He pauses, his eyes never leaving my face. When he speaks again, his voice is softer. “I’m sure you won’t be living there alone forever.”
My heart flutters, and I take a sip of my drink to give me a second to recover. “I don’t know. Sometimes it feels like I will be.”
“Why?”
“That’s a complicated question.” Part of me wonders why I’m having this conversation with him. But he’s so relaxed, his eyes intent on me like he’s genuinely interested. He makes it easy to keep talking. “I guess I feel like I live two different lives. From a professional standpoint, I’m exactly where I want to be. I love my job, and I get a lot of satisfaction working for VI. But my personal life is kind of a mess. I tend to date the wrong men.”
“Like Ashton?”
“It was Aidan,” I say, my tone wry. “But no, Aidan was supposed to be different. He was supposed to be a step in the right direction.”
A slight smile crosses his lips. “What direction is that?”
I shake my head and look away. “I don’t know. A serious direction? I’d like to meet someone who doesn’t look at me like a trophy, and ditch me when the next hot piece of ass comes along.”
Ronan watches me with a hand to his chin. He’s so sexy when he does that. He has this air about him, like he doesn’t have a care in the world. It makes me want to crawl across the table and—
“You deserve that,” he says.
I suddenly feel like I shared more than I meant to, and I’d like to get him talking. “Are you like me? You’re a successful business owner. You just bought a new company. But you aren’t married. Is your professional life on track, but your personal life is a mess?”
He hesitates, his tongue darting across his lips. “I guess that depends on who you ask.”
“I’m asking you.”
“I don’t know,” he says. “I think my criteria might be changing.”
“Well, I hope you figure it out,” I say.
He tosses back the last of his whiskey. “I have a confession. I lied to you about something.”
“What?”
“I told you on the plane that I already planned to attend this conference before the sale of VI went through.”
“That isn’t true?”
“No,” he says. “I found out that you were going a few days ago, and I switched the former employee’s pass into my name. Then I changed your flight so we could fly here together.”
I can’t decide if I should be angry or not. “Seems like you went to a lot of trouble for nothing.”
“Why nothing?” he asks, his brow furrowed.
“It’s not like being out of town is going to give you a better chance of getting me into bed.”
“I didn’t drop everything to come to Denver with you for three days because I thought I’d get laid,” he says. “I couldn’t stand the thought of being away from you for that long. Believe me, I don’t know what to do with that any more than you do.”
I have no idea how to respond to that, and I touch my glass with my fingertips, wishing it wasn’t empty.
“Don’t get me wrong,” he says, a hint of mischief in his tone. “If you invited me upstairs with you, I’d be there in a heartbeat. But I didn’t come here expecting that.”
“Good.” I can’t quite meet his eyes.
“What is it that’s holding you back?” he asks. “Is it what happened before I left for San Francisco?”
“That’s part of it,” I say. “That and the fact that you’re my boss. If something happened between us, everyone in the office would look at me differently. And when it’s over, what am I supposed to do? I love my job, Ronan. I told you, it’s the one part of my life that I’m proud of. I can’t risk that.”
“When,” he says. It’s not a question.
“Excuse me?”
“You said when it’s over,” he says.
“Ronan, we slept together once and I never heard from you again,” I say. “Yes, I realize you were moving to California, literally that day. But would it have killed you to call? Send me a text? You didn’t even say goodbye. Am I supposed to assume that five years later, you’re not still that guy?”
He puts his hand to his chin and looks away. “I guess I deserve that.”
“Yes, you do.”
He pauses for a moment, then stands and meets my eyes. “Good night, Selene.”
He walks away before I can reply.
13: Ronan
I’m up early on the second day of the conference. I’d like to pretend Selene didn’t get to me last night, but that would be a lie. She did. It isn’t that she doesn’t trust me after I blew her off five years ago. She’s right—I did blow her off, and she doesn’t have any reason to believe I wouldn’t do it again. I’ve had a lot of casual flings, and I’m not an idiot. I know when a woman wants more, and that’s when I bail. It means I have a lot of women in my past who probably hate me, but I’ve never had it in me to give them what they want. I’m great at swooping in, showing a woman a good time, and blowing her mind in bed. Anything more than that? It isn’t my area. That gets into territory I don’t want to explore, and I’ve never been particularly tempted.