4. Ronan #2
“You’ve been avoiding us,” I eventually say.
She’s deftly slipped our clutches all week.
Classes haven’t begun yet, and we’ve refused so far to creep into her personal space, so we’ve been trying to track her down any time we’re at the rink for practice, but any time we catch so much as a glimpse of her, she disappears to God knows where.
Clearly avoiding us. She must remember us from that night, but why go to such extremes to stay out of our way?
“Have I?” That sharp gaze of hers lifts to mine, the exact shade of honey indeterminable from beneath her thick line of eyelashes. I fight the smile threatening to grow.
“Why?” My fingers flex against her spine, my gaze searching hers for any hint of an answer to my question.
Her lips press together into a flat line, her gaze once again skittering into the crowd. “Maybe I’m just not interested in whatever game you’re playing.”
“And what game is that?”
She tilts her head, expression carved from granite. “You tell me.”
I search her face, determining my next course of action while I steer us through a slow turn. I sense I’ll get further if I give her a nugget of truth, so I quietly murmur so only she can hear, “We looked for you, you know. After that night.”
Her breath catches. It’s not the kind anyone would notice unless they were cataloguing every flicker of motion the way I am. Her eyes flare with something I don’t catch before they hurriedly drop to my collarbone, as if something about my tie is suddenly fascinating.
One beat. Two.
She says nothing.
But something shifts between us, like a ripple in the water, and I know I’ve touched something raw.
The air around us feels different somehow.
Her movements, if possible, become even more stiff, and I suddenly sense that she is no longer here in the ballroom with me.
So I don’t push. Not yet, at least. Patience has always been a quality of mine.
Something Silas and I have in common—unlike Lucian, who has the patience of a gnat.
I ease us through another turn, keeping the pressure between us light. Everything with Gwendolyn is like holding a wire between two fingers and waiting to see if it sparks.
The orchestra swells around us—something string-heavy and pretentious. Couples sway all around the dance floor, more interested in being seen than dancing, but Wren isn’t pretending. Every movement of hers is deliberate. She’s tension on a leash.
“So,” I pivot, “how’s the internship treating you?”
She casts me a sideways glance. “It’s character-building.” Her lips twitch. “Which is code for: I hate it.”
I huff out a quiet laugh. “That good, huh?”
Her only response is a slight lift of her shoulders. A casual shrug, clearly unwilling to share anything more, or perhaps that slight slip of a smile has her keeping a tight grasp on her thoughts and emotions.
“They certainly seemed to keep you busy this week, or is ducking out every time the guys and I enter the room part of your job description?”
She lifts her chin a little, eyes narrowing in challenge, and her words are clipped. “It’s called working. You should try it sometime.”
I grin. “What a sharp tongue you’ve got.”
Of course, she doesn’t take the bait. She’s too controlled for that. Too on edge around me. Without meeting my gaze, she changes the subject. “What is it like being a senator’s son?”
My mouth twists. “It sounds shinier than it is.”
Something in my tone of voice has her looking at me. Really looking at me. Searching my gaze…for what, I don’t know.
“So you chose hockey because it’s honest about the damage, whereas politics teaches you to smile through it?
” There’s a hint of sarcasm to her words, but the slight tilt of her head and the fact that her gaze is no longer roaming the room but hovering somewhere near my earlobe show there’s a hint of curiosity to her question.
“That,” I admit with a wry twist of my lips, “but I also chose it because I wanted something that was solely mine.”
Something like understanding flickers behind those honey eyes, even if she doesn’t let it stay.
Come on, Little Serpent. Give me something. Anything.
“Mind if I cut in?”
Like the scrape of a needle against a record, any hope of a moment between us screeches to a halt with the arrival of Wren’s brother—Carson Winslow.
She lets go of my hand before I can blink.
“Be my guest,” I state perfunctorily, eyes never leaving hers.
Her brother touches her elbow, but she doesn’t immediately let him direct her away.
She hesitates a moment, her gaze somewhere around my knees, before she lifts her face to mine.
There’s a crack in her facade, like the slight opening of a door into her inner psyche.
“I don’t know what you’re up to, but I’m not interested in playing.
” Her head cocks slightly, gaze hardening to stone.
“Don’t you think you’ve already stolen enough from me?
” That door slams shut as she glares. Her lip curls with disdain, and gone is her polite mask.
For the first time tonight, I get a true glimpse at what she truly thinks of me. “Leave me the hell alone. All of you.”
With that, she allows her brother to guide her into the crowd. I watch her disappear between dancing couples, her final words playing on my mind. She doesn’t once look back.
Don’t you think you’ve already stolen enough from me?
The penny drops, and horror like I’ve never felt before floods my veins.
Wren doesn’t just know we were there that night.
She believes we were the ones who attacked her.
The ones who hurt her. Who raped her.
My hand trembles as I grab a fresh glass of whiskey from a passing waiter and knock the entire thing back. It burns as it slides down my throat, but I barely feel it. I’m too raw, too shocked to register anything other than the fact that Wren blames us.
No wonder she’s been running from us all week.
Jesus. I spin away, unable to continue watching her from across the room as I run a hand through my hair, uncaring if I mess it up. She must think we’re complete psychos chasing after her all week.
She must be petrified.
Believing what she does, how did she even stomach being in my presence tonight? Letting me touch her?
I shake my head, with newfound awe at the sheer strength this woman possesses.
Taking a few stabilizing breaths, I turn back to face her. It’s even more imperative now that we find out who actually attacked her. We need to set the record straight. Prove to her that it wasn’t us.
Moving into a corner of the room where my mother is unlikely to catch me on my phone instead of socializing, I type out a message to the guys.
Me
We have a problem.
Wren thinks it was us.
Lucian
Us what?
Me
She believes we were the ones who attacked her that night.
Lucian
What the fuck?!
Silas
Why does she think that?
Me
She didn’t exactly explain, but I’m guessing we’re the only real memory she has of that night.
Lucian
Well, fuck.
Silas
Then we need to show her that it wasn’t.
Lucian
How do we do that?
Silas
We find out who it was.
Me
And we show her who we really are.
Pocketing my phone, I exit the gala. I’ve seen enough.
Learned enough. Whatever Wren Winslow survived didn’t end that night.
She might put on a brave front, a strong bravado for the world, but I see the damage slumbering beneath the surface.
Pain she won’t allow herself to acknowledge.
Trauma that one day will rear up and destroy the protective casing she has wrapped around herself.
The problem is she’s entirely alone. I refuse to let that be the case when that day comes.
So it’s up to us to make her see we’re here for her. We want to help. And that we weren’t the ones who hurt her that night.