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“If I tell you, will you come inside?”
“Maybe.”
“Northern Ireland.”
My mouth fell open and I blinked, looking out at the darkness as if it were a different darkness than what I knew in New York.
“Poppy.” He sighed. “Your shoulder.”
“How did we get out of New York?”
“A private jet.”
“Caroline’s?”
“No.”
“Whose?”
“I called in a favor,” he said, like that was any kind of answer.
“Does she know where we are?”
“No.”
That was . . . interesting. I would spin that around in my head later. The cold didn’t allow me to dwell or think.
“Who took care of my arm?”
“A doctor.”
“On the jet?”
He nodded.
“Another favor?”
“No. I paid him. I paid him to sew up your arm and to keep his mouth shut.”
“You shot me?”
“If that’s what you remember.”
Right. This asshole right here. This dangerous, infuriating, murdering asshole. He didn’t shoot me and then bring me all the way here. To fucking Northern Ireland.
“You’re lying to me, Ronan.” Funny, the courage being shot will drill down deep into your terrified soul. “What’s the point of shooting me and then bringing me here?”
He rubbed a hand over his face, and I knew I was right. I almost felt bad for him.
“Is this . . . part of your job?” I asked.
“No.” He laughed wearily. “No.”
“Tell me what’s happening,” I demanded.
“Come inside and I will,” he said, almost like he was asking. It’s not like I really had a choice, but he pretended I did. That was a kindness from him I never expected. He wasn’t one for leaving me with my dignity.
I walked past him in the doorway, letting my shoulder touch his chest, and he sucked in a breath like it burned.
I realized, standing with the fire in front of me and the night at my back, that my life was about doorways. The ones I went through. The ones I kept shut.
“Poppy?” he asked, close enough I could feel his breath against my face. The heat of him against my hurt arm. I couldn’t step in or back. Or away. I was stuck there in that doorway with him. One more question on my lips.
“Was fucking me part of your job too?”
“I never fucked you.”
“You know what I mean,” I said, wanting the truth, even though I knew it would hurt.
The wind howled.
“Yeah,” he said. “You were part of my job.”
“There,” I said and smiled with all my teeth. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
“Poppy.” He reached for me, but finally, I stepped away into the room. The fire was hot, and the room swam a little around me. I stumbled, my knee suddenly buckling, and he grabbed me by my elbow, keeping me on my feet.
“You need to go back to bed,” he said quietly. I wondered, looking at him, what doorways he’d walked through in his life and what he’d left behind in the process. Everything, I imagined. Ronan just kept walking, taking nothing with him through life.
That’s not important. You need to focus on what’s important.
“You didn’t shoot me.” It wasn’t a question, but I would say nothing else to him if he didn’t answer me.
“No,” he confessed. “I didn’t shoot you. Theo Rivers made an impossible shot.”
“If I wanted to leave, would you let me?”
“You’re hurt.”
“Am I free to leave?” I looked him right in the eye with all the bravery I hadn’t felt around him before.
“No. Not until we know what’s happening. Not until we have a plan.”
“I’m a prisoner?”
“The Morellis want you dead or alive,” he said. “I’m not sure why you’d want to leave.”
“Why?” What in the world did I mean to them dead or alive? “There’s got to be a mistake.”
“The Morellis don’t make mistakes.”
“Everyone makes mistakes.” I had no idea why I was arguing like this. “Can’t we just talk to someone? Eden Morelli! I could talk to her—”
“You’re not talking to any Morellis.”
“It’s all just . . . a little intense, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Poppy. It’s intense.” He was laughing at me. Not on the outside. On the outside, he was the same Ronan, deep and unreadable. But inside, I could tell he was having a good chuckle at my expense.
I sighed, suddenly exhausted.
“Come on,” he said, putting a hand under my left elbow like I was eight years old or an invalid.
I flinched away from him. “I don’t need your help.”
He humored me all the way back into the bedroom. “Of course not.”
I had seven million more questions, but the adrenaline was gone, and I limply climbed into the bed that wasn’t mine. My mind was fuzzy from the pain meds. I could ask all of them, but they were all extensions of the only question that mattered. The only question I had the strength to ask as my eyelids drooped and my body went heavy.
“Why?” I whispered. Why did Ronan shoot the senator? Why did Theo drug me? Why did the Morelli family want me dead or alive? Why did he save me?
