Chapter Thirteen
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
RONANSTAREDATthe screen on Simon’s laptop as Arte Armand made a full confession on some internet talk show. “How the hell did you manage that?” he asked.
All those years ago on the streets, he’d known Simon was a good con artist. But so many years had passed since then, he’d figured he might have lost his touch. If anything, Simon had only gotten better. He was in awe and executed a little bow of appreciation and respect.
“Yeah,” Trevor chimed in from the other side of the conference table. “What’d you have to do to him to convince him to come clean?”
Simon snorted. “I didn’t even meet with him.”
“What?” Ronan asked. “That was the plan.”
“Your plan,” Simon reminded him. “And there was no way it would work.”
“Just like your seduction plan,” Trevor goaded him.
No. That hadn’t worked, either. But he didn’t understand.
“Why did Arte do this?”
“Who cares?” Trevor asked. “Now you can have the complaint against you thrown out.”
“He doesn’t need to,” Stone said. “My friend in the bar association said the complaint had already been withdrawn. They sent out a certified letter to notify you of that.”
Had Muriel withdrawn it even before she learned the truth? Had she trusted him?
Why? He’d done nothing to earn it.
“This is it,” Simon said, as he fiddled with his keyboard. After rewinding a bit of the video, he pushed Play again and Arte’s voice cracked out of the speakers.
“I recently saw Muriel,” he said.
Ronan flinched, realizing the con had probably gone to her for money. It hadn’t mattered to him that Ronan had said he wasn’t entitled to any more. Hell, he hadn’t been entitled to what he’d already gotten out of her.
Arte continued, “And she made it clear that the only way for me to make up for what I did to her was to tell the truth.”
“Wonder if she paid him,” Stone murmured.
Ronan cursed at the thought of that con getting another penny out of her. “I sure as hell hope not.”
“So, you were lying about your marriage?” the reporter asked Arte.
He chuckled and crossed his legs. “I’ve been lying about a lot of things.”
“But you had witnesses at the trial that testified to the orgies.”
“Never happened,” Arte said.
“Why would those people lie?” the reporter persisted.
Arte sighed. “I promised them things...like parts in the musical I’m producing.” And he began a self-promotion monologue that Simon quickly muted.
“And now we know why he wanted to do the interviews,” Stone said. “Free publicity.”
It sure as hell wasn’t out of any kindness of his heart. Ronan doubted he had one.
“Doesn’t matter his reasons,” Trevor said. “It gets Ronan off the hook with the bar.”
He squirmed slightly in his chair. He really hated sitting. “Yeah, I’m no longer in trouble with the bar, but how does it make the firm look that I was so easily duped?”
He felt like a damn fool for getting played so easily.
Simon shook his head. “You don’t think anyone has ever gotten away with lying to a lawyer before this?” He snorted. “People lie all the time.”
Not Muriel. She’d been telling him the truth from the very beginning. He should have listened to her. Hell, he never should have taken the case against her.
“I hope not,” Stone said. “I hope my client’s telling the truth.”
“Why do you sound so cynical again?” Trevor asked Simon. “I thought you were all in love.”
“I am,” Simon freely admitted, when once he would have been embarrassed to confess his feelings—to having feelings. “And Bette would never lie to me. I was talking about clients, about this business.”
And all the lawyers nodded in agreement. As they knew, the law was a far cry from black and white. There were so many shades of gray.
“I trusted Bette all along,” Simon continued. “She was right about Muriel.”
“She was,” Ronan agreed. Muriel was as straightforward and honest as her true friend had claimed she was. He could only hope that she would be forgiving, as well.
But could she forgive what he’d done? He didn’t think he could forgive himself.
* * *
The dressing room lights burned hot and bright above the mirror in front of Muriel. But despite the heat, Muriel shivered. She had been so cold lately—without Ronan’s touch, without his kisses and his passion.
Did he know what she’d done? That she’d withdrawn the complaint? Or was he so furious that she’d filed it in the first place that he couldn’t forgive her?
The truth was out now—all over social media—and even some of the bricks-and-mortar media outlets had reported about her divorce debacle. Arte was getting all the publicity he’d wanted.
She couldn’t help but think he’d been wrong about there being no such thing as bad publicity. The public backlash had not been kind to him, threatening to shut down his musical before it even opened.
And there had even been threats of legal action, of charges being brought against him and his friends for lying under oath.
Muriel should have felt vindication. Her apartment looked like a funeral parlor again with all the I’m sorry flower arrangements. Everyone had apologized to her for believing her ex’s lies.
Everyone but Ronan...
She hadn’t seen him in over a week—since that night he’d run from her bedroom right after they’d had sex. Maybe wanting to tie him up had scared him off.
She would have expected a man like Ronan—notorious for his sexual prowess—would have loved a little sexual play. But apparently that was only if he was in control.
Was that why he’d run out? Because he’d been afraid he was losing control...?
Was he starting to have feelings for her, too?
Or was she only fooling herself like she had with Arte? He certainly had never been really interested in her—just in her money.
She sighed and made a face at her reflection in the mirror. The shoot was over. She had nothing she needed to change into—no hair or makeup to do.
In fact, from how quiet the photo studio had become, she suspected everyone had left but her. That was good. If there were reporters waiting outside, they might have given up by now. When everyone else left, they’d probably thought she sneaked out somehow. And she should have.
But she hadn’t wanted to go home to that flower shop. She could have called Bette to meet her somewhere. Or she could have gone out with some of the other models who’d invited her along to dinner and drinks.
Her stomach growled. And she regretted refusing their invitation. But she hadn’t been very hungry lately. At least, not for food.
She was hungry for Ronan. For even just a glimpse of him.
The press had been hounding him, too, and they’d caught him outside the office of Street Legal. He’d looked so damn handsome even as he’d lowered his head and ducked into a waiting limo without commenting to reporters.
What could he say?
That he’d been wrong?
Would a man like Ronan—a man that stubborn and proud—ever admit that he had been wrong?
She had been wrong, too, though, and she hadn’t contacted him. Who was the coward now? Or maybe she was so used to things just falling in her lap, like Arte had pointed out, that she expected Ronan to do the same?
She sighed and glanced into the mirror again. And this time it wasn’t her face she saw in the glass. It was his...
She met his reflection’s dark-eyed gaze and asked, “What are you doing here?”
“Waiting for you to be done,” he said. “Everyone else left.”
“You were here for the shoot?” she asked. “I didn’t see you.” And she looked for him at every one of them, hoping he’d show up like he had that once.
“I couldn’t watch,” he said.
She turned toward him then. “Why not?” This shoot hadn’t been for Bette’s Beguiling Bows. It was a perfume campaign. She had been wearing an evening gown instead of lingerie.
“I couldn’t watch another man touch you,” he said. A muscle twitched along his tightly clenched jaw, and he spoke through gritted teeth. “Like that model was touching you...”
She laughed at his outlandish claim. “You were jealous?” She couldn’t believe that a man with Ronan’s confidence would ever be jealous of another man.
Unless he still believed all those lies about her. Didn’t he think Arte had finally told the truth?
“Is that what this is?” he asked, as if he had a horrible taste in his mouth. “I’ve never felt like this before.”
“Why not?” she asked.
“Because I never cared.”
It wasn’t a declaration of love. But coming from Ronan , it was nearly as monumental. Muriel’s heart rate quickened, and it was suddenly hard to breathe. She parted her lips to drag in some air.
And then his mouth was there, moving hungrily over hers. He kissed her as if he was consuming her, his lips and teeth nibbling at hers. He suddenly pulled back and uttered a deep groan.
“Why do you affect me like no one else ever has?” he asked her.
She could have asked him the same question, but she just smiled with the pleasure his comment gave her. Even if she followed the cardinal rule of gossip and only believed half of what she’d heard, he’d had a lot of lovers. So it was good to know that she was special to him.
“You don’t have to be jealous because of me,” she assured him. “Because you’re the only man I want.”
He tensed, and she saw that look of fear pass through his dark eyes. Instead of her words reassuring him, she’d scared him. And she remembered he was a man who would never let himself fall in love—because he didn’t want to wind up like his father.
But she was not like his mother. And she wanted him to know that. “I only sleep with one man at a time,” she said. “And you’re the only man I want to sleep with now.”
Yet they had never slept together. He always took off right after they had sex.
“Is that why you withdrew your complaint?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Sorry, you did not seduce me into that.”
“Why did you do it then?” he asked.
“Because Arte told me the truth.”
“And the rest of the world, too,” Ronan remarked. He studied her face. “How did you get him to do that?”
She shrugged. “He must have realized it was the only publicity he was going to get.”
“It’s bad.”
“Yes,” she said. “Is it for you? Have you had any backlash?”
“The guys have called me an idiot,” he said. “But it hasn’t affected the practice any. In fact, I think it’s brought in more clients.”
“So you’ve been busy?” she asked. And now she was fishing to see where he’d been, why he hadn’t been around. He wasn’t the only one experiencing jealousy for the first time.
He nodded. “And I wasn’t sure you’d want to see me after the truth finally came out. Or if you’d hit me again like you did in that first elevator...”
She laughed and reaching up, pressed her lips to his cheek. “Poor baby...”
“I had it coming,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“Arte duped you—just like he did me,” she said. And somehow that made her feel better about it. If a man as brilliant as Ronan had been fooled, she didn’t feel like such a fool herself.
Ronan flinched. He obviously hadn’t liked being conned. “There was more to it than that.”
“I know.” But she didn’t want to talk about the past now. She’d missed him too much. And her body ached for his.
But she turned away from him, to face the mirror again. Over her shoulder, his reflection’s eyes narrowed as he studied her.
“Muriel...?”
Since she’d had to give back the gown she’d worn for the photo shoot, she wore only a robe now. She’d been too lethargic—from all the sleepless nights thinking about him—that she hadn’t worked up the energy to change into her street clothes. They overflowed the top of her bag, which sat on the floor beneath the long dressing room table.
Watching him in the mirror, she untied the sash of her robe and pulled it through the loops.
His mouth curved into a slight grin, and he told her, “You are not going to tie me up.”
“No,” she agreed. “I want you to touch me.” She parted the robe and let it drop from her shoulders so that she stood naked before the mirror and him. “I want you to touch me here.”
She pressed her fingers to her lips and swiped her tongue across the tips. Then she glided those wet fingertips down her throat and over the curve of one breast. She touched the already taut nipple, stroking her wet fingertip across it. And a moan slipped through her lips. “I really want you to touch me here...”
But it seemed as if he was paralyzed as he just stood behind her and watched as she touched herself.
She guided her hand over her stomach, which, thanks to him stealing her appetite away, was flatter than it had ever been. Then she raked her nails over her mound until she could slide her fingers between her inner lips. She gasped.
And Ronan echoed that gasp. A groan tore from his throat, and his paralysis ended as he reached for her. “Doesn’t look like you need me,” he murmured as he placed his hands on her shoulders and met her gaze in the mirror.
“Looks can be deceiving,” she told him, knowing they were both well aware of that now. Then she assured him, “I do need you.” And she placed her hands over his on her shoulders and guided them down to her breasts.
They watched each other in the mirror. She watched him play with her breasts, tease her nipples into even tighter points as tension wound inside her. And with every whimper and moan she uttered, his eyes got darker, his gaze more intense, and behind her she could feel the heat and hardness of his body. His erection throbbed against her bottom.
He wanted—needed—her just as badly as she did him. At least, that was what she tried to convince herself of as her desire for him slipped into madness. She tried to turn around, but he held her the way they were—her back to his front—and he continued to watch her in the mirror even as he undid his pants and freed his cock.
She could feel the slick bare skin of his dick rubbing against her ass now. Then latex separated skin from skin as he rolled on a condom.
Fortunately he seemed as staunch a supporter of safe sex as she had always been. So maybe—someday—they could try it without the condom. But that implied a commitment she wasn’t sure either of them was ready to make.
Right now, all she expected from him was pleasure. And he gave that to her. Leaning over her shoulder, he kissed her neck. She turned her head until lips met lips. They kissed hungrily. She was so thirsty for him, on fire with a thirst only he could quench.
Then his hands moved to her waist and he lifted her onto the makeup counter so she knelt with her head toward the mirror and her ass toward him. He moved his fingers into her before leaning over and lapping at her with his tongue. He licked her so sexily—as he watched her in the mirror—that she came. A little squeal of surprise slipped through her lips over how quickly the orgasm took her.
He grinned at her. But then the grin disappeared as his control snapped. And he moved between her legs, guiding himself inside her.
She gasped again as he filled her. Every time it was a surprise that they fit. But they did fit, so well that it was as if they were made for each other. And even though days had passed since they’d had sex last, they moved together in that perfectly choreographed dance like they’d been doing it for years.
As he thrust inside her, his hands found her breasts again. He cupped the mounds, but they overflowed his palms. So he focused on the nipples, gently twisting and teasing them as he built the tension inside her again.
She felt as if she might split in two—not from his size or thrusts, but from the unbearable need for release. He moved one hand from her breasts and stroked his thumb over her clit.
And she came again, a scream tearing from her throat that she couldn’t stop. The release shuddered through her with such intensity that tears streaked down her cheeks and her body shook in reaction.
Hopefully everyone had left because if they hadn’t, someone would probably have called the police to report an attack. She’d sounded like she was being murdered.
Then Ronan tensed and shouted out her name as he came, leaning his head, hair slick with perspiration, against her back. He uttered a ragged sigh. “You are so damn incredible...”
She wasn’t, but what happened between them was. It had started with just an attraction, one that they hadn’t been able to overcome despite their anger and mistrust. And every time they came together it was more powerful than the last. The attraction wasn’t dying off; it was only getting more and more intense.
Ronan must have realized it, too, because when he lifted his head from her back, she caught a glimpse of his eyes in the mirror. And she saw the fear in them.
But she didn’t know if that fear was his or hers. Because she felt it, too. She was afraid that she was falling for a man who would never let himself love anyone.
She was glad he’d found her here instead of her apartment because now she was the one who wanted to run. But she wasn’t sure where she could go to escape these feelings for him—feelings that were overwhelming her.