Chapter 9 #2
I shrugged. “No news there.”
“That still doesn’t explain how you found me.”
With a huff, I leaned back against the wall.
“I didn’t stalk you; I swear. But imagine my surprise when I got home to find that my location had been shared with ‘Wifey’s Phone’ and vice versa.
” I nodded toward the little purse hanging from her shoulder.
“Go ahead and check. You probably did it when we were in Vegas.”
Yes, I was lying through my teeth. No, I didn’t feel good about it. But she was already too close to tossing me out on my ass, and I hadn’t even gotten to the main reason I was here.
Luckily, she seemed satisfied, if not totally happy, with my answer. “That doesn’t explain why you came here tonight, though. Please. Just be straight with me.”
Laney looked up at me with an odd kind of weariness. I didn’t like it at all.
“I… don’t know,” I admitted. “One minute we were having a nice conversation, even if it was about sad shit, and the next you zipped up like a damn parka. You mentioned your ex, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that you were headed into something bad, and then I really didn’t like the idea of you doing it alone, all right? ”
“Okay, but why are you in Seattle?” she pressed. “Why didn’t you tell me you were in town when we talked earlier?”
“Why didn’t you ask?”
“Ronan,”
I shrugged. “Why am I here? Why am I here. I’m here… to discuss the annulment.” Technically, it was true. Even if I was stalling. I hadn’t quite figured out how exactly I was going to approach her with this idea in my head, despite the fact that I’d had six hours and change to figure it out.
She clearly wasn’t buying it. “I thought your lawyer was going to send some papers.”
“He is. Just not yet.”
“Ronan!”
“Look, it’s really not that complicated,” I sputtered, although it was very complicated in ways she couldn’t possibly understand and in ways I could never tell her.
“I like you, all right? You’re hot and alluring and I had this idea that I wanted to see you again before, you know, we decide never to see each other again.
I have a private jet at my disposal, so I hopped on.
You go to the movies on a Saturday night.
I fly to Seattle to see my girl. That’s all there is to it. ”
It wasn’t not the truth. It just wasn’t all of it. It was the part I could tell her.
By this point, her arms were crossed, and an adorable divot had formed between her brows. “Ronan…” she said again, almost like a hum.
Even chastising me, her voice was a damn song.
I pushed off the wall and took a step toward her, enjoying the way she mirrored me with a step back. Her expression, however, sparked.
“I don’t think that tone of voice has the effect you think it does, sweetheart.” I walked forward until she was the one pinned against the opposite wall, and I was able to brace one arm over her shoulder.
She bit her lip as her cheeks pinked. “Megan says it’s my teacher’s voice.”
I smiled. “How does a shopkeeper and archaeologist end up with a teacher’s voice?”
“By spending five years teaching introductory Greek courses and yoga classes to pay for grad school.”
Whatever I was expecting to hear, it wasn’t that. “Damn. If you tell me you wear those little cat-eyed librarian glasses, I might combust right here.”
She shook her head. “Just basic tortoise-shell frames, I’m afraid.”
I groaned. “Laney, you’re killing me.”
“And you’re distracting me.”
Unable to stop myself, I twirled one of the pieces of loose hair framing her face around my finger, then released it before tucking it behind her ear. “It’s a habit.”
“It’s annoying. And confusing.”
“I’m good at that, too.”
“I’m starting to see that.”
We studied each other for a long time, like two scientists trying to figure each other out. So, she was smart. Like really smart. Like, probably smarter than me, which wasn’t something I encountered much.
It only made me like her that much more.
“I really did want to see you again,” I told her. “Mentioning your ex just gave me a reason to do it sooner than I planned.”
It was the truth. Maybe not the whole truth, but did anyone ever tell the whole truth?
If there was one thing I knew about people, it was that everyone had secrets. I didn’t know Laney’s yet, but I was sure she had some. No one could be this perfect.
Laney blinked, and the long line of her lashes cast shadows over her the freckles sprinkled over her cheekbones. She was thawing. Maybe she even wanted to see me too, though there was no way she was going to admit it.
“Tell me about Derek,” I ordered.
I’d watched her for a few minutes before butting in.
She’d already been wrapped up in conversation with the guy when I entered the restaurant, and I didn’t need to know what he’d been saying to hate everything about him.
His self-important bullshit stank from clear across the room.
It was in the cock of his head when she was speaking, the snarling curve of his lip, the haughty roll of his eyes.
But really, I only had to look at Laney to know he was bad news.
The way my girl shrank told me everything I needed to know: the dude had it coming, one way or another.
I was no knight in shining armor, but I’d be happy to teach him a lesson called Respect for Laney Fisher that involved a couple of jabs and my lethal right hook.
Laney, however, looked like she would rather discuss anything but him. “There’s not much to tell. We have history, and I can’t avoid him because he’s the best man.”
“Not good enough. I’m your husband, even if it’s only for the next few days. Fess up.”
“Ronan, I need to get back.”
I glance at the clock above her head. Shit. “Or we could just leave, and you could tell me everything.”
Laney shook her head. “Ronan, not everyone can just get up and leave whenever they feel like it. I’m the maid of honor.
I have obligations to the bride, and they include eating a fancy three-course dinner, catching up with old friends and family, and making a speech about romance and fate and all the things true love is supposedly made of. ”
By the time she was finished, you would have thought she was listing types of mold she had to clean out of her basement, not tasks for her best friend’s wedding.
“Well, then, you’re not doing it alone,” I decided.
That divot between her brows appeared again. God, she was cute when she was confused. “Ronan, that’s really not necessary—”
“Look,” I interrupted. “I realize I already messed things up by announcing our so-called marriage in front of everyone, but you deserve to have that dipshit make pitying comments about your personal life the way you deserve meningitis. Not on my watch. So let me do you a favor and be the adoring plus-one that pisses off your ex, and afterward, we can have that talk I flew all the way here for. Deal?”
Those candy-drop lips opened, and I only just managed not to slip my finger between them and tell her to suck.
Fuck me. This nice-guy shit was harder than I thought.
Laney glanced toward the party, toward the noise that was starting to wane as people were clearly moving to the dinner tables. She had a glass face—I could see her weighing her options like she had an actual scale in her head.
It was really a question of whether she wanted to be the good girl she was supposed to be or the woman I was enabling her to be.
“All right,” she said finally.
I wanted to punch the air with one fist, but settled for fixing my tie.
She held out a hand. “You coming, snookums?”
I grinned. “After you, snickerdoodle.”