Chapter 23
I didn’t pull away.
Not when logic told me to. Not when fear whispered that I still had time. I laced my fingers through his and held on like it meant something—because it did. Because I was tired of pretending it didn’t.
He exhaled like he’d been holding that breath for weeks.
“Okay,” he said quietly. “Okay.”
The bartender slid another drink in front of him without being asked—clearly familiar, clearly respectful. Too respectful.
Ronan didn’t touch the glass. His eyes were only on me.
“Let’s sit,” he said, not a suggestion.
I nodded, and we moved to a booth in the far corner—secluded but visible. A spotlight without a stage. If anyone looked, they’d see. And that was the point.
I sank into the leather seat, heart hammering. My hand still in his .
“You’re shaking,” he murmured.
“I’m aware.”
He didn’t smirk. Didn’t tease. Just brushed his thumb over my knuckles and waited until I met his eyes again.
“What’s the worst thing that happens,” he asked, “if someone sees us?”
“I lose my column. My adjunct teaching position at College of Charleston. My credibility. My audience. The thing I built from nothing.”
“And if they don’t?”
“Then I lose you.”
The words came out before I could stop them. Before I could think better of it.
Ronan went very still.
“That’s what you’re afraid of?” he asked quietly. “Losing me?”
“I’m afraid of what you are,” I said. “And I’m afraid of what I’m becoming when I’m with you.”
His jaw worked like he was grinding down something sharp.
“You’re not becoming someone else,” he said. “You’re just not pretending anymore.”
I looked down at our hands.
“You scare me,” I whispered.
“Because I want all of you?”
“Because you already have it.”
That earned me a low sound from his throat. A growl barely leashed. His hand tightened around mine. Not enough to hurt—just enough to hold.
“You still don’t know what I’d do for you,” he said, voice thick.
“I’m starting to.”
He let go only to reach into his jacket pocket.
My breath caught .
But it wasn’t a weapon. It was a small black case. Simple. Elegant. Unlabeled.
He slid it across the table.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“Open it.”
I did.
Inside was a flash drive.
No explanation. No note.
I looked up at him. “What is this?”
“A choice.”
I stared at it. “Ronan?—”
“You want answers? Proof? Something real?” His voice was calm. Too calm. “That’s it. Everything you’ve been too afraid to ask.”
I didn’t move.
“I told you I’m not a ghost,” he said. “And I’m not a liar either. You want to know who I am? Plug it in.”
My mouth was dry. “Why now?”
“Because if we’re doing this in the light,” he said, “you deserve to see what’s in the dark.”
The tension between us crackled like live wire. Every part of me screamed to lean in closer—and every survival instinct I had screamed to run.
“Will it change how I see you?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said. “But maybe not in the way you think.”
I didn’t pick up the flash drive. Not yet.
Instead, I asked the question that had been whispering in my bones since the night we met.
“Have you killed someone?”
His jaw flexed. He looked down at the table. Then back at me.
“Yes.”
Just that. One word. No justification. No apology .
The air left my lungs like a punch.
“Was it—” I stopped. “Was it your job?”
He nodded once. “It was.”
The truth should’ve shattered me.
But it didn’t.
It just settled in. Cold. Real. I stared at him, trying to reconcile the man who held my hand so gently with the one who had taken a life.
Or lives.
“You said consulting,” I managed.
“I do consult,” he said. “But that’s not what pays the bills.”
I felt something tighten in my chest. “Then what does?”
He didn’t flinch. “I’m a fixer. I clean up messes for people who can afford not to have them.”
“Messes?”
“Threats. Leaks. Problems that can’t be handled in a boardroom.”
My stomach twisted.
“And if someone tried to hurt me?” I asked.
His eyes darkened. “They wouldn’t make it past the first try.”
A chill ran through me. Not fear. Not exactly. But the overwhelming certainty that this man—this ghost with a name—had remade his whole life around shadows and precision and violence.
And now he was here. Sitting across from me in a bar in Charleston. Asking me to choose him in broad daylight.
“I’m not normal,” he said. “I’m not clean. I’m not safe.”
“But you’re mine,” I whispered.
His breath caught .
I hadn’t meant to say it.
But I didn’t take it back.
“Jesus, Zara,” he said roughly, reaching across the table again. His fingers slid under my chin, tilting my face toward his. “You have no idea what that does to me.”
“I think I do.”
He kissed me across the table.
Not gentle.
Not soft.
This kiss was fire and possession and the kind of promise you can’t take back.
When he pulled away, his eyes were unreadable. “If you want out—after you watch what’s on that drive—say the word.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then you don’t hide anymore.”
I stared at the flash drive again.
The waitress came by. She started to ask if we wanted anything else, but the look Ronan gave her sent her silently walking in the opposite direction.
We sat in silence for a moment longer.
Then I slid the drive into my bag.
“I’ll watch it,” I said.
He nodded.
I stood.
He followed.
No one in the bar said anything. But I knew we’d been seen. Catalogued. Noted.
Outside, the sun was setting. The light hit his face just right, catching the edge of an old scar I’d never noticed before—just beneath his ear, nearly hidden by the curve of his jaw.
“How’d you get that?” I asked .
He glanced over. “Which one?”
“That one.”
He paused. “I took a job in Ukraine. Long time ago.”
I swallowed. “Was it dangerous?”
“They all are.”
“But you keep doing them.”
He nodded. “Until there’s a reason not to.”
The implication hit me square in the chest.
I was that reason.
Or I could be.
If I was willing to let him in.
I let the silence settle for a moment, then asked, “What would you do if you stopped?”
He tilted his head slightly, studying me. “Stopped killing people?”
I gave him a look. “Yeah. That part.”
He smirked, but his tone was thoughtful. “I always wanted to try sculpting. Not just hobby-level. Real work. Stone. Metal. Let my hands make something that lasts.”
“Huh.”
“I want to push it. Weld. Cast. Carve.” His fingers skimmed my wrist, his thumb brushing the inside like he was tracing blueprints only he could see. “There’s something honest about it. Something permanent.”
I smiled. “So, you’re telling me we’d trade body armor for bronze and call it even?”
He laughed softly. “Something like that.”
But he wasn’t joking—not entirely.
We walked toward his car. I didn’t ask where we were going next.
But I did ask something else.
“How can you afford it?” I said, my voice soft but direct. “The flights. The cars. The restaurants. You don’t just move through the world like a man who has money. You move through it like a man who owns it.”
He glanced at me, something unreadable flickering behind his eyes. “I was wondering when you’d ask.”
“I didn’t before because I didn’t want to know,” I admitted. “But now—if I’m going to step into the light with you—I need to understand what I’m stepping into.”
He stopped walking. Turned toward me fully. “After the military, I took contracts. Not all of them were legal. Some were … lucrative.”
I held his gaze. “How lucrative?”
“I invested well,” he said simply. “And I partnered with people who had a lot to lose and didn’t know who to trust. I became that person. The one who fixed things for the powerful. Protected their interests. Covered their tracks. Made problems disappear.”
My stomach fluttered, nerves and awe tangled together.
“I didn’t just take payment,” he continued. “I took leverage. Equity. Percentages. And when the time came, I cashed out.”
I stared at him. “So you’re?—”
“I have more than I’ll ever need,” he said. “And yes, before you ask, it’s clean now. My hands may not be, but my money is.”
He watched my reaction carefully.
I didn’t look away.
“And if your career situation changes—if any of this costs you something—I’ll cover it. I’ll take care of you.”
My breath caught.
He took a step closer.
“I don’t mean that like a boyfriend offering to pay rent. I mean I’m prepared to take care of you in every way. If you want to quit tomorrow and disappear, I’ll have a house ready by nightfall. If you want to write under a different name and never speak to the press again, I’ll fund every word.”
“And if I ever leave?” I asked, voice barely a whisper.
His expression didn’t change. “Then I’ll still take care of you. Because once you’re mine, you don’t stop being mine just because you walk away.”
Something splintered inside me. A fault line I hadn’t known was waiting.
Not because I needed his money.
But because he’d seen what was hard to admit.
I was scared I might lose everything.
And he wasn’t just offering to catch me.
He was offering to build the net.
I didn’t answer. I just nodded, my throat too tight for words.
And then we kept walking—toward his car, toward the night, toward whatever came next.
Because I already knew.
It wasn’t about the city. Or the dinners. Or the secrecy.
It was about this.
The moment we stopped pretending.
The moment I chose him. Darkness and all.
And the moment he let me.
He opened the passenger door like it was instinct, like his body would always know how to make room for mine. I slid inside, the leather smooth against my thighs, the scent of him—cologne and power and something darker—filling the car like a promise.
He didn’t ask where I wanted to go.
He told me.
“Let me take you to dinner. A proper one. Then dessert. In Charleston. Tonight. ”
I hesitated, heart thudding. “Tonight?”
His eyes found mine in the dimness. “Yes. I’m done hiding. If you’re not ready, say it now.”
I was quiet for a beat too long.
But then I nodded.
Not because I was ready.
Because I was tired of not being.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s go.”
He didn’t smile. Didn’t gloat. Just reached over, laced his fingers through mine, and drove.
The restaurant was one of those waterfront places you read about in travel magazines.
Polished white linen. Gleaming wood and brass accents.
A view of the water so perfect it felt staged.
It was crowded with Charleston’s elite—doctors, politicians, board members and their wives.
A low hum of laughter and clinking glasses floated over the tables.
We were escorted to a table near the back. It was private, but not hidden. And everyone saw us.
I could feel it—the glances that flitted like whispers. The way some eyes lingered too long. I recognized more than one face from gala coverage or local media boards. These were the kind of people who read me.
And they were watching.
“Are you all right?” Ronan asked quietly, draping his napkin over his lap. The flicker of amusement in his eyes said he already knew the answer.
“I’m fine,” I said, even though my palms were damp and my throat dry. “Just wondering how long until someone sends a screenshot of this to my editor.”
He shrugged. “Let them.”
“That’s easy for you to say. You’re not the one with a nationally syndicated column.”
“No,” he said. “But I am the one who would burn their entire network to the ground if they tried to hurt you.”
I gave him a look, part disbelief, part don’t tempt me.
But his expression didn’t waver.
And beneath the nerves, something else stirred.
Need.
Possessive, breath-stealing, traitorous need.
The waiter arrived and greeted Ronan like an old friend, his posture just a little too reverent, his voice just a little too careful. Ronan ordered for both of us without looking at a menu.
“Do you do that often?” I asked once we were alone again.
“What?”
“Order for people.”
He tilted his head. “No. Just for the ones I can read.”
My stomach flipped. “You think you can read me?”
“I know I can.”
I reached for my water, hands still a little unsteady. “Then tell me what I’m thinking right now.”
His eyes didn’t leave mine. “You’re wondering what I’d do to you if we weren’t in public. If I took you into the kitchen, pressed you against a stainless-steel counter, and made you moan loud enough that the entire dining room heard.”
Heat flooded my cheeks. My thighs clenched under the table.
So much thigh clenching these days.
“You’re insane,” I said under my breath.
He leaned in, his voice low and dangerous. “You’re wet.”
My breath hitched.
“Ronan—”
“I could fuck you with my fingers right here,” he murmured. “No one would know. Just a flick of my wrist under the tablecloth. You’d keep your voice down, wouldn’t you? Try to pretend you weren’t shaking. But you’d come all over my hand.”
“Jesus,” I whispered, glancing around.
He didn’t move. “And after? I’d feed you dessert with the same fingers. Watch you taste yourself in front of every person in this room.”
I swallowed hard.
He smiled, slow and wicked. “That’s what I’d do. If you were mine.”
“I am yours,” I whispered before I could stop myself.
Something dark flared in his eyes. “Say it again.”
I didn’t.
But he saw it in my face. And it was enough.
The food came. I barely touched it. He barely looked away from me.
At one point, I asked, “Do you always seduce women with threats of public ruin?”
“Only the ones who beg for it with their eyes.”
“Is that what I’m doing?”
“You’ve been doing it since the first time I saw you.”
I set my fork down. “You’re dangerous.”
He smiled. “I told you.”
“You scare me.”
His gaze softened a fraction. “Good.”
Silence stretched. It should’ve been uncomfortable, but it wasn’t. It was thick. Weighted. It meant something.
Dessert came—a small, delicate chocolate creation that I didn’t even try to taste. Ronan dipped his spoon into it, then offered me a bite. I opened my mouth without thinking, lips closing over the metal.
His eyes tracked the motion. His jaw flexed .
“Back at the bar,” I said, swallowing. “You said I don’t know what you’d do for me.”
“I did.”
“I think I’m starting to understand.”
He nodded slowly, as if agreeing with something unspoken.
“What if it’s too much?” I asked.
“It won’t be.”
“You’re so sure.”
His voice dropped again, a thread of dark silk. “Because I’ve already decided.”
“Decided what?”
“To keep you.”
My breath caught.
He meant it. Every word.
He would tear the city down if I asked. Rewrite the rules. Eliminate threats. Protect me with a ferocity I still didn’t understand.
“You’re not used to someone choosing you,” he said quietly. “But I did. And I knew this moment would come.”
“What moment?”
“When you stopped pretending you didn’t want to be mine.”
I couldn’t breathe.
I didn’t want to.
Not if this was what drowning in him felt like.
He stood, threw down a thick black card the waiter had clearly seen before, and held out his hand.
I took it.
No hesitation.
We walked out together, into the warm Charleston night. Heads turned. Eyes followed.