Chapter 22
O ver the weeks that followed, our arrangement had continued—secret, intense, and somehow more addictive with every passing day.
I’d managed to convince him to give me time, even though I could feel how much it grated against his instincts. He wanted to be seen with me in Charleston. To stake his claim in the light, not just the shadows. But he’d given me space, reluctantly, and in return, I’d given him everything else.
We’d flown to cities that blurred together now—Atlanta, Asheville, Chicago, even New Orleans for a wild forty-eight hours that ended with beignets and bruises I didn’t want to explain.
Always the same rhythm. Dinner somewhere exclusive and dimly lit. Tension simmering through appetizers. His strong hand on my thigh before dessert. And then, inevitably, a semi-public corner where he’d ruin me with nothing more than his mouth, his fingers, or the low rasp of my name in my ear .
He seemed to enjoy making me come completely undone.
In between those stolen moments, my parents had called—brief check-ins that seemed casual on the surface, but something in their voices felt off.
Brittle. My dad, especially. He hadn’t come right out and said anything, but he kept mentioning the cost of fertilizer, how foot traffic was down this season, how they might skip replanting a few beds.
Little things. Normal, maybe. But together, they felt like a quiet alarm I was trying not to hear.
And yet it all faded whenever I was with Ronan.
He hadn’t fucked me again, though. Not since that one night at his house.
It had become the sharp edge of my obsession, the thing I couldn’t stop turning over in my mind when I should’ve been writing or sleeping or thinking about anything else.
I was starting to think he was holding back on purpose. Like he was waiting for something. Like he wanted me to crack first.
Meanwhile, my parents had been calling more than usual.
Not incessantly, but enough that I noticed the uptick.
My dad, bless him, seemed to have convinced my mom to dial it back a little—give me some space without giving up the surveillance entirely.
Still, they’d been … watchful. Not suspicious, exactly.
Just keenly interested in how I was doing, like they sensed something was shifting.
Maybe they were hoping it was finally something good.
My mom had even mentioned, twice now, that I could bring a guest out to the nursery sometime.
“The pool is looking beautiful,” she’d said the last time, in a tone so unsubtle it was practically a wink.
The idea of Ronan Hale taking a dip at my parents’ place—lounging by the pool with a glass of sweet tea while my dad grilled hot dogs—was so comically absurd it almost made me choke on my coffee.
Which was why, when Mina slid into the chair across from mine at the coworking space with a suspiciously knowing look, I barely managed to smother my groan.
“No hello?” she asked, setting down her smoothie and cocking an eyebrow. “Just the sound of your soul leaving your body?”
I glanced around the open-concept floor, but no one was paying attention. “You’re not allowed to look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you know something.”
“I do know something,” she said, stealing a sip from my coffee. “I know you’ve been floating around here with that post-orgasmic glow and trying to pretend it’s just good skincare.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Do you have a point?”
“Oh, I have many. But let’s start with this one: are you going to tell me what’s going on with Tall, Dark, and Dominant? Or do I need to bribe someone for security footage?”
I sighed and leaned back in my chair. “It’s ... complicated.”
Mina snorted. “Of course, it is. You look like a woman who’s being absolutely emotionally and physically annihilated in the best way possible and is terrified it might ruin her life.”
That got a laugh out of me, even though it felt a little too on the nose.
“I just ...” I hesitated, then gave up pretending I wasn’t going to spill. “It’s been a few weeks. He’s flown me places. We’ve had these incredible dinners. He makes me feel like I’m the only thing he sees when we’re together. But?—”
“No sex?”
I blinked. “What?”
“No sex?” she repeated, lowering her voice just enough to make it more dangerous somehow. “You mean, like, not at all?”
Honestly, how does she know these things?
I shook my head slowly. “Not since the night at his house.”
Her jaw dropped. “Wait. You’re telling me this man—this literal god of dominance—has flown you around the country, made you come in, what, elevators and alleys, looked at you like he’d burn the world to keep you warm … but hasn’t actually had sex with you again?”
My cheeks flushed. “Not once.”
“What the fuck, Zara?”
I let out a helpless breath and dropped my forehead into my hand. “I know. I know.”
“Is he a monk now? Taking a vow of celibacy mid-seduction?”
“I don’t think so,” I mumbled, though the doubt had crept in before.
“Well, then what? Is he testing you? Punishing you? Is it like … a slow-burn kink thing?”
“I think he’s waiting.”
“For what?”
I lifted my head. “That’s what I don’t know. But I can feel it. Like a string pulled tight between us. The more I hesitate to be seen with him in Charleston, the more he holds back. It’s like he’s giving me time, but it’s costing him something.”
Mina’s brow furrowed. “You think he’s trying to make a point? ”
“No,” I said. “I think he’s trying to make me make one.”
The table between us went quiet. In the distance, someone laughed, the clack of a keyboard echoed against the brick wall. But all I could hear was my pulse, pounding in my ears like a warning I didn’t want to decode.
“What would happen,” Mina said finally, “if you just said yes?”
“To what?”
“To all of it. To being with him. In public. In Charleston. In real life.”
“I’d lose everything.”
She looked at me evenly. “Would you?”
My throat tightened. “Maybe not everything. But enough.”
“Or maybe you’d finally be living for you.”
Before I could answer, the lights flickered.
We both looked up.
“Power surge?” Mina asked, glancing toward the front windows.
But I was already standing.
Because the man in the doorway wasn’t the delivery guy or some new freelancer trying to figure out the printer. It was Ronan.
In a suit.
Inside my coworking space.
He didn’t move. Just stood there, hands at his sides, eyes locked on mine.
My stomach dropped. “Oh, my God.”
Mina turned. “Oh, my God. That’s him, isn’t it?”
I nodded sheepishly.
He started walking .
And the world narrowed to the sound of his shoes on polished concrete.
Click.
Click.
Click.
Every woman in the place turned to look at him. And I do mean every single woman. How could they not?
Every man looked away.
He didn’t glance at them.
He didn’t glance at Mina.
He didn’t even look around.
He was coming for me.
I stood frozen, my fingers still curled around the edge of the table.
When he stopped in front of me, the silence was deafening. The soft hum of conversation from a moment ago had disappeared. Everyone was pretending not to stare.
He looked down at me, his jaw tight, his expression unreadable.
“I said I’d give you time,” he said.
My throat went dry. “Ronan?—”
“I waited,” he said, voice low but not quiet. “But I’m not going to be a ghost in your life, Zara.”
He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a folded newspaper.
The Post and Courier .
With my column on the front.
He laid it on the table like a gauntlet.
“I read your latest piece,” he said.
I blinked. “Okay …”
“You wrote about exposure. About how sunlight disinfects. About how women can’t be safe in the shadows.”
Oh, God .
“I read every word,” he added. “Except for the part where you practiced what you preached.”
I flinched.
“You’re not just hiding me,” he said, voice harder now. “You’re hiding yourself. From me. From what this is.”
I heard someone stand nearby. I didn’t look.
“I didn’t come here to argue,” he said. “I came here to remind you that I’m real. That this is real. And that the woman who wrote this”—he tapped the headline—“is not the kind of woman who hides behind what-ifs.”
My whole body was vibrating.
“I’ll be at The Tasting Room on East Bay,” he said. “One drink. One hour. If you don’t show, I’ll leave you alone.”
He paused.
And then he turned and walked away, like a storm that had passed through.
I stood frozen in the middle of the coworking space, every nerve ending buzzing like I’d been struck. I could feel eyes on me—maybe real, maybe imagined—but it didn’t matter. The heat that rushed to my neck didn’t wait for confirmation. It just bloomed there, hot and bright and humiliating.
Who saw? Who heard? Who was already sliding into Slack or text or group chat to dissect the way I stood there, silenced and burning?
My fingers tightened around the edge of the table. I should’ve called after him. I should’ve said something—anything—that didn’t make me look like I was falling apart in front of a bunch of strangers with ergonomic chairs and noise-canceling headphones.
But I didn’t.
Because all I could think about was what he’d said.
And God, I wanted him in every way a woman could want a man—wanted his hands, his mouth, his darkness, his devotion—but I was still keeping him in the shadows. Still pretending I could compartmentalize this into something safe. Something that wouldn’t bleed into my real life.
But it already had. He already had.
And if the whole thing blew up in my face—if someone at work caught wind, if readers stopped trusting me, if the wrong person asked too many questions about who I’d been flying off with and why I looked so ruined when I came back?—
What then?
What would I do if the career I’d spent my entire adult life building crumbled beneath me?
What was I, without the byline?
Without the platform?
Without the credibility that kept people listening?
I didn’t know.
And that terrified me more than Ronan ever could.
Because being with him made me feel more alive than anything else in my life—and more vulnerable than I’d ever allowed myself to be. And if it all came crashing down?
I might deserve it.
I might not care.
And that was the most dangerous part of all.
Mina let out a breath. “Jesus Christ, Zara.”
I stared at the newspaper.
Then I grabbed it and shoved it into my bag .
“I have to go.”
She didn’t stop me.
I walked the ten blocks to The Tasting Room, unsure if I was heading toward salvation or self-destruction.
When I stepped inside, he was already at the bar.
A glass of neat bourbon in front of him. His jacket off. Sleeves rolled. Expression unreadable.
He turned when he felt me.
I didn’t speak.
He didn’t either.
I walked toward him like I was walking off a ledge.
“I read the column again on the way over,” he said.
My heart pounded. “Don’t quote me to myself.”
“Then answer me.”
“About what?”
“Why you’re afraid.”
I hesitated. “Because I don’t know how to explain you.”
“Then don’t,” he said. “Just show up.”
I exhaled slowly. “You make everything feel bigger than it is.”
“No.” His eyes narrowed. “I make it feel the way it is. You’ve been living small, Zara. Not because it suits you. Because it’s safe.”
I swallowed hard.
“Do you want safe?”
“No.”
He studied me for a long beat.
“Then stop running.”
His hand found mine, sliding across the bar like a claim.
And I had to decide whether or not to pull away.