but me."

He lays me down on the bed and kisses every part of me, the parts I used to hate and don't anymore, and he whispers the same prayers he's whispered over me every night since we first went to bed.

Our clothes disappear somehow. I'm not paying enough attention to know who takes off what or where it goes. I'm mostly just focused on the velvety feel of his strong body moving over mine.

When he finally enters me, he holds himself there for a moment, just looking.

"Calista Meadows," he says. "I love you."