Chapter Thirty-five
RONAN
Present Day
NEW YORK CITY
“Is this enough?” I asked, standing in the middle of the Flower Garden as my team finished the final touches.
My phone was still warm in my hand from Nina’s message.
It felt unreal, but it was real, and I was not about to let this chance slip through my fingers.
We had lost years, but there was no time like the present.
Inside, a small army was setting everything up, but this garden was what mattered most. It had to be perfect.
Peonies, her favorite, bloomed around me in soft waves of color.
This place had always belonged to her. It was here that we first met, where our hands had brushed against the same petal and changed everything.
After I left for New York, the original business here had started to fail. I stepped in, invested, then bought it outright and turned it into a dessert shop with a flower garden, naming it The Flower Garden. I even had the sign crafted from preserved peony petals, to keep a piece of her here.
Because even when she was gone, she never really was.
“Yes, Ronan,” Azzaria answered. I dragged her out today to help with this. Dillon wasn’t thrilled about me taking his girl on his ‘day off,’ but he could cry about it later.
“Don’t you think there are too many peonies here?”
“Peonies are her favorite,” I said. “So no, this is perfect.”
“This is beautiful, Ronan. Nina will love it. Speaking of which, I have something to tell you.”
I shot her a look. “What?”
“I met her once. She came by Dillon’s, and she looked shocked to see me.”
“Yeah, we all were and still kinda are.”
“Why?”
“The city’s biggest playboy, Arnoldo asi—”
“A bit of a drastic comparison, don’t you think?”
“Fair, but no one thought Dillon would ever love again. Annalise really fucked him up.”
She gritted her teeth and rolled her eyes. “Let’s get back to fixing this garden.”
I chuckled at her response, and that’s exactly what we did.
We spent the next hour finishing the garden and checking the interior before I said my goodbyes and headed home to get dressed. I sent one of Mikkel’s drivers to pick her up from the location she’d sent me.
As the final touches were made, my heart raced with anticipation. I’d never been this nervous in years. My palms were sweaty, and I kept adjusting my shirt, hoping everything would be perfect for her. Standing by the entrance, I took a deep breath, lost in my thoughts of hopes and fears.
Would she love the place?
Would she think it was too much?
Would she have fun?
My mind raced with a thousand questions as I scanned the garden, making sure every detail was perfect.
Then, I saw her. The moment Nina stepped into view, my breath caught in my throat.
She was stunning, more beautiful than I’d ever seen her.
Her smile lit up the entire garden, and her eyes shone with delight.
Her beauty grew every time I saw her. Her sleeked-back hair revealed a flawless face, minimal makeup with bold, matte red lips, glowing skin, and deep, expressive eyes.
She wore a black leather mini-skirt that hugged her thighs, a strapped black crop top with a zipper in the middle, her cleavage visible enough to send a rush to my cock, causing an immediate erection.
A bit of her perfectly rich dark skin peeked out, making me unsure if I wanted to carve out the eyes of anyone else who saw her or get on my knees and worship her for how great she looked.
My heart raced as she walked closer, each step washing over me with admiration. She was here, looking like a dream, and all I wanted was to make this night as unforgettable for her as she had made this moment for me.
“Nina,” I whispered in awe and adoration.
I walked toward her, my knees wobbling, but stopped inches away.
“Ronan,” she said, and I couldn’t find the words. My mind was still processing her beauty and her scent… God, I’d always loved how she smelled.
“What are you staring at?” She asked, the irritation in her tone completely taking me out of my trance.
Sucking in a deep breath, I looked straight into those deep brown eyes and said, “You.”
Her face showed uncertainty as I placed my hand on her shoulder, and she took a step forward, walking ahead of me.
“This place looks familiar.” I had planned for us to sit, but if she wanted to walk, then that’s what we’d do.
“We’ve been here before,” I said, and she stopped, turning to look at me.
“We have?”
I nodded. “It’s where we met.”
Her eyes softened, not with typical sentimentality but with a depth that spoke volumes.
“You remembered,” she whispered.
I placed my hand gently on hers. “I remember everything about you, mio cuore.58”
She smiled widely and continued walking.
“It feels familiar, but different. It looks different now.”
“I had to make some changes over the years, but…”
She stopped abruptly, as if hit by a car’s brakes. “You made changes?”
“Yes, tesoro.” I nodded. “I own this place.”
The softness in her eyes returned, and she walked to the bench I had set up for us, sitting down.
“Is that why the sign is made from peony petals?” she asked. “I saw them when I walked in and knew right away.”
I sat beside her, my heart stuttering at how close she was. “I had to keep your essence here,” I said softly. “I always need to keep your essence.”
God.
I had been with this woman. I had held her, slept beside her, known her in every way that mattered. Yet here I was, sitting across from her on a simple date years later, my pulse racing like a boy falling in love for the first time all over again.
She scoffed. “You’re bluffing.”
I took her hand in mine. “Non ti mentirei mai, tesoro mio. Mai.59”
“Lo so,” she whispered. “Lo so.60”
“Let’s go,” I said, getting up.
“Go to?” She asked.
“Getting our date started.”
With a grin, I led Nina into the little gelato shop tucked inside the garden. Warm sugar and freshly pressed waffle cones filled the air, sweet and dizzying.
Her eyes lit up.
“I smell vanilla,” she murmured. “My favorite.”
“I know,” I said, brushing my thumb over her palm.
She glanced at me, a soft blush rising in her cheeks. “Okay then. Let’s see if you still remember my other ones.”
At the counter, her gaze drifted between pistachio and tiramisu. I leaned in, close enough to feel her warmth.
“Fragola,61” I whispered. “And cioccolato fondente.62”
Her lips parted. “You remembered.”
She ordered them, and when the cup was handed over, she took a careful spoonful. Her eyes closed.
“Oh… wow.”
“Good?”
“Incredible,” she said, stunned. “I can’t believe you still remember. My two favorites.”
“They’re part of you,” I said quietly, watching her like she was something sacred.
She glanced at the menu, brows knitting.
“They’re listed as gelato,” she said. “But only those two.”
I shrugged. “You hate the word ice cream. It felt wrong to call them anything else.”
She looked at me then, really looked at me, and something fragile and dangerous passed through her eyes.
“Are you okay, tesoro?”
“I think so,” she said softly.
Her gaze drifted to the TV mounted above the counter. A behind-the-scenes Vogue clip was playing, her face on the screen, flawless and distant.
“What’s wrong, mio cuore?”
She took another bite. “Every time I see myself like that, I feel like a fraud. Like I don’t belong there.”
“Nina.”
“I didn’t come from that world,” she said quietly. “I didn’t come from—”
I stopped her. “Where you came from doesn’t matter. You fought for every inch of where you are now. You rewrote your story. That woman on that screen is you, and I am so fucking proud of you.”
Her eyes shimmered. She turned away quickly, wiping at them.
“Thank you, Ronan.”
“I believe in you,” I said. “Always have and always will.”
And I meant it. I had built doors for her to walk through long before she ever knew they existed.
Outside, we sat beneath the lights, her tasting different flavors while the night wrapped around us.
“Why do you call it ice cream and not gelato?” she asked.
I smiled. God, I missed her strange little questions.
“American influence,” I said.
She rolled her eyes. “You barely speak Italian with me anymore.”
“è una scelta,63” I said smoothly, leaning closer. “Ma per te lo parlerei sempre.64”
She laughed. “Show off.”
“Tell me about fashion,” I said. “About you.”
And she did. Louis Vuitton. Collaborations. New York Fashion Week. The future she was building with her bare hands.
I watched her talk, light spilling out of her like she was made of it.
Midway through a sentence, she stopped.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like I’m…” she hesitated. “Like I’m everything.”
Because you are.
But I smiled, my heart already betraying me.
“I’m in awe,” I said quietly. “ I can see how much you love what you do. I always loved that about you. Hearing you talk about your dreams… It’s one of my favorite things in the world.”
She stopped moving.
Slowly, she turned to face me. I couldn’t read what was in her eyes, and that scared me more than anger ever could.
“Ro—”
“Do you hate me?” The words came out before I could stop them. “I need to know.”
Her breath hitched. “What?”
“Do you hate me, Nina?”
“I hate what you did to me,” she said softly. “I hate how you broke me.”
The honesty in it struck worse than if she’d screamed.
I lifted my hand, brushing her cheek. Warm. Real. Her eyes met mine, and something fragile cracked open between us.
I leaned in without thinking.
“Don’t,” she whispered.
“Nina—”
“Don’t kiss me.” Her fingers wrapped around my wrist, not pulling me away, holding me there. “Because if you do, I’ll fall in love with you all over again, and I don’t know if I’ll survive that.”
My chest tightened.
“I never stopped loving you,” I said. “Not once. I spent years watching you from a distance because I was too much of a coward to come back. But it was always you. It’s still you.”
Her eyes glistened. She slipped out of my hands.
“Goodnight,” she said, turning away.
“Don’t go.” It wasn’t a command. It was a plea.
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
She faced me, standing so close I could feel her heat. “Because every time I look at you, I remember everything. The love and the pain. I don’t know how to separate them anymore.”
“I don’t want to,” I said.
“Ronan—”
“Fuck it.”
I closed the distance.
Our lips met, and it was nothing like a first kiss. It was a collision of years, of everything we had lost and never stopped wanting. She froze for half a second, hands on my chest, torn.
Then she melted.
Her breath shook as she kissed me back, soft and desperate, like she’d been waiting for this as long as I had. The world disappeared. There was only her. Only us.
When she pulled away, we were both breathless.
“We can’t,” she whispered, even as her eyes betrayed her.
I cupped her face, forcing her to look at me. “Lo faremo, cazzo, tesoro,65” I whispered. “We will.”