Page 44 of Cruel Lies

"That's invasive. Do you know the meaning of the word 'boundaries'?"

Behind me, Hayden's voice floats down the hall. "Mom, who is it?"

"No one!" I call back. "Go finish telling Isabella the thing about the octopus hearts."

"Oh, ya! Guess what? They havethree," he informs his sister, delighted, and I hear Isabella say "Liar" before the two of them descend into a squabble about how many buttholes each of them possess.

When I look back at Ronan, he hasn't moved. He really is obnoxiously good-looking. Jaws aren't supposed to be that razor-sharp. Feels like a safety hazard.

"You can't come in," I inform him.

"I didn't ask to."

"The kids are home."

"I assumed." He glances past me, briefly, at the frog rainboots and the pink ones lined up by the door, and then back to me. "I won't keep you. This won't take long."

"What is'this'?"

He slides his hands into his pockets and leans against the doorjamb. "You did bad science," he says.

I blink. Of all the things I expected—another too-smooth line to get in my pants, an apology of some kind for his role in dismantling my marriage—this is not one of them.

"… Excuse me?"

"You're a data scientist," he says. "A good one. But yesterday, you messed up."

I plant a fist on my hip and scowl at him. "Okay, let me rephrase: Ex-fucking-scuseme? I did not 'mess up.' I gave Todd exactly what he deserved, and I'mdamnsure that I did all my work correctly. If you're going to show up at my house uninvited and start throwing around baseless accusations, then?—"

He holds up a hand that shuts me up as fast as if he'd muzzled me himself. "I'm not talking about that."

"… Oh." I fall into a frown. "Then what…?"

"I'm talking about what you said tome," he clarifies. "Todd got everything he deserved and more, and I don't think there was so much as a decimal point out of place in your presentation. But yesterday, in my office, during our not-a-drink, you made a mistake."

I know when I'm being set up, and this definitely has all the hallmarks of an incominggotchamoment. But dammit, this man has me hooked against my better judgement.

So, even though I can tell it's a bad idea, I bite.

"Alright then. Tell me about this 'mistake.'"

"You rendered your judgment of me based off a single data point." He doesn't raise his voice. He doesn't have to; that deep, even purr does all the work. "All you know about me is that I met with your husband. From that, you built a whole image of me in your head, and you consigned me to the same flaming trash heap he belongs in."

"It's not a single?—"

"It is. Everything else you have on me is hearsay. The bar. The accent. The suit. The office. Circumstantial. If you hired someone and they gave you that report, you'd fire them on the spot."

The thing is.

Thething is.

He's not wrong.

There's nothing worse than a man who knows he's right and fully intends to press his advantage. Because, in my experience, they're a very difficult group to argue with.

But whereas Todd would use gaslighting and relentless pressure to get his way, Ronan here exudes no pressure at all. Despite the optics of the situation—a big, rich, powerful man looming on my doorstep, while I cower in his shadow in a bathrobe withmy children not twenty feet away from me—I feelsafein his presence.

He's simply laying out a case. The question is…