Chapter 19 Waiting is the Hardest Part
WAITING IS THE HARDEST PART
RONAN
“Ronan,” Mac snapped for the seventh time in as many minutes. “You’re going to wear a hole in the carpet.”
I continued pacing in front of the broad windows looking out onto the private runway at Logan Airport. “How long does it take to park a jet? They landed fifteen minutes ago, and they’ve been crawling down the runway like a goddamn snail.”
Mac didn’t reply, just went back to his book, a well-thumbed copy of The Sun Also Rises, while muttering something to himself that sounded like “Never thought I’d see the day.”
I didn’t need clarification. He could have meant “the day Ronan Black picked a girl up at the airport,” “the day Ronan Black checked his phone at least ten times daily for new texts from said girl”, or just “the day Ronan Black sweated over a woman period.”
Any statement would have been valid.
But honestly. The plane was late, and now it was taking forever to taxi.
I did late all the time, but I didn’t like it when Laney Fisher was late.
Especially since I hadn’t seen her in two weeks, and it had been everything I could do not force her across the country with me when we’d first decided that we were going to stay married in the first place.
Or was it Laney Black now?
Black-Fisher? Fisher-Black?
How about just my wife?
“Shut it, Mac.” I started my twentieth lap around the waiting room.
Mac peered over the cover. “I’m just saying. Typically, you send a car. You never pick anyone up. Or wear a hole in the carpet waiting. We’re not going to talk about it?”
“Talk about what? It wouldn’t be appropriate for me to let her find her own way to a home she’s never seen.”
“Appropriate. Right.” He looked out the window to where the jet was finally coming to a complete stop. “We still pretending it’s not because you care about the girl?”
I scowled. “It’s an arrangement. You know that.”
The lie tasted metallic, like swallowing a knife.
Therein, of course, lay the problem of my situation.
Different stories for different people. To Liza, Liam, and Mac, I was maintaining a marriage in order to curry the board’s favor and win the seat at the company helm.
After the debacle with Brendan, the board hadn’t been in such a hurry to appoint an interim CEO last week.
Instead, they had split the duties among several executive officers (including myself) until they were sure one of us (me) was an appropriate fit.
In other words, they were setting up hoops and telling us puppies to hop through them, the sadistic fucks.
So, as badly as I’d wanted to jet right back to Seattle, the need to prove myself as the responsible human being literally no one at Blackguard thought I was had to take precedence. Laney was just the cherry on the sundae of eventually becoming CEO.
To everyone else outside of this little circle of trust, however, I had to prove that I was, in fact, a doting husband.
To my father, a cutthroat one. And to everyone else, including the press and apparently the rest of Boston, I had to prove that I was stable because of the change in my relationship status.
And then, of course, there was the version I had presented to Laney to get her to buy into it from the beginning—that I liked her, respected her, genuinely saw a future with her, and because of that and everything else, I genuinely wanted the chance to be her husband.
I told myself every day that it was a lie, only because if I didn’t, there was this irritatingly large part of me that suspected it might be true.
And that part was a sucker that could not be allowed to take control of anything.
I was a skilled liar. Maybe one of the best. But I needed to be able to decipher the truth from fiction in order to keep my stories straight, and each of these narratives created a tangled web. It was a lot of roles for a lot of people. As The Jester, I had my work cut out for me.
Maybe I could have sorted things out with Mac. Instead, I chose violence.
“I seem to recall a certain former Navy SEAL waiting outside a lounge last week until the sun came up,” I remarked as the passenger stairs were very, very slowly towed to the side of the plane. “Shea’s nocturnal activities have been taking a lot of your energy the last few weeks.”
Above the unturned pages of his book, Mac’s jaw tightened. “Your point?”
“I believe I’m making it.”
He dropped the book. “It’s my job to keep you and your family members safe, Ronan. That does include your sister.”
“In the rain? Until five in the morning?” I adjusted the cuff of my jacket. “You could have sent one of the other guys.”
“She’s a principal, just like you. I don’t delegate any of your safety unless I have to.”
“Just seems like an awful lot of effort and lack of sleep for someone you hate.”
“I don’t hate her,” he insisted a little too harshly. “I don’t anything her, and I doubt she thinks of me at all. It’s a job, Ronan. Nothing more.”
I snorted. Now that was a lie if I’d ever heard one.
Granted, Mac was about as professional as it got, so I doubted Shea presented much more than an annoyance to him.
On the other hand, my baby sister pressed buttons like a toddler on an elevator, and for some reason, she liked to press Mac’s the most.
Before I could continue ribbing the big man as a way of avoiding my own obvious buttons, my phone buzzed in my pocket.
I pulled it out to see Liam’s face on the screen. “Hey.”
“Yeah, Mom, he answered.” He was clearly speaking to Liza on the other end. “Sorry to bug you. She’s making me call to check in.”
I huffed. The plan tonight was simple: pick Laney up, bring her to my house to change, and then attend a little soiree celebrating my brother’s recent “retirement” (A.K.A. my father’s attempt at making it look like we were all in on Brendan’s sudden retreat from the business).
“We’ll be there,” I said. At least I hoped we would. Laney still wasn’t here.
“Good. Mom’s battling it out with Violeta about the floral arrangements. You know how she gets.”
“Liza or The Spanish Inquisition?”
Liam snorted. “Both, I guess.”
“Who else has confirmed?”
“The usual. Most of the board members and majority shareholders. Oh, and get this: Owen apparently RSVP’d with a plus one.”
That made me stand up straight. In thirty-five years of having a stick shoved squarely up his ass, Owen had never once brought a date to any kind of function, company or family.
While I had it on good authority (e.g., bribing his security detail) that my brother did, in fact, have an occasional sex life, he’d never once shown any kind of interest in a relationship.
Except now. When I was that much closer to being named CEO over him.
“Do you know who?” I had to ask. “Or is it just a blow-up doll he ordered off the internet?”
Liam chuckled. This was why we were best friends. He always laughed at my jokes, but not in a kissing-my-ass kind of way. “Hold on, I’ll check the guest list. Let me see… it says her name is Jenny Churchill.”
I frowned. “Seriously? That’s odd.”
“Yeah, you know her?”
“I do. We went to Andover together back in the day. She was a few years ahead of me, and Owen actually took her to prom, if you can imagine it.”
Across the room, Mac’s brows lifted slightly. Even he couldn’t hide his shock at the idea of Owen the Raincloud attending something as bright and cheery as a school dance.
“Now she writes for The Globe,” I said. “But Owen hates the press.”
“Well, not this one, apparently.”
It didn’t make sense. Owen didn’t date, he didn’t talk about his past, and he really didn’t like opening our family to attacks from the press. It was why he was always getting on me about how my personal life affected our reputation.
“Jesus Christ,” I muttered. “He really is pathetic. Hasn’t had a personal life in fifteen fucking years, so he literally contacted the one girl he’s seen more than once just to show me up.”
“You think that’s what it is?”
“Has to be.” My brother was the most vindictive son of a bitch on the planet, and he’d been stewing in jealousy soup ever since Brendan nominated me for CEO. There was no other explanation.
“Well, then, I guess you and Laney have to bring it tonight, don’t you?” Liam said. “Is she ready to enter the lion's den?”
“I couldn’t say. I haven’t told her.”
“What?” Liam’s shock was loud enough that once again, Mac looked up from his book.
They were opening the doors of the jet now. Finally.
“No point in stressing her out before she gets here,” I said, already in a hurry to end the conversation. “She’s good on the fly, I promise.”
“Ronan, she better be. Otherwise, you’re going to traumatize the girl.”
“She’ll be fine,” I replied. “She’s great. You’ll see.”
“Good, because I have it on good authority that you can’t fuck this up. Mother’s orders and mine.”
“Why does it matter so much to you two?” I had to ask. “Your paychecks will get signed no matter what. No one can run this company without Liza.”
There was a brief pause, and then Liam’s answer was quick, but a bit quieter, like he didn’t want anyone to hear. “Aside from the fact that my mother and I are the only two who know this marriage is kind of fake and that Niall would murder us both if he knew?”
“It’s not fake—” I started to hiss, conscious that any of the people in the lounge could potentially hear me.
Liam, however, just snorted again. “Fine, fine. Then how about because you’re my boy, dickhead. If I have to work for any of the Blacks, obviously I’d rather it was you.”
Well, then. I straightened. “I suppose that’s good enough for me.”
“Better be. Now, get your girl and don’t fuck this up.”
“On it.”
I ended the call just as Laney’s petite form appeared at the top of the stairs.
God, she looked pretty. Even from fifty yards away, she was a dream in loose jeans, a fitted sweater, her dark hair tossed on top of her head in that sleepy way that already made her look like she’d just had a very good time.
Apparently, I had a weak spot for the “just got reamed, don’t care who knows it” aesthetic.
“Ariadne,” I murmured, then started for the exit.
Mac dropped his book. “Ronan, wait.”
“Fuck off, Mac Daddy. I’m just going to welcome my wife.” I was already reaching for the doorknob.
“Sir,” called one of the attendants from the customer service desk. “You need to wait in the lounge for all arrivals.”
“Ronan,” Mac called. “Security protocol says—”
“Sue me!” I shouted to both of them as I yanked the door open and ran out.
Laney was being escorted down the stairs by one of the attendants—or maybe a pilot who seemed very interested in the beautiful snack he’d just flown across the country.
She had that wide-eyed look that I had a feeling she’d worn since learning I had upgraded her flight from commercial to private.
But unlike most people outside my family, whose awestruck expressions were typically tinged with greed after this sort of treatment, Laney’s remained nothing but curious.
She was enjoying herself—who wouldn’t enjoy buttery leather seats, private service, and zero security? —but she didn’t need it.
It made me like her all the more.
Then she saw me, and her smile lit up by about a thousand watts. “Ronan!”
Any remaining desire to look the slightest bit cool evaporated right then and there. I closed the space between us at a hard jog, meeting her at the bottom of the stairs just in time to sweep her off her feet and greet her with the kiss she deserved.
“Oh!” she squeaked against my lips.
Then her arms wound around my neck, and she was kissing me back. Somehow, the world was right again. This moment was all that mattered. The way her mouth fit mine like a jigsaw puzzle. The way her weight felt perfect in my arms. The way the taste of her was better than anything I’d eaten in weeks.
Laney. My Laney.
Fuck.
I lowered her feet back to the pavement, both of us breathing and trying to ignore the knowing smiles of the staff milling around us.
“Hey,” I said stupidly.
She grinned. “Hey yourself. Talk about a warm welcome.”
For some reason, that was the comment that brought me back to my senses.
“Paparazzi.” The lies started coming easily again as I stepped back. “Never know when they’re watching.”
It just about killed me when those green eyes dimmed. “Oh. Right. Of course.”
But I was getting ahead of myself. Way ahead.
Liam was right. I couldn’t afford to fuck this up.
With that, I took her hand and pressed a much more sedate kiss to her knuckles. The sort a husband might give his wife, versus the kiss a degenerate playboy might give the girl he really wanted to nail. “Welcome to Boston, wifey. I’ll show you where we live.”