Chapter 36 The Art of Storytelling
THE ART OF STORYTELLING
RONAN
Iknew the moment I brought Laney Fisher into the penthouse at the Minoan that this would be the last time I ever stayed here.
“Did I carry you across the threshold the first time we were here together?” I asked as I set her down on the striped chaise near the window that looked out over the Strip.
Laney could walk, of course. I just couldn’t find it in myself to let her. This guilt thing was kind of inconvenient. How was I going to get over the fact that my wife had gone through an entire fucking surgery without me there to support her?
Carrying her everywhere seemed like a good place to start.
“I still don’t remember anything about that night after we got into the car,” she said. “I have never drunk that much in my life. I’m probably lucky I didn’t end up in the hospital then.”
I shuddered. “Don’t even say that.”
She grabbed my collar and pulled me down for a kiss. “Don’t worry. It can’t happen now. I’m good. I’m going to be all right.”
It was music to my ears.
I kissed her for a long time. I kissed her as much as I wanted, and then I kissed her again as much as she wanted.
I kissed her for longer than was probably wise for a post-surgical cardiac patient, and by the time I was done, somehow, we were both on the couch, legs entwined, with her shirt torn a bit at the collar and my pants uncomfortably tight.
“Shower,” I mumbled into her neck, careful that I didn’t put any pressure on the arm that had been used for the procedure.
“Mmph.” Her teeth were currently nibbling my ear.
Fuck. This was asking for trouble, but I could handle it. I could handle anything for her.
Twenty minutes and one orgasm courteous of Laney’s magic hand later (I owed her at least five for that once she was cleared by her surgeon), we were dry and buried in the covers of the bed next to my wife, both of us fighting to keep our eyes open despite the brightness of the day.
And yet, I couldn’t stop looking at her.
“I can’t believe…” I trailed off as I traced her chin, then the pillowy contours of her lips.
“Can’t believe what?” she asked with a smile just before biting the end of my thumb.
I grinned. “That you’re mine. That we’re here. And that—fuck, that my bridge troll of a brother was the one who brought you all the way down here.”
Laney giggled. “Maybe he’s just a romantic.”
“Owen, a romantic? You did meet him, didn’t you?”
“And spent two days straight with him, yeah.” She laughed, squeezing a pillow to her chest. “I don’t think you know him as well as you think you do.
He practically jumped at the opportunity to drive me down, and he was really nice, checking in on me, stopping when I needed to, even insisting on a hotel for a few hours when we got to Utah.
I think he’s a secret ball of mush inside. ”
I decided not to correct her on that one. Sure, Owen had done one thing to redeem himself, but that hardly accounted for thirty-eight other years of being a giant prick. There was one thing my he definitely did not have, and that was a sense of romance.
Instead, I kissed her again. I couldn’t stop kissing her, it seemed.
A part of me kept worrying that she was going to disappear somehow.
That I’d wake up, back in this room again, hungover and naked and realize that the last month of my life had been a dream.
So I had to kiss her, just to make sure it was real.
Sometime later, Laney flopped back onto the pillow, sighing. And grinning. “It feels like a lifetime ago that we woke up here married.”
“Mmmmm.” I licked her neck. I needed to stop soon, but I was having a hard time not tasting her every chance I got. “Yeah, I suppose a lot has happened.”
“Oh, just a little.” She arched her neck, giving me better access.
“Let’s see… I moved across the country for a husband I barely knew.
Then I discovered he’s a secret nerd like me with a billion books and seriously sweet and kinky sides that made it impossible not to fall in love with him.
Then he gets arrested for murder, and I have emergency heart surgery. Sounds like the perfect honeymoon.”
I set my teeth over her pulse, strong and steady. Music to my damn ears. “We might be kind of terrible at marriage.”
“The worst.” She turned in my arms. “But maybe that means there’s nowhere to go but up. I wouldn’t change a thing.”
“Not even the part where my family bought your mother’s company without telling you?”
“Okay, maybe that part.” She paused. “Or maybe just a different way. My dad is happy about it. And I actually might be too. I don’t have to save Meráki anymore. So… silver lining?”
I kissed her forehead. Someday I’d figure out how to make that one up to her. When the time was right. “How’s your heart?”
“That was the worst change of subject in the world.”
“I’m tired. Give me some slack.” I rolled onto my back and tucked her into the curve between my chest and arm, the place where she fit perfectly. “I’m still going to need an answer, though.”
She gave a truly enormous yawn before answering. “Weirdly normal, actually. At least, I think this is what normal feels like. I don’t know. I’ll have to see.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I know that theoretically I can do all sorts of things that were hard before. Or will be in a couple of weeks.” She turned to look up at me.
“I can get legitimately excited. Maybe take up running. Do inversions in yoga without worrying I’ll pass out.
But I think that until all of that actually happens, I may not believe it’s real. That I’m really okay.”
“Sounds familiar.” I brushed a hand through her hair. I was having similar feelings about us.
But she was right about one thing. There was no point in speculating anymore about what could happen. I couldn’t waste my time worrying about whether I deserved Laney or what her love might actually mean. We just had to live it.
And maybe, after some time had passed, I’d get used to the fact that I had somehow won the lottery of marriages.
Although I wasn’t sure I wanted to do that, even if I could. I sincerely doubted a day would ever pass where I wasn’t genuinely in awe of the fact that Laney Fisher loved me.
It honestly seemed preferable anyway.
We lay together for a long time, doing the simple things people do just before they sleep together, like stroking each other’s hair and listening to each other’s breaths even out.
I was damn close to sleep when she spoke again.
“Ronan?”
“Mmm.”
“What did that guy mean when he said you owe him?”
I blinked. A gilded cherub carved into the molding looked down at me, as if to say, here’s another chance to be better. To tell her the truth. Even if you want to pretend it didn’t happen.
“His name is Ares Antoni,” I said. “His father is one of the bigger crime bosses in the country, with operations in New York and Vegas. Sometimes I had to work with them.”
“You worked with mobsters?” I felt her tense under my arm.
“I did, yeah. When the family needed certain… problems… handled discreetly.”
The hand draped over my torso curled into a tight fist. “Like Billy Richards.”
“Exactly.”
I took a breath. And then, because I could, because the trust between a man and his wife was so sacred in this country that even the law protected our right to confide the very worst things to each other without fear, I told her everything that happened in Vegas before I met her.
About the call from Brendan that terrible night.
About Mac’s and my flight to Vegas and how we’d tracked down the last of Huntington’s thugs.
About how we’d dragged Billy Richards out into the desert with the intent to shoot him dead and leave him for the coyotes to clean up… but instead, I’d left him there alive, which could have been just as bad.
All throughout, Laney listened, eyes wide and open, accepting of my story, of my guilt, my flaws. Even my fears. She was surprised at times. Maybe even a little disgusted.
“And your dad has been making you do that kind of thing since…”
I closed my eyes. “Since I was old enough to make trouble. Which basically means forever.”
I honestly couldn’t remember a day when Dad hadn’t egged on my internal chaos.
Even going back to Southie, he’d encouraged me to do things like nick a pack of gum from the corner store or pick a fight with someone on the playground.
Like he’d been trying to see just how broken my moral compass was. Or how hard he could twist it.
Maybe it wasn’t broken at all, I realized as I spoke. Maybe it was just lost until it found its true north.
To her credit, Laney never looked away. She took me as I was, and when I finished, she kissed me, slow and long.
“I love you,” she told me. “No matter what you do or have done. I love you always.”
Something deep inside me split open completely. It felt like it might be my heart welcoming her home.
It made me want to tell her everything I’d ever done. Well, not everything. Some stories could wait. After all, we had a lifetime to share our secrets.
And the weird thing was? I was looking forward to it.
“So, Ares helped you locate him to clear your name, and now you owe him something in return?” She was lying on her side now, those big green eyes set off by the white of her pillow.
“That’s about it.”
“Do you know what he wants?”
I nodded. And then I admitted the thing I hadn’t told anyone yet. Not even Liam. “He wants part of my stake in Blackguard. He wants to go straight, and that would give him the means to do it. So… I’m going to give it to him.”
Her eyes popped open. “You’re giving a gangster shares in your family’s company?”
It was funny. She almost cared more than I did.
“I’m giving a man trying to be legitimate shares in a company I no longer want to be part of.
” I sat up then, letting the sheets pool around my waist. “I think Ares wants out of the life. I think he hates being under his father’s thumb as much as I hated being under mine. He sees Blackguard as his ticket out.”