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Our champagne was delivered, popped and poured and before I could register even taking off—it seemed we were in the air. I spun the ring on my finger and drowned my sorrows in expensive bubbly.
It wasn’t all that different from the night I met Ronan. The engagement ring on my finger had been another man’s. And the champagne had been Caroline’s. I really needed to start buying my own jewelry and my own fucking champagne.
But the rage was all mine.
“What are you going to do?” Eden asked. “When you get back?” She was like a jaguar trying to make polite conversation. She wore her fur coat; the black dress beneath it poured over every curve. She’d reapplied her red lipstick and pulled all that black hair up into a messy bun on the top of her head. A jaguar at the end of a long day.
Admittedly, I was a little drunk and my world was utter chaos, but I remembered with sudden and exciting clarity how she’d hit on me. Twice.
My marriage to Ronan seemed to have changed dramatically the way he talked to me. Looked at me. It was nice to think that someone on this plane might still find me…desirable. It was a weird, selfish comfort but whatever. This was a cold dark night and I was taking what I could.
Taking what I could. There was Ronan in the cottage, telling me that as he crouched over my naked body. There is only what you take.
How clearly I understood that now. I’d waited my whole life for people to give me things. Crumbs of affection. Opportunities. A way to keep me and my sister safe. That was over. I would take what I needed. What I wanted. I drained my champagne flute and held out my glass for more. Eden obliged. “I’m not thinking about tomorrow,” I said.
“Probably smart,” Eden agreed. We both sipped our champagne, the hum of the engines quieter than on a big commercial jet. Almost like a purr. “For what it’s worth?” she said. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” I almost spat the word. God, how much of my life had I spent apologizing. Sorry for who I was and who my sister was and what our parents had done to us. I looked at Eden, the sexy jaguar in the sexy jaguar dress. “Stop being sorry. It doesn’t change anything.”
She blinked at me and I looked away, enraged by her surprise. Even a mouse gets pissed if you fuck up her life enough times. The back door to the jet’s cabin opened and Ronan was there, wearing dark slacks and a darker sweater. Clothes that were on this jet, apparently. His jet. Evidence was mounting that my husband was a very wealthy man.
There had been a meeting with lawyers before my marriage to the senator. A prenup we’d signed basically stipulated that if I left him for any reason, I got nothing. I’d signed it because I had nothing to begin with. And, of course, because I was dumb.
Maybe when Ronan was done with me, I’d take all his money. Especially this jet with its leather and champagne. His hair was damp and he’d shaved. The dark growth of his beard was gone, removing all resemblance to the softer man at the cabin. I would mourn the loss of that guy maybe for the rest of my life.
Now his face was back to unforgiving lines and narrowed eyes and a mouth I wanted to kiss until it was familiar.
I took a sip of my champagne that ended up being half the glass and held it out for Eden to refill. She made some scoffing noise in her throat but filled my glass.
That’s right, I thought, getting into the spirit of things.
He sat down opposite me on another long banquette. Our attendant arrived and asked him in a low voice if he wanted anything. Ronan’s clear crisp eyes took in our half bottle of champagne and our glasses and he shook his head. Like someone on this plane needed to keep their wits about them. The attendant vanished again, leaving us alone with the hum of the motor and the threat of what would happen when we arrived back in New York.
It occurred to me, suddenly, that one of us—or all of us—could die. It wasn’t such a leap to make. Ronan and Eden’s hired killer had left a trail of bodies in Carrickfergus. I had, up until my marriage, been wanted dead or alive. And just about everyone who knew Ronan probably wanted to kill him at some point. I was trying not to be dramatic, but it really seemed like all signs were pointing to more bloodshed.
“I talked to Niamh,” Ronan said. “She found the bankers box at your house.”
“Really?” That seemed like an impossible long shot.
