Chapter 7
“What the hell is going on out here?”
Ireland glanced at Christopher as he exited his office and entered the reception area. She decided in an instant that she was already up to her neck in bullshit, thank you very much, and wasn’t sticking around for more.
The elevator dinged behind her, and she turned on her heel, smiling rigidly at the tiny pop singer with teased blond hair and minuscule blue latex dress who exited the elevator with an entourage of half a dozen people.
“Hey, Ireland,” Chantal greeted her.
“Hey, superstar,” she replied, catching the woman’s hands and spinning with her so that Ireland’s back was to the elevator again. “We have to catch up soon.”
Then she walked backward into the car and hit the button for the ground floor.
“Ireland!” Ronan and her father barked in unison.
How she resisted flipping off the former and sobbing over the latter was beyond her.
She watched Ronan snatch her abandoned overnight bag up from the floor outside the elevator as the doors slid shut.
There was a great deal she didn’t yet understand about what was happening, but she was catching up quick. The blows had been coming swift and hard all morning: the talk with her mother, seeing Ronan on the street outside Vidal, finding Jules and Claudette in the McCaffrey meeting with her father, and her father’s fury, which she’d never imagined him capable of. He was such a mild-mannered and inherently soft-hearted man who so rarely raised his voice that she couldn’t remember the last time he had done so.
And Ronan. Ronan McCaffrey . Dressed in a blue Glen plaid blazer with a white dress shirt, solid blue tie, and navy slacks, his business style was distinctly Southern and classically elegant. She loved it madly, as she adored everything about him.
There was a sharp pain blooming and spreading through her chest.
How? Why?
She exited into the lobby and waved at Charlie as she passed him, her stride lengthening as she pushed out onto the street. She didn’t think twice about her destination and plunged into the stream of pedestrians headed into Times Square.
Ronan waited a heartbeat for the group of people who’d exited the elevator to step between him and Chris Vidal, Sr., then he spun on his heel and slammed through the stairwell door, racing down with Ireland’s bag in hand. There was shouting behind him. Whether from the two Vidals or his own siblings didn’t much matter. His concern was the look on Ireland’s face when the pieces started falling into place for her.
The stunningly fierce tigress of a woman who’d sworn off men but given him a chance was wounded now, and while her father was ultimately responsible, Ronan had to shoulder some of the blame. He’d known this moment of revelation was imminent, that he had only a matter of hours in which to make a lasting impression that might leave him a chance of redemption.
Tossing his badge at Charlie with a barked apology, Ronan burst onto 48 th St. and glanced from side to side, searching. Spotting Ireland heading toward 7 th Ave, he lunged through a small gap in the stream of shopping bag-laden tourists in pursuit.
“Wait a damned minute!” Drawing abreast of her, he slowed his pace from breakneck to matching her catlike stride.
Her head swiveled toward him, and he saw the same icy look on her face that he’d seen Friday night when she’d shredded the guy in the bar.
It sliced deep.
And she didn’t slow, her endless legs crisscrossing with sleek, feline grace. He pivoted to walk forward at her side but continued having to weave through the flood of pedestrians to keep up, clutching her duffel bag against his chest so it didn’t drag him down.
“What the hell was that back there?” he asked, fuming.
“You can’t be asking me that.”
He shot her an arch glance. “Is ‘Lizzie’ a separate personality from ‘Ireland?’ Because the woman I met Friday came spoiling for a fight and enjoyed the hell out of it.”
She stopped so suddenly that the woman following behind her almost bumped into her back. “You think I should’ve started yelling at you with the situation being what it was? Are you a masochist, Mr. McCaffrey ? Do you target family businesses for the thrill of having multiple people screaming at you at once?”
“Yell at me? !” He moved to face her and urged her to one side, outside the flow of foot traffic. “Your father is the villain here.’”
“You don’t know my father.’”
His smile was tight and cool. “I know him better than you do. Why didn’t you confront him?”
“How I deal with my family is none of your business.”
“What the hell have they done to silence you?” he snapped. “You’re a completely different person when they’re involved.”
Her beautiful eyes narrowed. “You don’t know me , either.”
She stepped down into the bike lane and then around him, resuming her hurried pace on the sidewalk. Ronan cursed under his breath and turned to follow, then stopped so abruptly he tripped, shocked into immobility.
Ireland was everywhere he looked, stories tall, plastered on every building he could see.
And she was completely naked.
Against a tan background, she strutted back and forth in nude stilettos, her hip-length hair plastered strategically across her bare body by a firm breeze—and expert CGI. She moved with graceful abandon, lifting her arms high and spinning like a dancer, her willowy figure strong and sexy.
It was a body lotion ad, he grasped through a haze of white-hot need, watching as she dropped gracefully into a crouch and blew a kiss at everyone watching her. And since the company she represented had staged a takeover, multiples of Ireland circled the digital billboards of Times Square in unison, a sex goddess exploiting her power to dazzle her adoring followers.
Ronan shook off the stupefaction and realized he wasn’t the only person standing motionless on the street, watching Ireland move with seductive confidence and utter delight. But he damned well better be the only one doing so with an erection.
“ Pour l’amour de dieu ,” he growled, adjusting his cock in his slacks before stepping into the bike lane to chase her as quickly as he could manage with a hard-on and a crush of gawking people everywhere. God help anyone who recognized and approached her…
The urgent ringing of a bike’s bell warned him to hop back onto the sidewalk just before a courier cyclist whizzed by.
Ireland was heading toward the hotel. Ronan’s lips curved with grim relief once he realized her destination. Throwing her over his shoulder and hauling her there wouldn’t help his cause, but he’d been resigned to doing it if necessary to say what needed to be said.
He caught up to her just as she spun through the revolving doors into the lobby. She stopped on the other side, waiting for him to join her.
“You forget how to walk?” she asked with one brow arched and her arms crossed.
“Don’t.” He caught her by the elbow and urged her toward the bank of elevators, adjusting his grip on her bag in his other hand. “If you’re naked, I’m staring, and I won’t apologize for it.”
“Naked?” She frowned. They stopped behind the mass of people waiting for the next elevator car. Leaning toward him, she whispered, “Is my dress see-through?”
He gave her a level look. “Did you not see yourself walking laps around Times Square selling lotion?”
Her eyes and mouth opened wide. “I forgot about that! How’d it come out? Did it look okay?”
His teeth clenched as his mind replayed the memory of her splendid body moving with joyful, aggressive sexuality. His blood heated again, and he growled, “‘Okay?’ No. Not even close. There’s actually no word that covers how perfect every inch of you is.”
Ireland’s mouth curved in a smug smile, then she shifted her gaze from him to watching the floor numbers change. The older woman in front of them turned her head and gave Ronan an approving nod.
They were able to get into the third elevator car, and Ronan pulled Ireland into place in front of him, his arm slung around her waist. Turning her head, she shot him a strident look, but he just nuzzled her temple and breathed her in, absorbing the fragrance of her perfume blended with the scent of her skin. Closing his eyes, he was no longer crammed into the back corner of a packed elevator car, he was simply holding the woman he desired intensely. The strain in his shoulders eased enough to be bearable. It was the first time he’d ridden an overflowing elevator without hating it.
When they stopped on his floor, she reached a hand back for him and led him out with her. But once they were free, she shook him off. “I can carry my bag,” she said.
“I know.” Extending his hand, he directed her to walk in front of him. “5100.”
An odd tingle raced down Ireland’s spine. “Really?”
“Why would I lie about my room number, cher ?” Ronan took his phone out to unlock the double doors to the three-bedroom suite.
She knew exactly what to expect when she entered the room because she’d designed the signature suite herself. Her father and brother had also designed suites as part of the branded feel Gideon wanted for the flagship property. Each had a distinctive style, with her father following the 70s styling of the Vidal offices and Christopher reminiscing with an 80s theme. Ireland had wanted to evoke a different feeling than nostalgia.
She’d wanted indulgence.
So, she stepped into a very familiar sprawling space filled with sumptuous fabrics and overstuffed furniture. The windows were covered in sapphire sheers framed by puddled velvet drapes in the same hue. Day or night, the rooms were drenched in simulated dusk thanks to strategic mood lighting in the coffered ceiling.
The suite was an amalgam of all the things she loved and couldn’t implement in her own place. A big, white, long-haired cat shedding on dark fabrics? No, thank you. And she wanted her family to feel comfortable when they stopped by.
Did Ronan like the inherently sexy suite? The thought of him living and sleeping in it stirred heat inside her.
“Can I get you anything?” he asked as he dropped her duffel into a chair and shrugged out of his suit jacket. He loosened the knot of his tie and unbuttoned the top button of his dress shirt on his way to the bar. “Water, soda, juice? Something stronger?”
Ireland set her Birkin down next to her overnight bag and then plopped herself into the thick cushions of the silver velvet sofa. Kicking off her shoes, she tucked her legs and draped her arm along the back of the couch. “Sparkling water, if you’ve got it. Did you know who I was when we met Friday?”
He straightened from bending down to the minifridge behind the tufted gray silk bar, untwisting the cap of a blue glass bottle and grabbing a hobnail drinking glass before strolling toward her with sultry sexual grace. He reminded her of a lion on the prowl, loose-limbed and formidable even at leisure. “Yes.”
“And yet you acted like you didn’t.”
“I wasn’t sure if you were acting.” He poured for her, deposited the bottle and glass on the coffee table, and then settled into the matching sofa across from hers. Reaching down, he unzipped his sexy-as-sin crocodile dress boots. He pulled off his socks so he was barefoot, too, draping them over the boot shafts before tucking them under the couch.
Such a simple act shouldn’t feel so intimate.
“What do you mean?” she asked, forcing her mind to stay on track.
Sitting back, Ronan widened the spread of his knees and began working on unbuttoning and rolling up his sleeves. “I don’t believe in coincidences or serendipity. You were in the same space as me, in a fine temper, and I had to think that was by design.”
She mustn’t stare at the sizeable bulge between his legs. She definitely should not feel a growing ache while doing so. Licking her dry lips, Ireland forced her gaze upward and found him staring back with knowing amusement. She cleared her throat. “When did you realize I was clueless?”
“By Saturday afternoon, I started to believe you had no agenda.”
“No way it took that long,” she contested. They’d been together until the early hours of Saturday morning, enjoying the food and company of Valentin and Genevieve.
“Buying out the other Vidal investors didn’t happen overnight. It was unimaginable that you didn’t know what was happening. You’d also given me a false name, were vague about your career, asked me intrusive questions, suggested some conflict with your family, and were actively seducing me. What do?—”
“I was not!” But the observation she protested wasn’t the one that stung.
His half-smile was a blatant challenge. He finished tugging off his tie and tossed it over the armrest, his entire body seeming to shrug off tension along with it. He wore his civility with such confident ease, yet the truth was that it suffocated him.
“ You were seducing me ,” she countered, her fingers drumming on the sofa back.
“I am, yes.” He smiled when she bristled. “I knew I had a very limited window in which to show you who I am before the situation with Vidal came to a head.”
“And you didn’t think being honest about that and your name was a better tactic?”
“I could ask you the same.”
She studied him for a long moment, cataloging the flagrant invitation of his virile body. His arm draped over the armrest, his fingertips stroking channels into the metallic velvet. His right hand lay atop his thigh, near his groin. And his charisma…it lured her so irresistibly it was an effort not to go to him, straddle him, and take what she so recklessly wanted despite everything.
He looked so at home in the space she had meticulously designed, and the sensual décor complemented him, made him even more sinfully attractive—the king of the voluptuary’s haven she’d created.
“I was protecting myself,” she said finally. “I wanted you to like me for me.”
“I do. Very much.” His gaze shifted from warm to heated. “And my motivation was the same.”
“Hmm.” She looked away, still trying to align what she knew with how she felt. “So why not take me to bed and win me over that way?”
“You know why.”
Pursing her lips, Ireland unfolded from the sofa and padded barefoot to the nearest window. “Am I supposed to give you points for not taking me to bed under false pretenses?”
“Yes, damn it.” The shift in his voice revealed that he’d stood, too, and then followed her. “It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and I don’t say that lightly.”
She faced him with a tight smile and narrowed eyes. “But you did it for you, Ronan. To claim gallantry at the very moment your deception became known. What’s the difference if you fuck me as a Boudreaux or a McCaffrey? Or have me now versus yesterday?”
“I assessed which would give me the greatest probability of tomorrow and the day after. And I’m prepared to grovel as long as necessary.” He stopped in front of her and extended his hand. “Ronan McCaffrey Boudreaux.”
After a brief hesitation, she accepted the introduction, marveling at how strongly affected she still was by the sexual attraction between them. She was used to losing immediate interest when a relationship slid sideways to any degree. But the moment her skin touched Ronan’s, her lips parted on a sharp inrush of air, her fingers flexing involuntarily against the sudden surge of electricity.
“Ireland Elizabeth Vidal,” she said, her voice betrayingly husky.
Lifting her hand, he kissed her knuckles. When he straightened, his gray eyes were stormy. And watchful.
She pulled her hand back and walked around him, knowing it was up to her to decide the next steps. Should she insist they return to Vidal and get the mess sorted out? She didn’t have to look at her phone to know there were missed calls from her father and maybe Christopher, possibly even Gideon, if they’d elected to drag him into the fight.
Better they do that than she.
Her hands fisted at her sides. There was really no point in going back. Ultimately, it was up to her and Ronan to find the way through the crisis.
She looked around the living room as she crossed it, noting the two closed doors on each side that led to the second and third bedrooms. The primary suite’s double door entrance was wide open, and she went to it, intending to pause on the threshold but lured deeper inside by Ronan’s scent. She felt him following, felt that ineffable pull between them.
Before her was the massive round bed that had been custom-made to realize her vision. It had a curving headboard anchored by crescent-shaped nightstands that nestled against the sides of the bed. A ruched silk coverlet in vivid sapphire pooled onto the top of a raised dais. Above, on the ceiling, hung a mirror of equal size to the bed.
Ronan came up behind her, close enough for her to sense his warmth but not near enough that they touched. His proximity set off a low and deep trembling inside her, so she moved away. Reaching the edge of the dais, Ireland turned and looked at him propped casually against the jamb, his hands in his trouser pockets. His relaxed posture was misleading. His gorgeous face had the taut, focused look of a hungry predator biding his time before pouncing.
She climbed the short steps. Had she come to the bedroom just to remind herself of its decadence, or had she led him here because the gnawing craving for him had become unbearable?
Grabbing the hem of her linen dress, she yanked it over her head before she answered that question. She heard his harsh exhale, then felt the searing heat of his gaze as it slid over her.
But he didn’t move.
She held his covetous stare as she slid her thumbs under the delicate lace of her panties and pushed them down her legs. Stepping free, she faced him again completely naked.
“I’m not airbrushed now,” she murmured, turning around with arms wide. “Disappointed?”
“Delirious,” he corrected, moving to grip and stroke the bulge of his erection through his slacks. “I didn’t quite believe we’d actually get here.”
“Would you like me to go?” she teased, trying for worldly in the hopes of masking the chaos inside her.
“I’d like you to come,” he said gruffly. “Around my tongue, my fingers, my cock. Until I’ve wrung you out.”
Her nipples tightened into hard points. “Then stop staring and take your clothes off. Let me see you.”
His sinner’s mouth curved in a smile that didn’t soften his piercing focus. “If you want to use my body to pleasure yours, I’m at your service. Any time. Any place. Except for right now, when you’ll have to come over here and take it.”
“Why? I’m right here by the bed.”
“And far too tempting for what little restraint I have left. Come set the pace, cher .”
Ireland bit her lower lip and threw caution—which she exercised so little of anyway—to the wind. She descended the short steps and closed the distance between them, wishing she’d kept her heels on for visual impact. When she stopped in front of him, she took a moment to relish the unusual feeling of being petite next to his tall frame. Without her stilettos, she was at eye level with his collar. She watched as his tanned, strong throat worked on a hard swallow, betraying his reaction to her.
Placing both hands on his chest, she felt the heat and strength of his body and the elevated beat of his heart through the material of his dress shirt. Her fingers flexed, finding hardly any give. She surged onto her tiptoes, pressing her nose into the crook of his neck. He absorbed the sudden press of her weight with a hoarse laugh, his hands catching her hips to steady her.
Nuzzling, Ireland breathed him in with a soft hum of delight. The scent of his skin was familiar now and as decadent as the rest of him. The fragrance—smoky, intoxicating, and sexy as hell—was wickedly alluring for a man with no vices. It resonated inside her, making her feel safe and highly attuned to him.
She licked the salt from his skin in a long, slow lap. He shivered violently and cursed, his hands gripping her too tightly. His erection was like steel against her lower belly. Her low laugh was exultant.
“I’ll have you again,” he said gruffly. “If you want mercy when that happens, you’d best show some now.”
“Your threats have the opposite of their intended effect, you know.”
He caught her face in his hands, his thumbs sweeping into the hollows beneath her cheekbones. The contradiction of his tender touch and imperative desire moved her. “I can’t decide if you’re a punishment or a gift.”
“Maybe I’m a little of both.”
Her fingers went to his shirt buttons and began undoing them. His big, warm hand claimed her breast and squeezed, plumping it. She didn’t have much to play with, not enough even to have worn a bra under her dress, but Ronan didn’t seem to mind, his gaze openly lustful as his thumb circled her nipple.
Parting the halves of his shirt, Ireland revealed him to her gaze and tightened her thighs against the sudden ache between them. Golden skin stretched taut over slabs of rigid muscle. His abs were so perfectly defined she traced them with her fingertips, making them leap beneath her touch as he laughed and twisted away.