Chapter Twelve

CHAPTER TWELVE

“Are you sure you don’t want to learn how to drive in a different car?” Theo asked as he got out of the town car parked at my front door. The day was bright and smelled like sunshine and spring. Which, not to sound super corny, meant that the day smelled like a fresh start.

I wore an old cashmere sweater that had a moth hole in it, but I’d kept because the color was this beautiful coral that I’d never seen anywhere else, and it made me happy to look at. I tossed a red scarf around my neck and pulled on thin leather gloves that I found in my drawer.

On my feet were my new standbys, my Converse tennis shoes. Looking at myself in the mirror this morning I was well aware that I hadn’t dressed for myself in two long years, and the senator, should he see me in this, would demand I change.

Perhaps this outfit was ridiculous, but it felt good on my body. And that was so novel and strange and . . . important.

“Do I have a different car?” I asked. I’d only ever seen the shiny black town car.

“The senator has a Porsche 911 and a corvette stingray. Or had . . . I guess. They’re yours now.”

Mine now. Wild. What else did I own, I wondered, that I didn’t even know about?

But Porsches and Corvette Stingrays felt like advanced cars, and I was very much a beginner.

“No,” I shook my head. “The town car sounds fine.”

“All right,” Theo said and walked around the car to the passenger seat.

I slid into the expensive leather driver seat and put my hands on the wheel.

“This is fun, isn’t it?” I said.

“Yes, ma’am,” Theo answered, and I caught his smile before he could put it back behind the mask he usually wore.

The sun was just coming up, and the spring mornings were cool, damp. All the green trees and grass were shrouded in a thin layer of mist. The Constantine Compound was over the hill in front of me. The turret just visible.

Why didn’t I leave Bishop’s Landing?I wondered. I’d spent most of the night thinking about Ronan’s words. There was nothing really keeping me here. Caroline. The executive director job, which I was pretty sure was just going to be for show.

I had more money than I knew what to do with. I had houses in other cities that I’d never been to.

I’d lived on this hill in Bishop’s Landing for almost my entire life. Except for the year and a bit that I was at school, I’d lived in a house on this hill. I hadn’t really ever vacationed anywhere. No girls’ trips to Paris. No all-inclusives in Mexico. Perhaps the answer to why didn’t I leave was I didn’t know where to go?

Lord. That was sad, even for me.

But what I really felt was something so much more complicated. Something about my sister and my mother and the willow tree and how I’d never felt safe . . . anywhere.

“Ma’am?” Theo said.

“Call me Poppy.”

“That’s not . . .” I glanced over, and Theo was shaking his head. His blond hair was long with a curl to it, and it was a little wild in the damp morning. “No.”

“Okay, but I’m going to call you Theo.”

“That’s fine.”

“So, I’m going to call you by your name, and you’re going to call me ma’am like we’re on Downton Abby or something?”

“I don’t know that show.”

“We’re the same age, Theo.”

“No, ma’am, we’re not.” He was probably ten years older than me, which meant he was still young. We were both young. And now we were alone in the front seat of this car. As far as intimacy with a man, this would have ranked pretty high if Ronan hadn’t come along and blown the curve by putting his mouth on me.

“Can I pay you to call me Poppy?” I asked.

He laughed and then tried to cover it up with a stern sounding cough. “You are very—” he stopped himself. Shook his head.

“I’m what?”

“Different. This morning.” Oh, how helplessly he said that. Like he wished it wasn’t true. Or that he wished he didn’t notice. But he wasn’t wrong—I was different. And it was time for my life to look a little different, too.

“You know something,” I said, opening the driver side door to get out. “I would like to drive the Porsche.”

Theo’s eyes went wide and his smile—if you could call it that—was very nearly approving. “It’s a stick shift,” he said.

“That’s fine,” I said, though it probably wasn’t.

Ten minutes later I was grinding my way down the hill from my house.

“Clutch,” he said. Again.

“Right, right.” There was a small hill and a stop sign ahead. “Oh no. Should we go back and get the town car?”

“Don’t be scared,” he said. “And you’re doing fine. No one is great at driving a stick shift right away.”

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not, ma’am.”

“I’m going to stall it.”

“Clutch, shift, gas. You can do it.”

Seamlessly, I shifted out of first into second. No stalling. No grinding.

I gasped with delight.

“Nice,” he said.

Instantly I did something that made the car shudder and grind. “Oh my god, this is awful. Is it me? Is it this car?”

“It’s the stick shift and you’re doing great. You really are.” Theo was a very enthusiastic teacher and surprisingly calming. “On this hill, careful you don’t . . .”

The car stalled.

“Do that?” I asked.

Theo actually laughed, which cut my nervous energy in two, and then I was laughing.

I put the car in park and restarted it just as a man in black training pants and a sweat-stained shirt ran across the road in front of us. At the sound of the car starting, he glanced over, and our eyes met.

“Ronan,” I breathed.

He stopped in the middle of the road, facing us. His unreadable eyes traveling from Theo’s face to mine.

His dark hair was slick on his forehead, and his chest was heaving. In the thin running gear, he seemed bigger than he usually did. His chest was wide. His shoulders broad. Less a deadly blade and more a blunt object.

He grabbed the hem of his shirt and used it to wipe his face, revealing the pale skin of his stomach. The ripple of muscle.

My smile faded slowly from my face as my body remembered what he did to it last night. My body wanted more. So much more. All at once my body wanted everything this man could do to it.

“Come on, man,” Theo said and reached over and honked the horn. The car was tiny, and Theo was not a small man. We were shoulder to shoulder in the front seat, and when he reached past me we touched even more.

Ronan saw it all. But his face registered nothing. Nothing at all.

What is he thinking? Did he care? Did it matter that I was sitting so close to another man? I smiled to see if there was a reaction. His face didn’t even reveal that he knew me. Let alone that he’d put his mouth on me.

He walked to the side of the road and watched us as we drove by. The gears grinding, the car lurching.

I looked back in the rear-view mirror, and he was still there. Still watching.

“You all right, Poppy?” Theo asked. Dropping the ma’am, and I quite suddenly wanted it back. The distance. Which was ridiculous. Ronan wasn’t my . . . anything. His dark stare, that I still felt on the back of my neck, was another one of his games.

“I’m fine,” I said, and I pushed the clutch, shifted to third and took off down the hill.

Monday morning Theo drove me into the city.

“You sure you don’t want to try?” he asked. The window was rolled down, and his eyes met mine in the rear-view mirror. They were nice eyes. Brown and big. Kinder than I’d ever noticed.

“Driving around Bishop’s Landing is one thing. Manhattan is another thing all together. I’m just trying to save your life, Theo.”

“Well, I appreciate that, Poppy.”

My name in his mouth sent a strange ripple through me. I wasn’t sure if I was uncomfortable or if I liked it.

My phone rang, saving me from contemplating kissing Theo in order to forget Ronan and what a mess that would be. The screen said Zilla.

“Excuse me,” I said to Theo.

“Of course,” Theo said and pushed the button that made the window between us slide up.

“Hey,” I said. “How are you, Zilla?”

“I’m fine. Good. How are you? I didn’t hear from you after your meeting with Eden.”

“Oh, right,” I said, that weird meeting forgotten after Ronan and then the driving lesson. “It was fine. I mean. I didn’t get a lot of information. It was probably a mistake trying to pry.”

There was a second of silence on Zilla’s side. “You’re joking, right?”

“No. I mean. I appreciate your effort but—”

“My effort?” She laughed. “God you’re such an infant sometimes, Poppy.”

That stung. Really stung. But it also worried me. “Are you all right?” I asked.

“Oh Jesus Christ,” she said. “For once this isn’t about my mistakes. You owe Eden Morelli a favor, Poppy.”

“I know.”

“Do you know what kind of favors she wants?”

“No.”

“Bloody ones. Criminal ones.”

“Zilla—”

“And you don’t have the senator there to protect you.”

“Protect me!” I scoffed, the sound scraping through my throat. “Is that what you thought he did?”

“No,” my sister said, reeling herself in. “Of course not. I’m just saying the Constantine/Morelli world works differently.”

“I know how the world works,” I snapped. “The world kills your mother when you’re sixteen and gives you a father who burns through all the money. The world gives your sister a psychotic break—”

“Poppy,” she breathed.

“And takes away every choice we have except one. One choice. One choice who broke my finger because he could. Who threw books at my head. Who left bruises on my body. Who was so driven to have a baby that my feelings on the matter did not count.”

I closed my eyes and pressed my shaking fingers to my eyes. “Don’t tell me how the world works,” I whispered. “I’ll talk to you later.”

Without giving her a chance to say anything, I hung up. And because I knew she would call back with all her apologies, I turned off my phone.

The Halcyon Building was a skyscraper in midtown. Walking up to it I always felt like a character in Legally Blonde. A little out of place but determined to try. There was a jazzy little number playing in the background, something plucky. Today I felt that so keenly it was like a laugh or a sob caught in my throat. I was going to do this. Executive director of a million-dollar foundation. If I had doubts, I was trying hard to squash them under some undeserved optimism. Unearned confidence.

But Caroline was right. I had ideas. Good ones. And now I had a lot of money to put them into action.

I was new at believing in myself so it took a second, but by the time I got in the front door I was swinging my new briefcase around like I was about to burst into song. The foundation was on the 24th floor, and when the elevator doors opened there was a big wide desk with ‘Better Families, Better New York’ in gold and black lettering against a white wall.

Justin was sitting there and looked stunned to see me. And I was a little stunned to see him.

“Poppy?” he said, getting to his feet. “I didn’t know you were coming in today?”

“I told Caroline I’d be coming in today.”

“Oh no,” he said. “My mistake. Let me call her, and she can be here in twenty minutes.”

“Actually.” I leaned forward, speaking conspiratorially. “I don’t want a big fuss, and we both know that Caroline is the definition of a big fuss.”

Justin smiled, and I smiled back at him, relieved that he wasn’t offended by the joke. But also suddenly wondering if he was going to go and tell Caroline. But then that thought was disloyal, so I shoved the whole thing aside.

“Seriously. I just want to look around. But what are you doing here?”

“Caroline wanted me to come down to set up some systems.”

“Oh. Well, systems are good.” What kind of systems did people have to set up? I wondered.

“The phones are working. Interoffice email. The official receptionist starts next week.”

Oh. Those systems.

He began to pull documents off the desk and hand them to me. “Here’s a list of applicants for the position of your assistant. We can call them for interviews whenever you’re ready.” There was another stack of papers. “Here are the first rounds of funding requests. I haven’t vetted any of them.” He handed me another stack. “And here is the old funding criteria from Caroline’s other foundations. We thought that might be a good jumping-off place.” More stacks of paper. More and more and more. “Here are media requests. Again. I haven’t vetted all of them. But if you’re ready to start, flag the ones you like, and Caroline will look over them.”

“Sure,” I said, overwhelmed and trying not to be. “Where’s my . . . desk?”

He smiled at me, and I had to admit I did like Justin. He was competent and kind. It wasn’t his fault that he always looked like a little puppy.

“Follow me. I think you will be very pleased.”

We rounded the desk into a small open concept room with two desks. One of them positioned in front of another closed door. Justin opened it and stepped back, smiling.

“Oh my gosh,” I whispered, stepping into the office. One whole wall was nothing but windows, floor to ceiling. A beautiful cherry wood Queen Anne desk with a sleek computer monitor on top. The wall opposite the windows had a massive white board and calendar. Three chairs set up with small tables between them. Morning meetings with my team. It was feminine and majestic and so, so amazing.

“Caroline thought you might enjoy this set up. She thought you’d want to be a part of things, instead of just making decisions in your office.”

“It’s amazing,” I said.

Justin looked down at his watch. “I have to go,” he said.

“Of course.”

“I will email you the codes to lock up. Passwords for the computers. And other than that . . .” He smiled at me. “Feel free to poke around all you like.”

Justin left, and I heard the beep of the main door and figured he must have engaged the alarm, and so all alone and feeling very safe and very excited, I sat down behind my desk and got to work.

I wasn’t sure what time it was when the door beeped again. The sun was setting over the west side of the city, and I was starving. “Hello?” I said. “Justin is that—”

Into my new world; my beautiful feminine space where I was hoping to build my team and my future, walked Ronan Byrne. In a dark suit and a darker expression.

“What are you doing here?” I asked and got to my feet. No matter how our encounters ended, they started with me being scared of him, and I wasn’t sure if that was stupid, or smart. But no matter what he did to my body—my brain did not trust him.

The thing about this man, the awful terrible thing about him was what he made me feel. The sight of him in my doorway triggered my fight or flight instinct, and he also turned me on. My belly was soft for him. And I didn’t understand how he managed to do all of that, or what I was supposed to do with the push and pull of it all. It was too much.

He was too much.

“I’m just looking around.” He put his hands in his pockets, like he was some regular guy doing some regular thing. “Quite a set up.”

He stepped forward, and I stepped sideways thinking if I had to, I might be able to get to the door. Immediately he lifted his hands.

“I’m not here to touch you,” he said, his lips kicked up with that charming half-smile my body loved so much. “I swear it.”

I didn’t believe him. Not a bit.

“How’d you know I was here?”

“Caroline told me to come check on you.”

“You always do what Caroline tells you?” The words came out snappy and sharp. A red flag in front of a bull, and as soon as they were out of my mouth I regretted them.

His eyes seared me. My skin by all rights should have been blackened and smoky. I stepped back, waiting for him to come across this room, put his hand around my neck and pin me to the wall.

Just thinking it I was scared. And wet between my legs.

What is wrong with me?

“Have you eaten?” he asked. I blinked at the change of subject.

“No,” I said. “But how—”

“Let’s go get something,” he said, jerking his head to the door.

I blinked at him, shook, absolutely shook by this strange version of him. “What’s wrong with you?”

“I offered to feed you, and you think something’s wrong?”

“Yeah.”

“You’d rather I put my hand down your pants?” He nodded at my body. I’d taken off the jacket and just wore a cream shell and my black pants.

“No.” Yes.

“I could order something up,” he said. “A salad—”

“What the fuck are you doing?” I snapped.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he snapped back, his eyes alight, and the half step he took towards me lit me up like a bonfire. But then he stopped. Reined himself back in. “Justin said you’d been here since ten. It’s four now.” He looked around. “And I don’t think you’ve eaten anything.”

I wasn’t hungry. But now my stomach growled. Now I was ravenous.

With his phone out, he turned, facing the window and the four o’clock sun that came in like butter to the room. A quick call and lunch was coming.

And I saw how this might spin out. We might sit down, he might have a sandwich. I might have a salad. He’d revert to the charming man he’d been at that party. I might revert to not being terrified and turned on at the same time. All of that might happen. But what I couldn’t understand was why?

I put my hands on my hips and didn’t sit down. “What are you after, Ronan?”

“Well, Poppy.” He ran a hand through his hair. The dark strands holding themselves in place for just a second before slipping down over his eyes. “I believe I owe you an apology.”

That was not at all what I was expecting, and I actually took a step back.

“I’ve shocked you. Well, frankly, the way I’ve treated you, I’ve shocked myself. I think . . .” He glanced around. “Is there a drink in here somewhere?”

“Water?”

“A proper drink, like.”

In the credenza behind my desk there was a pretty stocked bar. Justin thought of everything. “What would you like?”

“Is Jameson’s too much to ask for?” he asked.

I opened the cabinet and checked inside. “Apparently not. Though . . . there’s no ice or anything.”

“That’s fine. Will you join me?”

Who the fuck was this guy? “In straight whiskey? No.” I pulled out a bottle of fizzy water. The last time I had a drink in front of this guy things went off the rails real fast. Of course, they went off the rails the second time when I was sober-ish. Nope. I was going to keep my wits about me.

“I swear to you, Poppy. I will not touch you,” he said, like he could read my mind.

But,I thought, did I want him to touch me?

“Here,” I said and handed him the bottle and the glass from the credenza, and I sat down in my chair and twisted off the top of the water.

“So,” I said. “You were about to explain why you’ve been such an asshole.”

“Well.” He sat with his drink in the chair across from my desk. He looked so dark in this bright room. But oddly right, like he gave this space contrast and balance. “Let’s not get confused. Part of me being an asshole, you liked well enough.”

Was this . . . was he teasing me? All his danger was turned down to some flirty comradery. Like we were at a reunion, “remember when I called you pathetic and made you come so hard your brain broke? Good times.”

Except I wasn’t going to give him that. I wasn’t going to give him anything.

“I don’t like anything about you, Ronan.”

“Well, it’s easier to surrender when you can hate the person forcing you to do it,” he said, looking out the windows at the city.

“There is not one situation I can imagine where you give up control,” I said.

“I don’t know,” he said, his eyes still on the clouds, birds making their way across town. “The priests were fond of my surrender.”

Oh. Right. Now I felt foolish. “I’m sorry,” I felt compelled to say.

“Being hurt by people who were supposed to care for us is something we have in common,” he said. When he finally turned to look at me, I was startled to be caught staring at him.

“You’re talking about my husband?” I said. “I don’t know if he was ever supposed to care for me.”

“Millennia of married people would say otherwise.”

“I think a millennia of married people probably prove my point.”

“My god, Poppy, are you trying to convince me that you’re jaded?”

“Are you trying to convince me you’re a romantic?”

“No chance of that,” he said with a laugh and another sip of his whiskey. “You were so young when I met you at that party. And when I found out who you were and what—” he licked his lips, and my stomach coiled with some intense emotion, “—was happening to you. I was angry, and there was nothing I could do about it. So, it was easier to be angry with you.”

I opened my mouth. Shut it. No one had been so honest with me in years. Not even my sister. Not even Caroline.

“That’s awful,” I said for the lack of anything better to say.

“I know.”

There was a knock at the door and a stranger’s voice saying “hello.”

“Food,” Ronan said. He set his whiskey down and went to go answer the delivery guy, while I sat there reeling. Was this true? I wondered. Was this version of him real? Why would he lie? Why would he feign kindness? Or vulnerability?

All those questions did was convince me further that I should leave. Grab my coat. Lock up and let him have his dinner alone. I was at the very start of something exciting in this office, and he’d already changed the whole dynamic of the place with his honesty and his dark good looks.

If I wanted something to be mine, then I had to make it. I had to make choices. Hard ones. I put my coat on. Put the bottle of whiskey back in the credenza. Shoved files into my briefcase. I’d call Theo and tell him to pull—

Ronan came back into the room carrying two plastic bags, surrounded by the most delicious smells of garlic and fresh herbs. Butter. My stomach growled. My resolve weakened.

“You’re leaving?” he said.

“I think it’s best,” I said.

“It’s just food,” he said, and I realized my face must register my distrust. “It’s here and you’re hungry. I’ll leave.”

“That’s the nicest thing you’ve said to me,” I told him.

“That’s not true. But I will leave you to eat in peace.” He set the bags down on the edge of the desk, and the smells were even more delicious.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Spanish food. From a place down the corner.”

“You like Spanish food?”

“There are a lot of things about me you don’t know,” he said.

Oh, for fuck’s sake. How dramatic could I be.

“Sit,” I said. “You’re hungry, too.”

His smile was a flash, and in that flash I saw what he must have been like when he was younger. When there was something grateful and happy left in him. “I’m not going to lie,” he said. “I’m starving.”

He started to take out the boxes, opening them to reveal paella with juicy black-shelled mussels, grilled octopus, flaky manchego cheese, and roasted red peppers. Pale almonds and bright green olives. He set out napkins and plastic utensils. There were bottles of water. And what looked like a to-go cup of coffee.

“Here,” he said, handing me a paper plate while I stood there staring at the feast he made happen. For me. I mean, for us, sure. But . . . for me. “What’s wrong? You don’t like Spanish?”

“No,” I said. “I love it.” My mouth was actually watering. “I’m just grateful. Thank you.”

Again, that half smile from him. That sparkle in the corner of his eye, the way he ducked his head as he scooped up the rice and seafood covered in aioli and fresh bright green herbs.

I sat down and took some cheese, olives, and bread.

“So, you’re going to be the executive director of the foundation,” he said, sitting back with octopus and a mound of saffron yellow rice, flecked with fresh green peas. “Are you excited?”

“Nervous.”

“Why?”

“I’m not—” I almost said ‘qualified’ but I wasn’t going to reveal that to him. He already knew too much. “It’s just been a while since I’ve worked.”

“Did you always want to work with charities?”

“No.” I laughed. “I wanted to teach fifth grade.”

“A teacher!”

“Does it seem so ridiculous?”

“Not at all. Why fifth?”

“Because Mrs. Jordal was my fifth-grade teacher, and she was the best teacher ever. And I like the age. Not little kids, but not yet teenagers.”

“So? Why aren’t you a teacher?”

I thought back to the conversation I’d had with the senator.

“I need you to be my wife. To travel with me. To manage functions and throw parties. You can’t teach school and be the wife of a senator.”

“That’s not true,” I said. “There are plenty of senator’s wives who keep—”

“You can run the foundation, if you feel like being my wife isn’t enough for you.”

“Jim,” I said, putting my hand on the desk between us. “That’s not what I mean—”

So fast, like a snake, Jim lifted the hard-backed book in front of him and smashed it down on my hand.

“Poppy?”

I blinked. Flexed the fingers of the hand he’d hurt. There’d been no broken bones, but I hadn’t been able to hold anything in that hand for a week. And the bruise had been purple and green for even longer.

“Sorry,” I said. “I got married.” I shrugged like that explained everything. Like a shrug could encapsulate the slow shrinking of my world.

“And you stopped wanting to teach?”

I set down my fork, feeling heckled by his questions. “What about you? Did you always want to be a . . . whatever you are for rich people?”

He smiled and then laughed. “No. I wanted to be a priest.” My mouth hung open. “When I was little and where I was from the priests had a lot of power. And if it was get hurt or hurt someone, I reckoned I’d rather not be hurt.”

“It’s hard to imagine you as a priest.”

He took a bite of rice and shrugged. I ate yet another piece of cheese.

“How did you end up working for Caroline?”

I was watching so I saw it, the tiny freeze. The way he set down his fork and instead of feeding himself he wiped his mouth with a napkin. “She was in the UK, and I did some work for her there.”

“Doing what?”

“Solving some problems with oil companies.”

“Are you a lawyer?”

That made him laugh. “A negotiator.”

I didn’t exactly know what that meant, but I nodded like I did.

“For what it’s worth,” he said, sitting back in his chair, the plate he’d made for himself empty. “I think you’d be a great teacher.”

“Why?” I laughed. “Nothing you know about me has anything to do with teaching.” I blushed as I said it. He knew outrageous things about me.

“You’re patient. And kind. Empathetic. Intelligent. You understand the value of small braveries.” I set down my plate, my fingers suddenly shaking. “And you’re beautiful. Which I think probably goes a long way with children.”

I stood up because I didn’t know what else to do. “I . . . ah . . . I have to go,” I said.

“Because I called you beautiful?” he asked.

And smart and kind and the small braveries thing. All of it. I hadn’t been paid a compliment in years, and that was too many.

Too much. Just like him.

Even if they were lies, they were the kindest lies someone had told me in so long.

“This was lovely, really,” I said. I started shoving leftovers and dirty plates in bags. Cleaning up so I didn’t have to look at him. “And I’m glad we can put all that other stuff behind us. And maybe be friends?” Though honestly, I couldn’t imagine that. It would be like being friends with a wild animal. Something vicious and unpredictable. I’d done that already. I’d married a monster whose moods made me bleed.

“Stuff?” he said. “Friends? Are you talking in code?”

I saw him stand up out of the corner of my eye and abandoned the cleaning up to step back. Away.

“Poppy? What did I say?”

I forced myself to look at him. A small bravery. “What do you really want?” I asked, suddenly seeing through this all so well. So clearly. This was just another game. Kindness and dinner instead of cruelty and sex.

He took a breath and gave me a heartbreaker’s smile. Devastating. “When I met Caroline,” he said. “I was wild. Absolutely wild. I’d run from the school and was doing awful things, awful things for a gang in Belfast. And I tried to rob her. Not like a snatch and grab but, I tried to.” He laughed, shaking his head. “It’s so embarrassing. But I tried to charm her. I sat next to her in a hotel bar, pretending to be some kind of nob. I bought her a martini, and I don’t think I was old enough to drink. But, I got her purse and legged it. Got halfway down the block before one of her men grabbed me, dragged me back to her. She told me I was clever.” His blue eyes pierced mine. “And I clearly wasn’t, but I so badly wanted to be. I wanted to be clever and to belong in that hotel bar. I wanted to be anything but what I was. And her words watered a seed in me, and I decided right then and there that I’d be clever. For her.”

“That’s a real sweet story, Ronan, but what’s your point?”

“I was clever. I had to be, to still be kicking, like. But I didn’t believe it until she told me.”

“You think I need you to tell me I’m smart so I’ll believe it?” I scoffed and he shrugged.

“I think your husband told you awful lies about yourself and with no one around to tell you different, to remind you that you’re smart and kind and all those other things you are, it was easy to believe him.”

“Oh, this is rich coming from you.” I didn’t believe him. Because I couldn’t. I couldn’t risk it. I couldn’t risk him or this dinner or his kindness. So, I struck out. “You’re a fucking liar—”

And there he was, his body against mine pressing me to the credenza. He’d moved so fast, dropped the act so fast that I laughed breathlessly.

Yeah. There you are.

“Oh my god, your mouth,” he whispered. “Your mouth makes me crazy. You’re like a cat who keeps biting the hand that feeds you. And you don’t seem to realize that you are soft and tiny and inconsequential.” His hand came up to my face. His thumb against my lip, and I bared my teeth and snapped at him.

He laughed and grabbed my face in that hand, his fingers out of reach of my teeth.

“I could crush you, Poppy. Absolutely crush you, and I don’t know if you don’t realize it or if you just don’t care.”

“Fuck you.”

I lifted my knee to hammer him in the crotch, but that too, he saw coming. And he kicked my feet out wide so I was unstable. He held me up by the grip on my face. The press of his hips against mine.

“Stop playing these fucking games and tell me what you want,” I snapped.

“What I want is irrelevant,” he said, almost kissing my lips. Again I tried to bite him, snarling this time. “Stop it and listen to me.” He shook me like a rag doll. “I cannot say this more plain. You need to leave here.”

“I’m trying, asshole. You’re the one—”

“New York. Bishop’s Landing, this goddamn foundation. You need to go far, far away.”

“This is my home.”

“Is it? Seems to me it’s the place you’ve been used and hurt and lied to. You’ve been tricked and—”

“Shut up!”

“You know it’s true, Poppy. You’re gullible but you aren’t stup—”

“Shut up!” I screamed. And my voice rang and echoed and pierced his expression. I was panting in his arms. Panting.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

And he kissed me. He kissed me like his world was ending. And I was so stunned and scared that I stood there and I let him. I let him kiss me. Ravage me. His hand left my face, curled up into my hair, pulling until it hurt. “I’m sorry,” he said again. Kissing and kissing and kissing me. “Poppy, don’t make the mistakes I’ve made. Don’t—”

There was a beep of the outer door opening, and Ronan left my body so fast I stumbled, catching myself against the desk.

“Poppy?” It was Theo.

This was some kind of total breach of driver etiquette. Never would he have come looking for Jim. Or me, previous to the driving lessons.

But never in my life had I been so glad to have destroyed protocols. I’d been weakening against Ronan’s mouth. The bittersweet words he’d said. What mistakes had he made? What mistakes was he talking about? Staying when he should go?

“Back here!” I said and patted down my hair. Straightened my jacket. Without looking at me, Ronan grabbed the garbage from our meal.

“I’m sorry,” Theo said as he came walking in, a big smile on his face. A smile that disappeared when he saw Ronan. And his face snapped back into that passive employee look that I’d been surrounded by during my marriage.

Ronan was doing the same.

It was like they were both in disguise.

“I got a notification from the alarm company a while ago,” Theo said. “I thought you would have gotten it too, but when you didn’t come down—”

“Alarm company?” I grabbed my phone from my purse. I’d turned it off after the fight with my sister and then forgotten to turn it back on as I worked.

There were four missed calls from the alarm company.

“What’s happened?” Ronan asked, and Theo gave him a sharp look before looking at me. There was a beat of silence before I realized Theo wasn’t going to say anything in front of Ronan unless I told him it was okay.

Ronan realized this too and stepped forward like he’d take Theo apart with one hand.

“It’s fine,” I said, holding up my hand like a traffic cop, not sure if it would stop Ronan. But it did. “You can tell me.”

“No one has gone inside,” he said. “But . . .” He pulled out his own phone and showed me the screen. There on my back deck was a roaring fire in the fire pit. A dark figure sitting in one of the chairs turned and faced the camera like she knew it was there. Cheekily, the figure waved.

Zilla.

“It’s my sister,” I said.

She drove to my house and sat outside by the fire because we fought.

“Let’s go,” I said.

“I’ll go back downstairs,” Theo said. “The car will be waiting.”

“Thank you.” And then proving how far I was from kind, from sweet, I turned to Ronan. “Theo, this is Ronan. He works for Caroline.”

Briefly, Ronan’s eyes met mine, and if he had a reaction to this reestablishment of power, he showed nothing. “Nice to meet you,” Ronan lied.

“Likewise.” My guess was Theo was lying too. And he lingered, as if afraid to leave us alone together.

“I’ll be right down,” I said with a smile, easing his departure out the door. I felt undone. By the kiss. By the whole night. And I didn’t know how to manage any of this.

Once Theo was gone, I gathered my things as Ronan waited by the door.

“Are you all right?” he asked, and the question brought me up short. His concern brought me up short.

“Fine.”

“Your sister—”

“What about her?” I snapped.

“Is it a good thing she’s at your house?”

It felt like he was truly concerned. Worried. And I didn’t trust that for one moment. As much as I might want to. As much as it might be nice to lay down the load that was loving my sister at anyone’s feet but my own.

Not his, I had to remind myself. Don’t be so stupid.

“It is,” I said, which was true, but not the whole truth.

“Good.”

He waited for me to gather my things and walk out the door, turning the lights off as I went. I set the alarm while he stood in the hallway waiting for me.

“You don’t have to—”

“I know.”

At the elevator we stood there, side by side. If I took a deep breath my shoulder would touch his, so I took a tiny step away.

“Poppy,” he said, looking down at the garbage.

The elevator opened and I stepped in, expecting him to follow but he didn’t. And there was something ominous about him on one side of the closing doors and me on the other. Something that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. It was like the scene in those movies when the trap is closing around a character.

The door started to slide shut, and I slapped my hand against it.

I wondered if anything he’d said to me tonight was real.

Some, I thought. In the way of all liars, Ronan had probably seeded his lies with small truths. The story about Caroline and the purse stealing, I could see that unfolding. The priests.

And I imagined so many mistakes in his past. More than mine, maybe.

But I didn’t imagine him being sorry for a single one of them.

“What?” I asked, suddenly really afraid.

Ronan leaned in. “Don’t trust anyone,” he said. “Not that fucking driver. Not even your sister.”

“And I’m supposed to trust you?” That was laughable. But also tragic. Because he’d set the bait so well, and I wanted to trust him.

“No,” he said quietly. “Don’t trust me, either.”

I lifted my hand, stepped back against the wall of the elevator and watched his beautiful face until the doors shut and I was hurtling down to a life I didn’t recognize. Couldn’t trust.

And wasn’t sure I even wanted.