“No, but I’ll be close,” André answered Vance before looking at me. “Miss Narine, I highly recommend we add a couple more of my men for the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours. You won’t notice they’re here, but it will give us coverage on the parking garage and loading dock at the back of the hotel. Those access points are the weakest in your current security plan, along with food and maid service.”
My heart already racing, the thought of a maid or a room service delivery bringing a bomb up here or, worse, detonating en route made my stomach heave. “Fine,” I agreed.
“I’ll make it happen. Ronan will keep you apprised of any updates.” With a curt nod, André headed to the door.
Vance followed. “Back in a few, love.”
The door shut behind them, and Harm blended into the wallpaper, but Ronan, he stared at me.
Anxiety pinging around my body like pinpricks all over my skin, I crossed my arms tighter against the chill of the air conditioning. “What?”
His eyes never leaving mine, Ronan addressed the silent bodyguard. “Harm, post outside.”
Without a word, the silent man let himself out of the suite.
Tension almost immediately closed in around us as I was left standing next to the man I had betrayed. “I’m not in the mood to talk.”
“What are you doing?” he demanded, ignoring my assertion.
“Trying not to get blown up,” I snapped. “What the hell does it look like I’m doing?” Suddenly feeling more intimate than the private jet, this suite was too small for the both of us.
“It looks like you’re hiding.”
I couldn’t swallow past the sudden lump in my throat. “There’s a bomber after me. Of course I’m hiding.” Hoping he couldn’t see my lies, I turned toward the glass sliders overlooking the turquoise ocean I’d missed so much. With strong winds kicking at the coast, the waves were higher than usual.
Smelling like the view I was staring at, Ronan stepped next to me. “Vance isn’t throwing all of Trefor’s resources at this. You won’t let Luna use all of his. The gamble of coming here was beyond a calculated risk, and you’re not asking the most important question.”
I should’ve told him what we knew.
I couldn’t even remember a good reason now why I hadn’t, except Vance said not to.
Nothing to say, I stared at the roiling waves, and for one quiet, immeasurable moment, the man I wanted to spend forever with stood next to me as if he’d always been there.
And he had been. In my heart.
I wanted to tell him that. I wanted to tell him so many things. But I couldn’t undo the one thing he’d made me promise more than fourteen years ago.
The memory so strong, tears choked the words in the back of my throat. “Do you remember what you said to me the morning of my first day of high school when I told you I was nervous?”
He didn’t hesitate. “Yes. I told you to never mistake me for my brother, and you’d have nothing to ever be nervous about.”
I couldn’t stop myself. I looked at him.
The intermittent sunlight coming through the clouds kissed his high cheekbones and glinted off his dark hair. His profile was as heart-stopping as if I was staring into his eyes. Knowing it was too late to matter, I asked what I should have all those years ago. “Why did you say that? Of all things to say to me in that moment, why that?” I suspected why, but he’d never spoken of it.
In true Ronan form, he didn’t answer. Instead, his voice went low and intimate, and he asked me the last question I was expecting. “Did Amherst force himself on you?”
Visceral and immediate, the memory I kept buried deep flooded my conscience, and my body reacted. Inhaling, I stepped back from the windows. “I’m not having this conversation.” Not with him. Not with anyone.
Quick and sure, he grabbed my chin and looked into my eyes with unadulterated rage. “Tell me right now.”
Anger warred with embarrassment, and I lied. “There’s nothing to tell.”
Searching my face, his grip tightened. “You’re lying.”
I was preserving my sanity. “You don’t get to judge me or pretend to care about me or my past. It’s too late for that. You cut me off. You walked away ten years ago. You’re the one who decided to not forgive me despite all my calls and texts.” I pulled out of his grasp and headed for the bedroom.
“Answer me.”
The demand, low and threatening, hurled at my back was the straw that broke me.
I spun on him in anger and yelled, “I was a dirt-poor Trinidadian girl in a rich man’s world. What would you expect me to do? Say no and lose the one shot I had at doing what I’d always wanted?” Except I didn’t know what I’d wanted back then because I didn’t know someone like me could even dream that big. I’d just wanted to keep Ronan out of jail, and I wanted the pain of losing him to go away, and last on that sad list, I’d wanted to sing, and Leo made me feel like my future hinged on spreading my legs for him.
So, I’d caved and done it.
It was horrible and demeaning, and I’d silently wept through the whole, thankfully short ordeal. Throwing up in the recording studio bathroom afterward because even though I’d already lost Ronan, it’d felt like I’d cheated on him and disgraced us both. I vowed to myself to never do it again, even if I lost my contract. But I never had to make that decision, because by the next week, a new singer who was even younger than me had caught Leo’s eye.
Shamefully glad, I kept recording my debut album.
I had to sing my songs. I’d needed to give the world the words that poured out of my broken heart, even though I knew it was never going to bring Ronan back. But I had to keep going, because I didn’t have anything else.
I’d never wanted to get handled, used, and taken advantage of at every turn. I didn’t want to become a megastar that had rabid fans breaking into every hotel I ever stayed at. I didn’t want my entire life on display twenty-four seven. I didn’t want to lose my virginity to a fifty-something-year-old man who’d pushed me into giving up the one thing I’d had left that’d been completely mine.
As if reading every one of my thoughts, Ronan’s nostrils flared and his hands fisted. “You should have told me.”
Bitter laughter twisted past my cynical lips. “And you would have done what? Come home from war when you weren’t even speaking to me and save me from the big, bad music industry?”
“Yes,” he ground out.
I didn’t know if it was the fourth note or this conversation or finally being alone with him after all these years and having it be so far from what I wanted, but something inside me snapped. Anger swelled to the point of no return, and consuming, raw defeat that I’d lived with for so long gripped my throat and threatened to take all my words, but I didn’t let it.
Not this time.
“I was powerless,” I forced out. “I was always going to be powerless once I signed that contract, but it was my decision, Ronan. My life. My choice. And I made it. I signed the stupid contract with that deplorable man, and every terrible thing that could’ve happened, happened, and not just to me, but to everyone I ever cared about. And yes, I care about your brother too, but the fact remains that I set all of this in motion and I’m still standing. I made it and here I stand.” Tears of rage, regret and pain welled, and I thumped my fist against my chest. “I’m responsible for all of it, good and bad, and this voice served me well. Because of it, I’m not powerless anymore. Never again will I be in that position. So, if you want to judge me, go right ahead. Keep blaming me for what happened. Blame your brother. I don’t care anymore. I can’t change you any more than I can change the past.”