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“I’m going home.” I snatch up my jacket from where it’s strewn across a chair and pluck my bow tie from the carpet. “Got work to do.”
Without another word, I stride out of Cillian’s condo, a horrible desire crawling under my skin.
I need to see my wife.
Outside One Diabhal Square, Ronan is hunched over in the rain, puffing on a cigarette.
He stubs it out as I stride up the steps. “You’re home early. Belsky dead already?”
“I wish. Where’s my wife?”
“Upstairs in the fine care of Paddy.” He reaches into his jacket, tugs out a soaked cigarette pack, and slides another between his lips. “She had quite the reaction in there.”
I pause in the doorway. ““What do you mean?”
He takes a drag, the tip of his cigarette glowing angrily. “At the ball. Seemed like she knew exactly what the danger was and who it was coming from.” Through the billow of smoke, he adds, “And she sure didn’t want you hanging around.”
I turn, facing my right-hand man head-on. “You gonna get to the point, or are you going to keep me standing in the fucking rain?”
“All I’m saying is that last week, she tried to stab you in the goddamn neck. This week, she’s begging you not to get hurt. What’s changed?”
“Maybe she’s warmed to me.”
“Maybe she has a guilty conscience.”
Grinding my jaw, I leave him there to chain-smoke, and get in the elevator. As it takes me up to the penthouse, my own words reverberate around my head.
Maybe she’s warmed to me.
Maybe I’m not imagining it. While I’ve been trying so goddamn hard to avoid her for the past week, she seems to have softened. The stolen glances in the car. The watery eyes when I slipped that ring on her finger.
That kiss.
Things change. Feelings shift.
More fucked-up events have happened in this world.
I find her on the sofa, curled up in a ball with the television remote clenched in her fist. On the screen, that obnoxious chef she’s been taking cooking lessons from squawks about a risotto. Does she ever take a fucking break?
I nod over at Paddy in the corner, letting him know he can leave. He does so with a little grunt, trotting to the elevator and disappearing.
She doesn’t wake as I pry the remote from her hand, but when I turn the television off, plunging us into silence, her eyes ping open, frantic and confused. They land on me, coming into focus.
“You’re here.”
“I told you I would be. You made quite the scene.”
“I was scared.”
I study her bloodshot eyes, looking for a hint of a lie. “You’re not the type of woman who gets scared, Romy.”
There’s a flicker of panic. It doesn’t last long, but I catch it before she replaces it with a hardened glare. “Drunk, then.” She swallows. “Did I embarrass you?” She glances at my lips. “Are you going to punish me?”
I take my time, running my thumb over her mascara-stained cheeks. Feeling her soft flesh under my pad. “I already told you. I’m not going to punish you anymore.”
There’s no missing the disappointment that creases her brow. It makes my cock tingle violently. She arches her back, the other strap of her dress sliding off her shoulders, and pulls something from underneath her.
A knife.
