“That’s not what your body said last night.”
Ronan’s words took me back to the dark interior of the town car, the leather seats slick against the searing heat of my thighs. The desire had been overwhelming, the need infuriating, the lust forceful as a breaking wave on a moonlit shore.
“My body said nothing.”
I was thankful for the large, glossy dark-green palm in concealing my cheeks, which burned. I lowered a frond just a hair’s breadth to check if Ronan was looking in my direction.
He was doing more than looking in my direction. He was awaiting my eyes like a fox lurking outside the rabbit’s hole. He was anticipating my eyes like a hawk knowing instinctually which way a desperate mouse would dart as its shadow blotted out the sun. He was hungry like a lion stalking its prey.
I couldn’t look away.
It only made things worse that Ronan so obviously knew this. He took his time as he propped his feet up on the table, rested his arms behind his head, and grinned lazily.
“Your body said everything, love.”
I swatted angrily at the palm with a growl of frustration, then yanked at the zipper, not caring if it made it to the top or not. I stormed back toward the table, plopped down into my chair like a hormonal teenager and pouted at the white egg balanced in the little silver holder. Benson had promised me French toast with brown butter and powdered sugar…
“Sit up straight, Ms Evans,” Ronan said, his voice suddenly business-like.
I eyed him from just above my arms, which were crossed high and tight across the scratchy tea dress.
“A proper lady does not slouch,” Ronan added. “Not at breakfast does she slouch. Not at lunch, nor dinner does she slouch.”
“Not in a box? Nor with a fox?” I grumbled irritably.
“A proper lady does not slouch while in the lavatories,” Ronan went on, ignoring me. “A proper lady does not even slouch, Ms Evans, while astride the hips of a proper gentlemen.”
I rolled my eyes at the mischievous flash in Ronan’s eyes.
“How come you get to sit like that?” I asked, nodding at his own lazy posture.
“Because,” Ronan said, pointing his spoon, or rather my spoon, at me, “in case you’ve somehow forgotten, I’m already disgustingly rich. Are you?”
I glared at him without a word.
“My position in high society is well established. Is yours?”
I ducked my eyes from his gaze and remained silent.
“I can get whatever I desire in the whole wide world with a mere snap of my fingers, love. Can you?”
With a small, petulant huff, I uncrossed my arms, straightened my spine, and pulled back my shoulders.
“Chin up, Olivia Twist.”
“I didn’t know you knew how to read,” I grumbled.
Ronan smiled beamingly. “There’s a lot you don’t know, Ms Evans. Now chin up.”
I resisted for just a moment before relenting and doing as I was told. Oh, how I hated doing what I was told, especially when the one doing the telling was Ronan Fucking O’Hara.
“Good,” Ronan said, standing to circle behind me, studying my posture.
I shivered when his finger ran along the length of my neck.
“Very good.”
He returned to his seat and interlaced his fingers over his chest.
He sighed deeply and then said, “Ms Evans, we have a lot of work to do to make you somewhat presentable before your first official public outing at the Solstice Ball. A lot of work indeed.”
I dug my fingernails into my palms, which were hidden in my lap, to keep my mouth shut.
“You have very few redeemable qualities,” Ronan continued, clearly enjoying his little barbs. “It will take all I have to draw out something gentile and delicate from your bullish presence.”
I sucked my teeth and inhaled sharply. He was baiting me and I knew it.
“If I can pull this off, it will be my greatest accomplishment in life,” he said, drumming his fingers against his suit jacket. “‘He did the impossible’. That is what they shall put on my headstone.”
My teeth bit down hard on my bottom lip, physically restraining myself from speaking. But I was doing it. I wasn’t giving him what he wanted. I wasn’t falling for it this time.
Ronan went to continue but was interrupted when the door to the greenhouse opened and Benson stepped inside with a plate of steaming hot slices of French toast drenched with so much melted butter it nearly dripped right onto the floor.
“Breakfast,” Benson announced with a quick nod of his head. “Or should I say, second breakfast.”
But just as I was greedily reaching for the plate, Ronan lifted his finger.
“For me, Benson,” he said. “Ms Evans already has her breakfast.”
My chair clattered loudly behind me as I shoved myself angrily to my feet and slammed my palms on the table.
“Goddamn mother fucker!” I shouted.
Ronan was grinning victoriously. He stabbed a large forkful of my French toast.
“A lot of work indeed.”
Delaney
“There is no way in goddamn hell I am wearing that.”
It was afternoon the next day and I had reluctantly reported to “class” in the grand library to find a stereotypical schoolgirl’s uniform laid out on the large walnut table in the centre of the room next to a dinner arrangement of glassware and plates. It was a white collared shirt, a green plaid tie that matched a green plaid pleated skirt, black knee-high socks, and black heels polished to a high sheen. Oh, and it was all sized for a Barbie doll. Maybe.
“What?!” Ronan whined, descending one of the ladders from the second-storey platform wrapping around the bookshelves. “Why not?”
I crossed my arms defiantly and said nothing as my response as Ronan hopped the last few rungs. He tossed the armful of books he’d collected onto one of the chairs arranged around the massive stone fireplace and waltzed forward. He grabbed the skirt, which I realised wouldn’t even cover half my ass when he held it up to his own waist.
“Ms Evans, haven’t you ever heard dress for success?” Ronan said, staring down at the skirt with a disappointed shake of his head. “I thought you were finally taking this seriously.”
I rolled my eyes. “It’s not Halloween and I’m not a stripper.”
Ronan tried a pout as his next resort. “But I put on a shirt,” he complained. “I even buttoned my shirt.”
I snatched up the laughably small shirt from the table. “Yeah, but your shirt isn’t chopped in half.”
Ronan eyed his own shirt tucked tidily into the waist of his trim slacks, and I saw the boyish idea light up his eyes as if by a goddamn light bulb. He grinned down at me. “If I—”
“No.”
“But then—”
“No.”
“Why not?!”
“No.”
Ronan went silent as his eyes darted between my hips and the skirt, hips, skirt, hips, skirt. “So what I’m hearing from you is that we’ll revisit the uniform later?”
I snatched the skirt from him, balled it up (though there wasn’t much to ball up), and threw it over my shoulder.
“There will be no uniform,” I announced, sweeping the rest of the clothes and shoes off the big round table and dusting my hands.