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“That you can still be this innocent, Poppy, is proof that I did the right thing trying to protect you.”
“Protect me?”
“I know you don’t trust me. I understand that, I do. But everyone has a purpose. And you were no exception. But everything is different now. Ronan is a Morelli.”
“Ronan won’t hurt me,” I said, sure of that, at least. He’d killed the senator because he hurt me. He seduced me because he’d been unable to stop himself.
If you were hurt, it would kill me.
I wanted to take these three truths and study them, roll them in the sunlight and add them up, but now was not the time.
“You,” I said with a shrug. “I’m not so sure of.”
She grabbed my hands and I was so stunned I let her. “Take everything out of your accounts and leave. For your sake and your sister’s. Don’t tell anyone where you’re going. Especially not Ronan. Just disappear.”
Leave Ronan? He was the only one who treated me like I mattered.
He’d killed the senator because he hurt me. Seduced me despite knowing it might cost him everything. Married me to keep me safe. My heart lurched forward, straining at all the leashes and chains I had around it.
“Did you know who Ronan was?” I asked Caroline. “In Ireland? Is that why you brought him here?”
“You mean did I know he was the missing Morelli?” Caroline asked and then nodded. Even suspecting it, I barely managed to swallow my gasp of surprise. Caroline was playing the long con and had been for years. “I had Gwen followed. I would have thought the Morellis would have done the same, but when they disown someone, they mean it.”
“Eden Morelli knew,” I said.
“She was always the one to watch for in that family. The only one with a modicum of intelligence.”
“That’s why you brought Ronan here?” I asked.
Something happened on Caroline’s face, like the mask she wore, not just of compassion or kindness but of the total sum of her humanity, fell away. “Was I supposed to leave him, Poppy? A Morelli as a petty thief? A part-time hustler? All that brilliance wasted? When I could raise him up as my own? The perfect trump card.”
I shook my head, disgusted with her. With every bit of her and all the times in my life I believed her lies.
“Now he’s mine. And you won’t touch him, Caroline. You don’t have any power left over him. Send your meat puppet down there and Ronan will kill him for breakfast. And if he doesn’t, I will.”
“You’re not this person, Poppy,” Caroline whispered.
“You don’t have the slightest idea who I am.”
I left without saying goodbye. Without a single other word. Remarkably, I came in here without a purse. Or a coat. No bag. Just myself. And I still walked out of there feeling like I’d shed something. Left something behind. Something heavy and cumbersome. Raj was standing by the car looking nervous. “Everything all right?” I asked when I approached.
“Your phone was blowing up,” he said as I climbed in the back seat. “It was Ronan. I didn’t answer. But then he called me.”
“You told him where we are?” He nodded and winced. I grabbed my phone and called Ronan, hoping I could get him in time before he unleashed a war on Caroline Constantine.
“The fuck, Poppy!” Ronan yelled, answering before the phone even rang. “You went to the Constantines alone? Are you all right?”
“Fine. I’m fine. All is…fine.”
“I’m coming to Bishop’s Landing,” he said. “I’ve got twenty men—”
“Stop. Call off your men.” We pulled away from the Constantine compound, leaving it in my rearview mirror. “I’m coming home.”
CHAPTER TEN
Ronan
This was completely fucking unacceptable. Completely out of bounds. I paced from the window with its view of the city, past the door and the kitchen, down the hall to my bedroom and back. What was needed here, clearly, was a reestablishment of the fucking rules. I said stay and Poppy stayed. Those were the fucking rules. And now, well, there would be punishment, wouldn’t there? On her head. On her fucking head. Going off to the Constantines by herself, like some kind of…what? I didn’t even have the words for this shite.
There was a knock on the front door and I wrenched it open, revealing Poppy and right fucked Raj behind her. Words with him later, to be sure.
“I’m probably going to need a key—” Poppy was saying and I grabbed her hand, pulled her inside.
“Ronan—” Raj started, and I pointed my finger at his face.
“Later,” I said and slammed the door.
“Ronan.” Poppy pulled herself free and took a step back. “I can see you’re upset.”
“Upset?” I shouted and then wished I didn’t. Poppy loved emotion. She thought she was winning when I showed it. And she couldn’t think this kind of behavior would be rewarded. I stepped forward and Poppy stepped back. “I’m not upset, Poppy,” I said in a calm, silky voice thick with my father’s accent when he was deep in a rage. There wasn’t much I could do about that.
