4. Rowan
4
ROWAN
I can’t believe my luck when I run into Genevieve the very next day.
I was disappointed not to see her again at the party. She disappeared right after our dance, and I spent the rest of the night sipping whiskey and ginger, dancing with other ballerinas and guests intermittently while scanning the room for the only woman I really wanted to see. She never reappeared, and sometime just before midnight, I begged off from my dance partner of the moment and went home as well.
Home .
It doesn’t feel like home right now—my father’s estate. That’s how I think of it—as the estate belonging to Padraigh Gallagher, and sometimes as my inheritance, but never home . It hasn’t been home in fourteen years, and it didn’t feel much like it back when I lived there. Back then, in my childhood, it felt like loneliness, like wanting time with a father who never had time for me, and love from a mother who disappeared when I was very young. In my teenage years, it felt like a prison, one that I broke free from as soon as I possibly could.
Ireland is my home. It has been ever since I caught the first flight I could once I turned eighteen and left the States for those verdant shores. I’ve missed it since the moment I boarded the private jet that my father sent me so that I could return to my childhood home—aching for the craggy cliffs, the green fields, the warm pubs, the crashing gray waves onto jagged rocks on the beaches.
The stately mansion that I grew up in feels cold, empty—like a memory that I want to shake loose but just can’t. My childhood bedroom has long since been turned into a guest room, so even that doesn’t hold any glimpses of nostalgia for me, any feeling of homecoming. It’s the same as every other guest room in the house—impeccably clean, with dark furniture and slight variations in the color of decor depending on the room. Mine is done up in deep reds and creams, complete with a patterned duvet on the bed and matching textiles throughout the room.
I slept poorly there last night, my dreams filled with visions of the gorgeous ballerina that got away from me, like Cinderella leaving her slipper behind for the prince—except I didn’t get anything from Genevieve. Not even her number.
It would probably be easy enough to get. All I’d need to do is ask that slightly smarmy manager of hers, and he’d offer it up without any difficulty. But I don’t want that. I want her to want me—to give in—and that can’t be accomplished just by digging up her information without her realizing it.
She’s all that’s on my mind as I step into a downtown coffee shop, eager for some caffeine and the opportunity to sit in peace with a book without any chance that my father might want to speak to me just now. I’m in no mood for conversation—Genevieve is thoroughly occupying my thoughts, and I’m irritable both from lack of sleep and my own frustrated desire that seems to only grow worse with every passing minute. The moment I see her, standing in line to order, I feel my entire body go tense as that desire floods through me.
I woke up this morning moody and hard as a rock, gritting my teeth when I felt the insistent throbbing of my cock pressed between myself and the mattress. My erection had stubbornly refused to go away last night, springing back to life at the slightest thought of Genevieve, and I’d finally stroked myself in the shower after getting home, remembering the delicious scent of her skin and perfume and the way the small of her back felt beneath my palm. I’d imagined her on her knees in the shower, her dark hair soaking wet and plastered to her neck and shoulders as that rosy lipstick rubbed off on my cock, and come harder than I have in years, spraying the tiles on the far side of the shower with my release.
That didn’t seem to have resolved the issue. I spent twenty minutes this morning lingering in bed, torn between jerking myself off as quickly as possible to get on with my day, and wanting to stay in my fantasy of her. In that particular fantasy this morning, she was on top—stripped naked with those long legs on either side of me, her slender hips rolling in a perfect rhythm as she bounced on my cock until I filled her up with my cum.
The fact that it was my fist that I was filling, and not her undoubtedly perfect pussy, only made me more irritable once I was finished.
She’s the last in line to order right now, and I stride quickly across the coffee shop, intent on being the next. I take in the sight of her as I walk—she’s wearing slim black jeans and a white cropped sweater, the strip of skin left bare across her stomach between the edge of her sweater and the top of her jeans making my mouth go dry. I want to sweep my lips across it, feel that taut flesh against my mouth before unbuttoning her jeans and sliding lower?—
Genevieve turns as I walk up behind her, and displeasure fills her expression before she schools it a moment later into that careful blankness that I remember from last night.
“Mr. Gallagher,” she says in a bland, pleasant tone that I also remember from last night, and I wince.
“Rowan is fine. Although if we need to be introduced again—” I grin at her, and she doesn’t return it.
“Are you stalking me?” The question comes out clipped and sharp, and it momentarily catches me off guard.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Are you stalking me?” She asks the question more slowly this time, almost patronizing.
“I’m getting coffee,” I reply smoothly, deadpan, but she doesn’t seem to be willing to find any humor in the exchange.
“Conveniently at the same place I am.” She turns her head toward the cashier, her sleek dark hair sliding over her shoulders, and my palms itch with the desire to feel it against my hands. There are three more customers ahead of us, and I wish there were more. This woman is giving me nothing, and I need more time, because I want everything.
“Sometimes fate just works out like that.” I smile at her, my accent thickening a bit as I speak, and I could fucking swear I see a spark of desire in her eyes as she looks back at me—a flash of heat.
“Is it fate, or persistence, Mr. Gallagher?” She smiles, but it’s tight, and it doesn’t reach her eyes.
“Rowan. And maybe a bit of both?” I keep my own smile on my face, the one that has won me over hundreds of women, though this one is proving to be much more difficult than the others.
“I’d say it’s an inability to pick up on what’s right in front of you.” She moves forward as the last customer ahead of her orders, that flat smile on her face suddenly turning pleasant for the cashier. “I’d like a sugar-free vanilla latte, oat milk.”
She hands over her card, and I look at those long, slender fingers, feeling another pulse of desire jolt through me. Everything about her fucking turns me on.
I somehow manage to place my coffee order—black drip coffee, large—while watching her gracefully drift toward the pickup counter. When I join her a moment later in the throng of other customers waiting for their coffee, I see her look at me sideways, her expression clearly irritated.
“This isn’t the only spot to wait.”
“It’s the one I want to be in.” I flash her that smile again. “You left the party early last night.”
“Did I?” she asks breezily, but I could swear I see a hint of color in her pale cheeks. She almost seems as if she doesn’t want to look right at me.
“I didn’t see you after we danced.”
“So you were looking for me.” It’s the most flirtatious thing she’s said since we met, and I can tell it startles her. She bites her lower lip, briefly, and the sight of her plush lip caught between her teeth makes desire throb through me again.
“I was.” I see no point in pretending otherwise. Flirtation is all well and good, but I want this woman fiercely, and I truthfully don’t have time for an extended game of cat and mouse. My responsibilities are pressing down on me, and I can’t focus on what I need to when Genevieve seems to occupy my every waking thought.
That tight smile crosses her face again as she reaches for the coffee that the barista hands her. “Don’t,” she says, her voice as tense as her expression, and pivots gracefully on her heel to stride away.
Every cell in my body strains to follow after her. But I let her go, wondering if I should be pursuing this at all.
—
The next day, I find myself back at the coffee shop all the same. I spent the day yesterday going over accounts with my father, listening as best as I could to his lecture on the family businesses and their profits and losses over the past year while trying to think about anything other than Genevieve—anything other than the graceful line of her swan-like neck, the fragility of her delicate wrists, the lithe muscle of her body, the way I could smell her warm, salty scent even over the intense smell of coffee beans. I did all I could to try to push her out of my thoughts, but she returned anyway, over and over again, until I finally found myself alone in my room for the night, and I could try to exorcise her for a little while.
I woke up this morning hard and aching again from dreams of her, gritting my teeth as I reached for my cock, groaning with pleasure that I wanted desperately to be from her and not myself. I haven’t jerked off this much since I was a teenager , I remember thinking grimly as I’d spilled stickily all over my fingers, the pleasure fading quickly and leaving me with nothing but the desire to see her again.
Though she’s a few customers ahead of me in line this time, I join her again at the pickup station. “I’m surprised to see you here again,” I remark casually as I walk up next to her, and she looks at me, quickly hiding the startled expression in her eyes. It’s replaced immediately by a now-familiar annoyance.
“Why?” she asks coolly. “This is my usual spot.” She looks almost immediately as if she regrets telling me that, and I smirk.
“You don’t seem to like running into me here.”
“So, what?” She turns to look at me fully, and I notice she’s dressed in black and white again—a pair of black bike shorts this time and a slightly oversized T-shirt. Her hair is up in a tight, prim bun, and I realize she must have come from rehearsal. An early morning one, perhaps.
Heat flickers through me at the thought of seeing her dance, at the imagined picture in my head of her long legs extended out, her arms arched above her head, her lithe body moving across a stage like a work of art.
“Should I find a new coffee shop because a man doesn’t know when he’s not wanted?” She arches an eyebrow, pulling me out of my fantasy, and I chuckle, smirking as I reach for the drip coffee that’s handed to me.
“Oh, I think you want me, taibhseach .” The Gaelic falls from my lips easily, an endearment I’ve used before, but I see Genevieve flinch at the sound of it rolling off my tongue in an Irish burr. That heat flashes in her eyes again, her muscles coiling, and for a moment I half expect her to strike at me.
I’d die happily, with her sweet venom sliding through my veins.
“Get over yourself,” she flings back, but it doesn’t have the same strength that her previous words did. She grabs her coffee, and I half expect her to throw it at me, but she must need the caffeine too badly. Instead, she strides away, leaving me there once again.
It’s two more days before I return to the coffee shop—days that are packed with meetings and long hours with my father in his office before he gets too tired to continue—and I feel like a man trying to kick a drug habit. Somewhere in the back of my head, I have the presence of mind to be concerned, at least, because no woman I’ve ever met in my life has had this effect on me before. I barely know her—I danced with her once and have chatted with her while grabbing coffee twice—and yet she’s completely overtaken me. She feels like an obsession, like just a moment of speaking with her is a drug that I can’t go without, and I’m dimly aware that that’s a problem. But more than anything, I just want to see her again.
When I finally manage to get a morning to myself and head back downtown to the coffee shop, she’s nowhere to be seen. I get my usual black drip coffee and retreat to an armchair near the window with a mystery novel that I tell myself I’m reading. In reality, I keep scanning the same paragraph over and over while looking at the door every few minutes to see if Genevieve has walked in.
She doesn’t make an appearance. I finally give up and head home sometime in the late afternoon, bracing myself for a reprimand from my father and questions about where I’ve been all day. I’m well aware that he doesn’t think I’m up for the responsibilities that I’m about to inherit—that I need to be whipped into shape—and that same small, nagging voice in the back of my head tells me that I’m proving him right.
I tell myself on the way home that I won’t try to find her again. I won’t go back to the coffee shop, won’t contact Vincent, won’t think of some other way to see her. I’ll stop thinking about her when I jerk off morning and night. Better yet, I’ll go out tomorrow night, and I’ll find another woman to blow off some steam with. I tell myself that I just need a good fuck, and I’ll remember that there are plenty of other fish in the sea that is New York City.
Instead, I find myself sitting on the edge of my bed in the morning, running one hand through my damp hair as I look up where the ballet rehearses.
It’s not difficult to find out. I quickly get dressed, heading downstairs and calling an Uber to avoid any unnecessary questions that my father might feel inclined to ask the driver later. Fortunately, my father is nowhere to be seen—probably already in the dining room having breakfast, expecting me. I feel a pang of guilt, but I remember all the mornings I sat at that table as a child, hoping my father would join my mother and me for breakfast—all the mornings later on that I sat there alone or with a nanny. Now that he needs me, he’s around. Now that he has something that he expects of me, he wants to spend time with me.
But I have something I want, too, and it’s clear that it’s going to take more than just willpower to get her out of my head.
The driver drops me off at the Rose Building, where a quick Google search informed me that the ballet rehearses. I’m unsure where exactly they might be rehearsing today, of course—on a stage or in the private rooms, but when I walk into the building I follow the sounds of an orchestra filtering dimly through the halls until I walk through a pair of double doors and into a huge, cavernous theatre space.
The sight of Genevieve, in a pale pink leotard and tights on the stage, stops me in my tracks. I’ll admit I’ve never gone to a ballet before —never seen a ballerina on stage—and the sight is so beautiful that for a moment, I can’t tear my eyes away from her.
She’s poised on the toes of one foot, her other leg stretched behind her, her back arched in a perfect ‘C’ shape that makes me ache to run my hand over that curve. Her arms are held gracefully above her head, her head tilted back, and for a long moment, I just stand there, staring.
And then she moves. She flows like water across the stage as the music swells, turning, spinning, rising up on both feet as she crosses the stage with an unearthly grace. She turns, pausing as her leg arches and bends behind her again, and then she’s darting forward, leaping into the air—as a man who is all lean muscle and that same flowing grace catches her and holds her against his chest.
Jealousy, hot and sharp, burns through me, pricking like a thousand fiery darts as I stare at the two of them. I know I don’t have any right to be jealous, that Genevieve doesn’t belong to me, but the sight of his hands on her makes my jaw clench and my entire body go rigid.
His hand touches the small of her back, and I want to break his fucking fingers.
What the hell is wrong with me? I sink into one of the theater seats, watching as the man lifts her over his head, bringing her down again as Genevieve spins away from him—and then a tall, thin, severe-looking woman strides onto the stage, clapping her hands and calling out something in what sounds like French, Russian, and then finally English.
“Enough! You are lifting a princess, not hoisting a cow,” she reprimands the male dancer, and I feel an odd sense of satisfaction, though his performance looked perfectly fine to me. Better than fine. It was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever laid eyes on—all of the dance—and that jealousy flickers through me again.
I’ve never been someone who had a great appreciation for art or wanted to collect it. The estate in Ireland where I’ve lived for the last fourteen years is full of old and extremely valuable art, and I’ve always had a distant sort of appreciation for it—that I know it’s all lovely, but don’t know much about it.
Genevieve makes me feel differently. Just watching her is like seeing an exquisite piece of art that I don’t understand at all, but desperately want to. I want to seek out every part of her—to run my fingers over her and learn her lines and her colors, to discover every secret that she’s hiding beneath the surface.
The thought brings me up short. The way I’m thinking about her—that’s not how someone thinks about a fling, or a distraction. I sound obsessed. The best thing I could do for myself and my future is to get up and leave right now and force myself to not seek her out again.
I look up, and she’s looking right at me.
Her dark eyes are fixed on me, a startled expression on her face. Her lips press together, and a jolt of desire shoots through me, my body tightening as heat runs down my spine. And then the severe-looking woman on the stage calls out, clapping her hands, and Genevieve turns away before I can see what that startled expression changes into.
I can guess, though. I don’t imagine she’s overly thrilled that I’m here. I feel a little insane for showing up at all.
Running one hand through my hair, I get up and stride down the carpeted theatre aisle, back out into the hall. I stand there for maybe fifteen minutes, arguing with myself internally about whether to go home or whether to wait for her, when the theatre doors burst open and the object of my obsession strides toward me.
“Mr. Gallagher.” Her voice is icy. “What are you doing here?”
“I told you to call me Rowan,” I return, and her eyes narrow.
“You don’t give me orders.”
“I’d enjoy hearing you call me ‘Mr. Gallagher’ much more if I were, I think.”
Her cheeks flush instantly—enough for me to know that the desire I feel isn’t entirely one-sided. I thought I caught a glimpse of it at the coffee shop a few days ago, and that glimpse was enough to keep me pursuing her. Now, with another small taste of it, I find it impossible to walk away again.
“You still haven’t answered my question.” She pauses, as if considering how much ground to give. “Rowan.”
Bloody Christ, my name sounds good on her tongue. My cock twitches against the front of my jeans, blood shooting straight downward at the sound of her saying my name so simply. I can only imagine how fucking hard I’d be if she whispered it. If she moaned it. If she screamed it aloud.
“I told you the first night we met,” I say evenly, trying to ignore my swelling erection. “I’m interested in patronizing the ballet. I thought I’d come and see a rehearsal.”
“Hm.” Genevieve makes a small, disbelieving noise. “You came out here just to see the ballet? In general?”
“I’m fascinated by it,” I agree. After this small glimpse of it, too, it’s actually true. I’d never given any thought to it before meeting Genevieve, but now I am genuinely entranced—by her, but also by everything else I saw on the stage.
Except for another man’s fucking hands on her.
“I don’t believe you,” Genevieve says coolly. “Look, is this some plot between you and Vincent? Has he set you up to keep ‘running into’ me, in order to try to make me think that something is organically happening between us?”
“ Is something organically happening between us?” I raise an eyebrow with interest. “It certainly feels that way to me?—”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Rowan!” She spits out the curse with a vitriol that only confirms what I’ve thought about her before—that under that coolly elegant, icy exterior is a fire that would melt it all away if she let it out. “Just answer the question. Is this something Vincent orchestrated?”
“No.” I shake my head, a little startled at the assumption. “I haven’t spoken to Vincent since he introduced us at the party. I thought of calling him to ask for your number, but I didn’t—for exactly the reason you’re saying. I wanted to get to know you naturally, not because your manager gave me an in. Other than the one he gave me at the party, of course.”
Genevieve’s lips thin. “So you actually want me to believe that you showing up at the same coffee shop that I go to every day was an accident? Just a little meet-cute after the party? You must think I’m utterly stupid.”
“I don’t think that. Not at all. It was—” I break off, as a loud, male voice interrupts us, calling out Genevieve’s name from a foot or so away. Neither of us saw him approaching, too caught up in our argument to pay attention to anything except each other.
“Genevieve!”
She turns, as gracefully as always, though I see her face fall for a split second before she arranges it into that cool blankness that I’ve grown more used to seeing than I’d like. “Chris,” she says evenly, and the man comes to a halt.
I get the measure of him the moment I look at him. I’ve known plenty of men like this—wealthy, connected, enough to throw it around and feel like they have more power than they really do. He’s dressed in an expensive, tailored suit, his dark blond hair expertly styled back, his blue eyes locked on Genevieve with a possessive expression that makes me feel as feral as I did when the dancer on stage lifted her. No—more so, because while I could reason with my primal brain that the dancer was only doing his job, I suspect that this man, Chris, has a more tangible claim on her.
“Who the hell is this?” He looks at me, his gaze sweeping over me dismissively before he looks back at Genevieve. “Is he with the company?”
“No,” Genevieve says smoothly. “Although if he was, it would be bad for me that you’re speaking to him so rudely, so maybe you should think next time before?—”
“Genevieve.” Chris’s voice cuts through the air, sharp as a knife. “Who is he?”