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"I suppose you want me to apologize," I murmured as I returned the gun to my waistband.
"What is it exactly that you would be apologizing for?" Ronan asked. "Leaving without telling anyone where you were going? Staying gone for two weeks without so much as even a text telling your brother you were still alive?"
Ronan glanced at the house. "Worrying him sick?"
I'd expected Ronan to bring up the first two points, but the reference to Sam caught me off guard. My immediate concern had me giving away more secrets than I'd intended because at Ronan's words, I instantly stepped forward, grabbed the man and barked, "What happened? Is he okay? Did something happen to Ryan?"
To his credit, Ronan didn't react either to the hold I had on his arm or my barrage of questions. But all that did was scare me even more. I dropped my hand and quickly hurried toward the house. "They aren't home," Ronan said.
"Where are they?" I asked as I turned back to face him.
"So is that how your relationship with him works?" Ronan drawled as he moved farther into the backyard. I felt this strange sense of possessiveness come over me when he leaned some of his weight against the side of Sam's little garden shed. "You get to know where he is every second of every day, but you're allowed to come and go without so much as a by your leave."
I wasn't as surprised as I probably should have been that he knew about my relationship with Sam but that was because I was too busy trying to control my anger. It wasn't so much the fact that Ronan was my boss, because truth be told, the job, while important to me, wasn't the be-all and end-all of my life. No, it was the fact that he was pointing out something that I was already feeling pretty shitty about. I'd tried to justify my silence in the past two weeks by arguing that communication with Sam or Cruz would've put them in danger as I’d pursued the lead I'd gotten on Bishop, but I was tired of lying to myself. I'd fucked up. Plain and simple. I didn't need Ronan to dump his disappointment on top of all that shit.
"Does Cruz know?" I asked.
"That you’re back or that you're sleeping with the man who will likely be his father-in-law someday?"
I automatically fisted my hands but when I shifted my eyes to the picnic table where Sam and I had talked for the first time… really talked, I felt some of the tension in my chest ease and I drew in a deep breath. I could still hear him whispering in my ear.
You don't need this, Matias.
He let me take my anger and fear and frustrations out on him that day in the form of sex, but he’d done so much more too.
"Maybe I'm just taking a move out of the Ronan Grisham playbook. How is it that you ended up marrying your dead fiancé's little brother again?" I asked. I instantly felt like an asshole as soon as the words left my lips. I didn’t know much about Ronan’s relationship with Seth, but I knew Ronan’s young husband was his entire world.
There was no discernible proof that I'd gotten a reaction out of him. In fact, all Ronan did was sigh. "You're a man who likes the facts, right, Matias? You don't like it when people beat around the bush. So let's do it this way. You want to keep looking on your own for the man who betrayed you, that's your business. But protecting my family is my business. And like it or not, the moment you and your brother agreed to join my team, you became a part of that family. Now, I don't give a fuck if you want to be the batshit crazy, black-sheep cousin who lives in a hut in Timbuktu and wears a tin foil hat on his head, but you're still family. Just like your brother is family."
For the first time since his arrival, Ronan seemed to be losing a hint of the iron grip he had on his control. It made me envious of the man. If I'd been him, I would've already kicked my ass for the dig about his relationship with his husband.
"That man in there"—Ronan pointed in the direction of the house—"may just be a casual fuck to you, but are you so certain he feels the same way?"
"Yes," I responded, even though I’d intended to keep quiet. But something about Ronan suggesting that my relationship with Sam meant more than it did made my chest hurt.
After spending every night with Sam for two weeks straight, I'd expected my need for him to wane, but the opposite was true. I couldn't get enough of him. And worse, I was absolutely terrified that it wasn't just the sex that I couldn't get enough of. It had been getting harder and harder every night to leave him all warm and content in his bed. There had been a few nights when he'd fallen asleep before I’d left and I’d found myself actually watching him sleep like we were in some cheesy romantic movie or something.
