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Iris
La Nostalgie was a gift from Claire’s husband,Dominic. This was her first real girls’ night out since having Baby G, and he wanted her to have the best of the best.
She looked so hot in her silky green dress, her husband had barely let her out the door, but having our behemoth of a bodyguard, Matt, had made it easier.
He was looming now as the three of us sat at a table beside a bay of windows overlooking the sidewalk. I hated that I had to have a bodyguard, but I had to admit, his presence made it easier to relax and not worry about who might approach us.
Of course, I knew he was reporting everything we did to his boss.Thatdid not give me peace of mind. Not when there were only four tables separating us.
I had noticed Ronan immediately. His presence had called to me like a moth to a flame. But I couldn’t stop myself from looking as the beautiful, elegant woman beside him as she laid her hands all over him in a proprietary way and he leaned into it like he agreed with her claim.
God, maybe he did.
I wouldn’t be surprised if she was his girlfriend. They fit, and they fit well. Like one of his suits hanging snug on his shoulders, hugging his narrow waist, tailored perfectly.
Hope smacked my hand with her thin menu. “Are you here?”
“I’m so here, honey bunny.” Tucking my phone away when it became clear Ronan wasn’t going to reply to my last text, I turned my attention to Hope and Claire, my top-notch dinner companions. “It’s not my fault your boyfriend succeeded in getting me baked before dinner.”
“You should know better than to eat Rodrigo’s brownies,” Claire tsked. The hypocrite had eaten half of one in the car on the way here.
I’d only had a corner of Roddy’s brownie when I’d picked up Hope on the way to dinner. That one corner had softened the edges of the evening, but I wasn’t really baked. Not as much as I’d like to be while in the presence of Ronan on a damn date.
The jealousy I was supposed to be ditching this week in his absence? Any success I’d had had been washed out by the green-eyed viper living in my chest. Finn had probably been right about it being best to keep their private lives separate from their jobs. I did not enjoy seeing some woman—admittedly stunning and classy—pawing all over my bodyguard.
“How’s Baby G? Did she tell you she misses me?”
Claire smiled. “She did say that, so you’d better come by soon.” She patted my hand. “Any other trouble with the exes? Did that asshole get arrested yet?”
My mind slid to that letter in my drawer, but I shook my head. “No trouble. And no arrest. His mom is apparently willing to lie to protect her misogynist baby boy.”
Hope shook her head. “I don’t get how someone can flip a switch the way he did after you broke up.”
I disguised the two deep breaths I had to take to calm myself by covering my mouth with my hand, shaking off the slight surge of panic.
“To be fair, in the time we spent together, having deep conversations wasn’t the top priority.” I took a sip of my cocktail. “He’s probably always been a shitty human, I just didn’t care to notice before now.”
Claire rested her cute little chin on her fists. She was so adorable, I wanted to scoop her up and put her in my lap. She had that way about her.
“I missed out on this kind of fun after my divorce,” she said.
“You don’t regret marrying Dom.” There was no point in putting a question mark on the end of that statement. I had no doubt Claire had ended up right where she wanted to be.
“Of course not. And you know me, I tried to do the no-strings hookup thing with him, and here we are. The man put a ring on it and knocked me up. As my sister informed me when it was way too late to go back, I was built to fall.”
I laughed. “She could have warned a bitch.”
Claire rolled her eyes. “For real. Not that I’m mad about it.”
Hope raised her hand. “Hello. Go and I were supposed to have a one-night stand, and I didn’t even get out of bed before I was asking to see him again. I’m the worst failure, mylord.”
I rubbed the center of my forehead with two fingers. “I don’t know what it says about me that the man I brought into my bed for months is capable of doing what he did. Roddy or Dom would never trash your place if you tried to dump them.”
Hope looked like she might crumble at the thought. “I couldn’t. He’d go all puppy-dog eyes and I’d instantly tell him I was sorry.”
Claire lifted a shoulder. “Dominic wouldn’t accept it, but he’d never hurt me.”
“Exactly.” I let their happiness soften me. “And I can’t even tell you how glad I am that both of you have that.”
