Chapter 16 A Different Kind of Proposal
A DIFFERENT KIND OF PROPOSAL
RONAN
It was an eventful night, to say the least. Even with the little false start on the couch.
Funny enough, it hadn’t seemed to matter to either of us.
I didn’t have to tell her that had never happened before—well, not since I was a thirteen-year-old kid watching Susanna O’Neill lifeguard at the pool.
The thing was that with Laney Fisher, I didn’t feel the need to explain away anything at all.
Being with her was totally natural, whether it was dancing at a party, kissing in the night, or, like now, just lying in bed together while the first glow of light appeared through her bedroom window.
She slept like a cat, curled to one side, with her hands scrunched under her chin like paws while her full lips pursed outward. Right now, she was burrowed into my side, where she’d been since our final romp sometime after three.
Not for the first time, I watched her sleep.
God, she was beautiful.
Not just physically, although that was still the case more than ever.
But the more I got to know her, the more I recognized the pieces of her personality that made her, well, her.
Quiet kindness that made her the kind of person who could be a friend for decades.
Intelligence that made her quick with her thoughts but careful with her words.
Steadiness that most people would underestimate, but which I, with the chaos of my life, valued more than most.
She had freckles, light ones. I found myself wanting to trace them with my finger, like I was connecting the dots in a newspaper puzzle. Unable to help myself, I reached down to brush away an errant lock of near-black hair draped over her cheek.
Those bright green eyes blinked open before she gave the cutest yawn known to man. “I—oh. Good morning.”
I brushed another nonexistent lock out of her face just because I wanted to touch her again. “Morning, gorgeous.”
We just watched each other for a few moments before she looked down, seemed to realize she was naked, and pulled the sheet up to cover her breasts
I stuck out my lower lip.
She rolled her eyes. “I—um, I have to open up the shop soon.”
I glanced at the clock next to her bed. “It’s only nine. You don’t open until eleven, right? That’s what your window says.”
“I—well, yeah.” She chewed on her lower lip. Clearly, she was looking for a way out of this. “I just assumed you’d want to be going.”
“Why would I want to do that? I’m in bed with a ridiculously beautiful woman after a night of marathon sex—rough start notwithstanding.”
For that, I was rewarded with a giggle. Something deep in my chest lit up.
“I’m just saying, we could grab a little sustenance, see if we can’t give you orgasm number six before work, and meet up for dinner and round two—or seven, depending on how you’re counting—later tonight. What do you say?”
Her face lit up a bit more with each idea. Okay, so she was enjoying my company as much as I was enjoying hers.
I took her hand and tried to close the deal. “Come on, Ariadne. It’s just a date. A real one, this time.”
It was the wrong thing to say.
She frowned and pulled her hand away. “Ronan, what are we doing? This isn’t a Greek myth. It’s your life. My life. I thought you were here to end this marriage, but this is more like starting something. What is happening?”
I sat up and leaned against her tufted headboard with my arms behind my head, if only to stop from grabbing her hand back on a growl. I didn’t like it when she pulled away. Not right now. “Hear me out, okay?”
“Okay…” She wrinkled her nose in a way that created the most adorable fold between her brow. I redirected my gaze out the window so I wouldn’t kiss it.
“I have a proposal. It’s kind of a crazy idea, but it might also be the most genius thing I’ve ever come up with.”
One dark brow lifted as she folded her arms and waited.
“Fuck the annulment. Let’s stay married.”
Okay, so I probably should have waited at least until breakfast to spring that on her, but she was asking, and suddenly I couldn’t help myself.
That rose petal mouth fell open.
My gaze dropped there, and I grinned. “Sweetheart, what did I tell you about leaving that mouth open? Unless you want me to put something in there again. As I recall, last night you enjoyed my—”
“Oh my God, Ronan.” She batted my fingers away just before they reached her mouth. “How can you go from saying you want to stay married to proposing explicit sex acts?”
“Special talent, I suppose. But for the record, I am always thinking about indecent sex acts when it comes to you. I can do many things at once. ‘Wisdom is the ability to stand in contradiction without fleeing.’”
She flopped back on her pillow with her arm over her face. “And then he quotes Heraclitus like it’s nothing. You’re giving me whiplash.”
Gently, I peeled her arm back so I could see her. “I think you like it, though.”
For that, I was rewarded with the world’s most beautiful scowl.
“Just listen,” I said, shaking her hand a little. “We obviously like each other. Have a good time together. Right? Why not make a go of it?”
“I don’t know. Because we barely know each other?” Suddenly, she was all movement, scooting up in the bed to sit up. “Or the fact that we live three thousand miles apart, or that we have jobs we can’t just abandon, or—”
“Hush.” I placed a finger on her perfect mouth while it was still slightly open. I smirked.
She shut it immediately and shoved my hand away. “I’m serious.”
“So am I. And for the record, I’ve thought about all of that.
For example, I know you’re struggling with your mother’s company, and in case you forgot, darling, I come with loads of cash.
Now that you’re married, you’re entitled to some of it, so we could hire a manager or a creative director or whatever you need to reinvigorate the business and keep your mother’s dream alive. Honestly, it’s no skin off my back.”
Her eyes popped open. “I—but you can’t just—”
“I can and easily will if you let me,” I informed her.
“Meanwhile, you can finish your dissertation and go on the tenure track or whatever it is you wanted to do with PhD in Ancient Greek studies. My family has plenty of friends at Harvard—or we should, after having three different buildings named after us. I’m sure I could fund a chair or something in the Classics department. ”
She frowned. Yeah, I definitely had her number, and she wasn’t really happy about that. “I—but you—you can’t just buy a career for me.”
“Beg to differ, sweets. I could do that in a second.” I snapped my fingers as if to demonstrate.
“I do not want your money.”
“Well, you’d get some anyway, since I was dumb enough to do this without a prenup.
My family’s going to kill me, by the way.
But that’s a bridge we’ll cross in Boston.
” I grabbed her hand, begging her to look at me.
“Think about it, Laney. You can take a second to breathe. Do whatever you want, whether it’s finishing your dissertation or talking more to your dad or just taking time for yourself. ”
“I don’t understand.” She fell back into the headboard like she’d been shoved, then peeked up at me. “So, what, you want to stay married so we can keep sleeping together? Is this a sex for money situation? Am I basically a gold-digger-turned-trophy wife?”
Now I was the one to scowl. “First of all, never talk about yourself like that in front of me unless you want me to get really fucking mad, Laney.”
“But it’s true, isn’t it?”
“No, it’s fucking not!” I couldn’t have said why, exactly, the idea of anyone thinking she married me for my money or that I married her for sex really pissed me off. And I wasn’t the type to lose my cool. Not this easily, anyway.
Suddenly, I couldn’t stay in the bed, so I reached down to locate my trousers (I had no clue where the fuck my underwear had gone—and they were a mess anyway), and yanked them if only for something to do before I started pacing the room.
“Why?” Laney pressed as she too got out of bed.
I only got a brief view of her luscious body before she wrapped it with a kimono and turned to me as she pulled her hair into a bun.
“You’re making all these points about why it would be good for me, but I’m having a hard time seeing what you get from this arrangement.
You’re rich, gorgeous, and, if the tabloids are correct, a total playboy.
You clearly have no problem getting laid on a regular basis, so why would you want to tie yourself down to one person? ”
This time, my mouth was the one to fall open. I knew she had done some research on me, but I hadn’t realized she was aware of that side of my reputation. Normally, it wouldn’t have bothered me. It had never bothered me before.
But Laney thinking I was nothing but a degenerate womanizer seemed wrong. I didn’t like it. At all.
Now was the time to tell her the truth.
That in order to step into the role I never thought I’d play, I had to meet my family’s old-fashioned ideal of who the person in that role had to be.
That finding myself married right at this moment wasn’t just a mistake—it was shockingly convenient. Fate, maybe.
That she could have just about anything she wanted from me if she would just play along for a few months.
Make it clean. Make it a transaction.
And yet… I couldn’t.
“First of all, ‘playboy’ is a stupid term.” I stalked around the room to where she stood, back against her bureau.
“I’m not a gross old man in a grotto or a dumbass kid chasing tail.
I want you, Delaney Fisher. I’ve wanted you since the second I saw you cross the street to go into that nightclub.
I followed you in there like a bloodhound. ”
Her eyes had grown into bright green stars. “You followed me into that club?”
“Yes, I fucking did. Just like I followed you here, and frankly, I’d follow you anywhere just to give me a chance. This isn’t about sex. It’s about you.”