Page 62 of Cruel Lies

"I cleared the bar."

"Yeah, I got that part."

"You seemed like you wanted to talk." He says it perfectly reasonably, as though everything that just happened is a perfectly normal romantic gesture, somewhere between flowers and a mixtape. "It's difficult to talk with a man in a quarter-zip auditioning to be your next mistake."

"You…" I press my lips together. "You didn't have to pay to close down a bar. You could have just, I don't know.Notdone that. I was handling it."

"You were," he agrees. "You were about to eviscerate him. I have no doubt he'd have limped away with his ego in a sling." He tilts his head. "But you shouldn't have had to. You came here because you were afraid, and someone should have made you feel safe. Instead, a stranger tried to buy the right to your evening at the price of a five-dollar martini because he decided he liked your curves." Something flexes in his jaw. "I found I didn't have the patience to watch that. So I removed the possibility."

There is a hot, mortifying, entirely unscientific part of me that is currently doing cartwheels. Because Ronan didn't tell me to smile at the man. He didn't tell me I was being difficult, or dramatic, orcrazy.He didn't suggest therapy.

He looked at a room full of people and decided that the only two who got to stay in it were me and him, and he did it not byputting a hand on my shoulder but by putting himself between me and the hand.

This is different,the traitor in my chest whispers.This is different and you know it.

"That," I mumble, "was an insane thing to do."

"Was it?"

"You made a grown man wet himself."

"I did nothing." He spreads his hands, all innocence. "He made a choice. I merely described the consequences of a different one."

"What did yousay?"

He looks at me for a long moment, those churning gray-blue eyes steady, and I get the strangest sense that he's deciding how much of himself to let me see. "I told him," he says at last, "that he'd walked into the wrong bar on the wrong night. And that the woman he was bothering was under my protection, and that if he ever came within a hundred feet of you again, I would take a personal interest in the rest of his life."

Gulp.

"You can't just—" I start, and then I stop, because I genuinely don't know how that sentence ends.

You can't just protect me? You can't just want to?Every version of it comes out sounding silly.

"I apologize if I overstepped," he offers with grace. "I told you I'd tell you before I did things like this, and I didn't. I'm doing it again." He drags a hand down his face, then settles. "But I won't apologize for not wanting to watch it. I don't have that in me tonight, Ms. Meadows. It's been a long day for both of us."

And that, of all things, is what undoes the knot the rest of the way.

"Okay," I say.

His eyebrows lift, but he waits for me to finish.

"Okay, you overstepped, but okay, I'm choosing—for tonight, andonlyfor tonight—not to make it a big deal." I fold my arms on the table, mirroring him. "Because I have a much bigger fire to deal with, and you're the only fire extinguisher I've got."

He nods. "Then let's put it out."

"Tell me what you need."

He doesn't hesitate. That's the thing about him—when he's not being deliberately maddening, he's impressively direct and efficient. Competence porn at its finest. "Two things. First, I'll need full access to your corporate filings. Everything you can give me. I can't fight a motion I can't see." He purses his lips. "Some of it will not be pleasant. You're going to learn exactly how much of your own company you signed away in the fine print. I need you to be ready for that."

"Done," I say. "What else?"

He eyes me. "Second. A limited power of attorney over the marital assets. It will be narrow, specific, and revocable the second you decide otherwise. It lets me act quickly on your behalf—freeze what needs freezing, answer what needs answering—without waiting for a signature every time the clock is running. And in a fight like this, Ms. Meadows, the clock isalwaysrunning."

That gives me pause. It's a lot to ask, and I'm recently burned, so no one could blame me for being wary of signing away bits of my life again.

But this man just whispered threats that made an entitled stranger flee into the night. He's given me everything I've asked for and been nothing but straightforward and courteous every step of the way. Yes, he infuriates me at times, but it's not by lying. It's the unwavering honesty that is so unusual and sometimes frustrating.

That's a good quality, I decide.