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“Then we might have trouble.”
“Trouble is my business, Bryant. I’m not scared of trouble.”
“You already sound like a Morelli.”
“What about the lawyer? I am guessing you had something to do with his disappearance as well?”
“What lawyer?”
“Don’t be stupid, Bryant.”
“That Bishop’s Landing man?” Bryant shook his head. “He’s a minnow, Ronan. I’m after bigger fish. You, namely.”
I walked around the desk towards the door, leaving my apple and my uncle where they sat. “Don’t get up,” I said. “I’ll see myself out.”
“Ronan.” I heard him get to his feet behind me. Against my better sense I turned. He stood there in ridiculous tennis whites, surrounded by so much wealth and privilege it was like he was on a different planet. “I know you’re struggling with it right now. But you are a Morelli, It’s in your blood. It’s in your temper. The way you fight. The way you survive. You’re mine, son. Come, take your rightful place at my side. I can make you a king.”
I thought of the way my temper leaped every time Father Patrick called me son. How it grated against my soul. This man, this blood relative, said it and I felt nothing.
I didn’t want to be a king. But a man like Bryant would never understand that. He thought he was the envy of all men.
“I am not,” I said. “I’m Gwen’s son and you fuckers broke her heart and kicked her out.” I thought of my da, the kid next door with the skateboard. The priests. Tommy. All of it added up to something small and sad. “I am no one to you.”
Bryant’s smile vanished and his face was hard and cold. The patriarch of a family that eats its own. “Refuse me, Ronan and I’ll be forced to bring Poppy in for a conversation. As the senator’s beneficiary I’m going to need what I paid for, or my money back. And…you know how those conversations go, don’t you? I think you’ve been the one asking the questions a time or two.”
“Are you that crazy?” I asked. “To be threatening my wife right in front of me? I could kill you right now and the only one who’d hear you scream is the goddamn maid.”
He stepped back, his hands up. “I apologize,” he said. “If you change your mind about Gwen, I have a box of hers around here somewhere. Art and pictures. Nonsense really, but as her son—”
I slammed the door behind me as I walked away.
CHAPTER NINE
Poppy
“Ronan will not like this,” Raj said for the millionth time. He was with me in the back of the town car as we left the city behind on our way to Bishop’s Landing.
“Calm down.”
“Easy for you to say,” Raj grumbled, looking out the window. “He won’t fire you.”
“He won’t fire you either.”
“Because he’s going to kill me.”
“No one likes a drama queen, Raj.”
He laughed and looked at me with wide eyes. “You really seem different today.”
“The power of sleep,” I said. But it was more than that. I’d showered and shaved my legs and used new lotion and makeup. My hideous hair was still hideous. But a little product made it look slightly better. Like I’d made an edgy choice I couldn’t quite pull off rather than having been attacked by a raccoon in my sleep.
I relished my new underwear, sexy and lacy and far more fancy than I usually wore but I was going to enjoy a lingerie renaissance. Not only because it made me feel good but I liked thinking about Ronan seeing me in this underwear.
I liked imagining the clench of his fists as he tried to resist me. And then the way he’d tear it off me when all his efforts at resistance failed.
This won’t happen again. Yeah, I’d like to see Ronan try to say that once he’s seen the strategically placed pink bow on my knickers. Over the black lace and silk, I dressed in black linen palazzo pants and a bright red silk tank top.
The scar on my shoulder, healing nicely, was on full display. It looked badass, I thought. Caroline would find it horrific and that was part of my plan. Look at me, I was saying. Look at everything that’s happened and I’m still standing.
I’d slipped my feet into wedges that gave me a few inches. And the person I looked at in the mirror was put together and confident. And, a little bit, a stranger. I liked her.
When we rolled up to the gates of the Constantine compound, I unrolled my window and leaned out to talk to the armed guard.
“Tell Caroline that Poppy is here to see her. Poppy Byrne.”
“Do you have an appointment?”
“I don’t need one.” I rolled the window back up and within seconds the gate was sliding open and the town car eased its way through the old-growth oak trees that lined the drive. Despite not wanting to, I remembered climbing those trees with my sister and Winston Constantine before he was too old to play with us.
