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“Brussels. An EU passport gives you a few more options for hiding out.”
“I’m Belgian. That’s fun.”
“I honestly don’t know anyone on the run who has been so okay with it.”
“Remember what you said when we met?” I asked. “It all depends on what’s coming through your door . . .”
It felt like a lifetime ago when he’d said that to me. The girl in the dress didn’t even seem like me, that was how much I felt like I’d changed since then.
“Aye,” he said. “I remember. Come on, let’s do this picture.”
“I’m going to try very hard to look Belgian.” He shook his head, but I could tell he was smiling at me.
* * *
Ronan
“Now what?” she asked after I’d sent the picture. I knew what she was angling at, but someone had to keep their wits about them.
“Why aren’t you scared?” I asked, because she stood there with her terrible haircut and two families after her, the rest of her life buried in the unknown, and she was smiling at me.
“You won’t let anything happen to me.”
“You don’t seem to understand that I’m the thing that happened to you.”
She took a deep breath, like she was thinking it over. “I guess I don’t see it that way. Can I ask you a question?”
“I’m pretty sure I can’t stop you.”
“Why are you going back?”
“To get answers.”
“I don’t care about the answers.”
“Someone wants you dead or alive, Poppy, and you don’t care?”
“Not if you’re going to get hurt.”
Oh. This. I’d thought we could skip this part.
“I’m not going with you, Poppy.”
“I’m not asking you to. I’m just asking you not to go back there.” She stepped forward and I stepped back. And then gave up the dance altogether and went around her into the living room. God, this fucking place was so small.
“Ronan.” She followed. Of course she followed. She was a goddamned dog with a bone, and I needed to smack her to get her to drop it. I just . . . I didn’t have the will to smack her anymore. She didn’t deserve my cruelty.
“If I don’t go back,” I said, “you’ll be hiding forever. You’ll never have your money. You’ll never have your name—”
“I don’t care about those things.”
“What about your sister?”
“Trust me, she doesn’t care. Ronan—”
She reached for me, the edjit, her hand closing around mine. “Go anywhere but back,” she said. “You don’t have to tell me where you go. I won’t follow you like some lovesick girl. I just can’t stand the idea of you going back and getting hurt because of me.”
“It’s not just because of you,” he said. “I have my own reckoning with Caroline. My own questions I need answered. For me, Poppy. Nothing to do with you.”
“What can I say that will change your mind?”
“Nothing. Not one thing, Poppy. It’s done.”
She took a deep breath that shuddered at the top and then when she let it go. Her eyes were on the ceiling, and I could see her blinking back tears. “I don’t want to spend the last of our time fighting. And I really don’t want to spend it crying.”
When she finally looked at me, the invitation was in her eyes. Her face. It was clear how she’d spend the last of our time and my dick went hard at the thought.
I pulled my hand free and stepped back.
She sighed, disappointed. “I feel like I’ve been begging for you to touch me since the moment we met. And . . . I’m done doing that. We’ve got another few hours to spend here, and I can read a fucking book or we can make each other feel good. But it’s your decision. I’m done feeling like I’m forcing your hand just by asking for what I want.”
She stared at me a second longer and my silence—my inaction—disappointed her more. “I’m going to build up the fire.” She walked around me to the fireplace. Behind me, I heard her fumbling for a second and then the crackle of kindling. I could even hear her blowing on the wood, encouraging it to catch.
You’re a selfish prick. My father’s voice in my head was scathing. Ya always were. Only looking out for yourself. You’d fuck that girl into next week and never think twice.
But I always thought twice. Always. And this was a moment that wouldn’t come again. It made me feral. Wild.
I could hurt her.
She would like it.
The thought of her pleasure at the edge of my violence made it inevitable. I wanted to hurt her and be hurt by her. I wanted to drown in the pleasure and the pain we’d give each other.
And then I wanted to walk away and seal this part of myself, this weak and vulnerable part of myself, up like a brick wall so I never fucking felt this way again.
