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My heartbeats seem to echo in my chest, like the cavity is entirely hollow, this anticipation excruciating. I almost jump when one of the guys opens my car door.
“Here we go.” I whisper to myself.
It will be the last deal we strike together… and the first I strike on my own.
RONAN
It’s just like any otherbusiness meeting—we meet, we see the asset, we pay, we shake hands, and we leave.
But this is not like any other business meeting at all… is it?
This one is withher.
It’s been forty-eight fucking hours of those blue-gray eyes haunting every single moment of my day, and every second of my nights. She creeped into my thoughts at the most inconvenient of times, distracting me, keeping me awake, filling my dreams. Last night I could barely sleep because I knew those eyes would be staring at me today. Reinforcing their hold, along with the spell she must have put on me.
Even now, as I sit at this table in one of Rosenberg’s private dining rooms, her eyes cloud my mind. Enticing, entirely too fucking mesmerizing.
And suddenly, they’re real. Staring right at me.
“Gentlemen. Good evening.”
I rise from the chair at the same time as the guys, and inhale so fucking deep, I think my lungs will rip at the seams. I need all the oxygen I can muster to get through being in this small room with her. But a faint wildflower scent fills me, and all that air gets knocked right out of me.Shit.My cock twitches—I don’t think it got the memo that this is a business meeting. Who can blame it? She looks like a siren, that black dress hugging her perky tits and small waist before falling off her delicate hips, revealing nothing more than her slender arms and perfect legs below the knees.
We all greet them, shaking hands over the table. When I touchhers, she pulls away so damn fast, you’d think I burned her. But she’s the one who seared my skin.
“Please. Have a seat,” Carter says, pointing to the chairs on the other side of the table.
Another deep breath fills my lungs and I steady myself. I need to be present this time around. I can’t have a repeat of the first meeting.
Only, my eyes betray me, and when I catch her gaze already on me, it feels stolen. She turns immediately, running over all the faces in the room, and it’s not hard to notice that she’s forcing her composure. I cock my head just as her eyes land back on mine, grinning just enough that it throws her off her game and her alabaster cheeks flush pink.
Either she’s just as affected by me as I am by her, or… it’s the meeting making her uneasy. Which is another reason why I need to focus.
“Gentlemen, I hope you understand that Ingrid and I don’t want to linger too long, so if you don’t mind, we would like to go straight to business.” Erika, the prim and polished one my brother wouldn’t shut up about yesterday, speaks.
But that’s not what I want; I want this meeting to last as long as it takes me to get my fill of Ingrid.
“Just a moment,” I say, lifting a finger.
She frowns, but a knock sounds at the door.
“Come in.”
The women and their security stiffen, but Finn lets them know the waiter is here. We quickly order our drinks and refuse food, anxious to get to the important part of the evening.
“Apologies. You see that horizontal thin strip of glass about a third way up the common wall with the corridor?” Finn explains. “It was Rosenberg’s delicate way of ensuring you can see if someone’s coming so you can halt the conversation.”
“This place was built with a purpose, I see,” Erika says, brightening a shade as she looks at my brother.
I turn to him, and the man is the same. What the fuck is it with these women? We spoke three words, yet somehow, we seem wrapped around their little fingers.
“I suggest we wait until the waiter returns with the drinks before you show us the painting. In the meantime, we wouldn’t mind learning more of its provenance, especially since it has been lost for… almost a hundred years now, is it?”
I try to distract them from each other.
“Over.” Ingrid speaks just above a whisper, and her voice sends a rush of shivers through my chest.
I’m back in that meadow again.
