Camille

I yank a toothbrush from the basket of complimentary toiletries sitting on the marble counter of the en suite bath.

The woman staring back at me in the mirror is weak and barely recognizable, and I cringe when I look her up and down.

I never let my guard down.

My cheeks flush, burning hot when I think about what just happened. I want to erase the last half hour from my life. He must think I’m completely insane, but to be fair, I think he’s insane for wanting to keep me around, so that makes us equally insane.

I let the robe fall to the floor and twist the knob on the shower until steam fogs up the room. I say a silent prayer for clarity and direction. I have no idea who I’m praying to, but as long as someone hears it, that’s good enough for me.

* * *

I finger comb my damp hair into a messy topknot. Stepping out of the bedroom in last night’s dress, I find Ronan in the same place I left him.

“Feel better?” He stands, folding a newspaper and dropping it on the chair behind him. His white dress shirt is untucked, and the first two buttons at the top are undone. If the circumstances were any different, I might not be able to keep myself from running my fingers through his mussed, coffee-brown hair.

“Yes.” My heartbeat pulses with each step that brings him closer to me.

“And have you decided?” He stands before me now, his heat radiating into me. My eyes are caught in his curious stare, unable to look away. “I still want you, Camille. I didn’t track you down for the better part of a year just to let you go this easily.”

“It’s not you,” I say. “I don’t even want to be in this city anymore. I need a fresh start.”

Ronan smirks. “You know what used to help me when I needed to get away?”

“What?”

“Calling you. Meeting up with you. You’re my escape,” he says. “When I’m with you, in the dark, I don’t think about anything else, because for one hour of my ridiculous life, I’m not me.”

I nibble my bottom lip, staring at the peek of creamy tan skin from behind his white shirt.

“So what’ll it be?” He takes my hands in his, lifting them to his lips and depositing a tender kiss. “Ten more weeks of paradise, or a lifetime of asking yourself if you made the right decision by walking away?”

“You make it sound like walking away would be a bad thing.”

“That’s because it would be, Camille. It would haunt you the rest of your life,” he says.

It’s tempting to spend the rest of my life knowing that for three months, I belonged to the most eligible bachelor in the free world: a privilege most women could only dream of.

“Give me one more week with you,” he says. “And if you still want to leave, I won’t try to stop you.”

His hand cradles my cheek, and I almost wish he’d kiss me so I could remember how it feels to be weightless.

“I’m going to Iowa for a few days next week,” Ronan says. “We’re soft launching my father’s reelection campaign, and I’m required to make an appearance. Come with me. It’ll get you out of here for a little while, let you clear your head.”

“How exactly would that work? Me going with you?”

“I’m flying with my family,” he says. “You could fly commercial, and I’ll put you up in a hotel in downtown Des Moines. We’ll meet at night, when the rest of that quiet little city sleeps.”

I stare off to the side.

“You said you wanted to get out of town,” he reminds me.

“Fine. One week.” I release a surrendered sigh. “We’ll see how Iowa goes.”

He kisses my forehead, lingering for a minute before pulling back, and I watch his chest rise as he pulls my clean scent into his lungs. My hands are frozen at my sides, but my fingers yearn to play with his hair and trace the bends and angles of his perfect face the way I did in the dark.

“Promise me something, Camille,” his voice resonates from deep within his chest.

“I don’t believe in promises,” I say. “I only believe in someone’s good word, and mine has always been good.”

His hand cups my chin as his stare pierces mine. “You know who I am now, but I still need this to be dark. Don’t tell a soul about us. You don’t know what someone might do with that information.”

“Ronan.” I sigh. “The item that was stolen from my apartment last week. It was a journal.”

His face hardens.

“I keep records of all of my meetings. Every client. Every dinner and hotel reservation. Every detail of what we do. It’s all there.” My brows angle inward. “And this particular stolen journal was my most recent.”

“How many of these do you have?”

“Several. But your name isn’t in any,” I add, as if that makes the situation any less dire. “Obviously.”

“Who else have you told about these journals?”

“You’re the only one.”

“Good. Keep it that way.” His nostrils flare, and the space above his jaws hollows. “Trust no one, Camille.”

“So what do we do?” My stomach sickens when I think about someone out there paging through my personal accounts of the way “John” commanded my body with his tongue or fucked me in six different positions in the master suite of the Hightower apartment.

“Your roommate, Araminta,” he says.

“What about her?”

“Is it possible she went snooping through your things while you were gone and came across it?”

I shake my head to vehemently oppose his suggestion. “She would never.”

“And how do you know for sure?”

“She doesn’t know I keep records, and believe me, she’s more wrapped up in her own life to even care about anyone else’s.”

“For now, you need to stay on guard. Tell her nothing, do you understand?”

I nod.

“I don’t want you to worry too much about this until we know more.” His hands circle my waist. “Whoever has it hasn’t done anything with it. Yet. My guess is that they’ll wait until it’s really valuable and try to use it for extortion.”

“I’m so sorry, Ronan.”

“You said there are others?”

“Right. But they’re hidden. I’m the only one who knows where they are.”

“If this one doesn’t have my name written in it, I’m not that worried about it. There’s nothing they can say or do that I won’t be able to deny.” His gaze narrows. “But what bothers me is the fact that someone entered your apartment without you knowing. How are you even sleeping at night?”

“Pfft. With 9-1-1 on speed dial and a lock on my door.”

“I don’t want you staying there anymore.”

I laugh. “I can’t do that to Araminta. Really. I have pepper spray, and there’s this program I can download on my laptop that records a video when it senses movement. Whoever took that journal, they can keep it. There’s nothing else of mine they could possibly use to extort anyone, and obviously they didn’t want to physically harm me because they came by when I was out of town. I got a little freaked out at first when I thought it was Bancroft, but now that he’s out of the picture, I’m fine. Really.”

“You’re a brave woman, Camille.” His blue eyes soften as he runs the pad of his thumb across my hip. “I’m going to have Oliver get us a couple of disposable phones. I want you to be able to contact me at any hour, for any reason.”

“All right.”

“And no more journaling,” he adds. “Everything that goes on between us stays between us. Nothing goes on paper. Nothing is discussed.”

“Understood.”

“Meet me tomorrow evening at the Hightower.” It’s a subtle way of saying goodbye. “I’ll have a courier deliver your new phone in the morning, and I’ll text you a time.”

My chest tightens. “I’d rather avoid the Hightower if we could. Last night wasn’t the most pleasant experience.”

Ronan’s chin tucks and his shoulders widen as he breathes deeply. “Yes, about that.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” I shut down the conversation, partially because I’m not in the mood to relive that moment, but mostly because I blame myself. I’m the idiot who climbed into the back of Keir Montgomery’s limo and let him put his hands all over me like some floozy bimbo desperate to fuck him. “It was a mistake, and I’d prefer to forget it happened.”

His jaw tenses. “My brother very much knows about us, and he knows who you are. Does that change anything?”

My hand covers my mouth. “That fucking prick.”

Ronan lifts a palm. “I don’t want to know the details, Camille. Just tell me if he hurt you so I can handle this.”

I huff, my arms folding tight against my body as I stare at the carpet. I allow myself to be weak, to wallow in that pain for just a moment before pulling myself together. With a cleansing breath and my spine zipped straight, I say, “He had a few choice words when he realized I wasn’t going to sleep with him. They stung at the time, and now I’m over them.”

Ronan’s head tilts, his eyes wincing like he doesn’t quite believe me.

“Why would your brother want to sleep with a woman he knows is already involved with you?” I ask.

His sapphire eyes roll. “Keir wants everything I have, and he’s been that way our whole lives. He’s competitive and entitled, and I’m sorry you had the grave misfortune of bumping into him last night.”

He lifts my chin until our eyes lock again.

“If he hurts you, I’ll hurt him. You should know that,” he says. “But I’ll make sure he never bothers you again.”

“Do you think he sought me out last night?”

“Keir’s too lazy. He’s an opportunist.” Ronan scoffs. “I was with him for part of last night, but I went home early when I couldn’t take another minute with his obnoxious entourage.”

I sigh, waving my hand in the air. “Okay, enough about your brother.”

“Agreed.”

I pull away and scan the living room of the suite for my clutch. Ronan walks behind me, his hand on the small of my back. Even after everything that’s transpired, he still treats me like a proper lady. I kind of love that about him.

We linger by the door, and I catch the graze of his tongue across his bottom lip.

It feels silly standing here wishing he’d just kiss me, so I force the ridiculous notion out of my head. There’s no good reason for him to kiss me right now.

“I’ll see you tomorrow night.” I give him a bitten smile and flit my fingers in the air as I wave. Walking away, the weight of his stare is undeniable.

* * *

“Do you have any idea how worried I was about you last night?” Araminta paces the spot in front of our kitchen island, laying into me before I have a chance to kick off my heels.

“I know, I know.” I drop my keys on the counter. “Last night was completely insane for a hundred thousand different reasons, and to top it all off, my phone died at some point, so I couldn’t text you and let you know I was safe.”

“Did you leave with Keir?” she asks.

I groan. “Yes, and let me tell you, he is, hands down, the biggest asshole I’ve ever met.”

Her pretty mouth hangs like I’ve committed treason. “You take that back, Camille Buchanan.”

She giggles, shaking her head as she flashes an envious smile.

“The fact that you got him to leave with you is . . . beyond . . . ” she says. “I want to know everything. Is he a good kisser? What kinds of things did he say? Is his cock every bit as beautiful as I’ve imagined it to be?”

I exhale, wishing I could tell her everything and then some, but I’m not about to throw away my good word for the sake of a little shock value.

“Yes, he’s a good kisser.” I’ll give her that much. “But as soon as we were alone, he got really rude and aggressive. It was weird, Minty. I got myself out of there before it went too far.”

“Aggressive like how?”

I pinch my lips, shrugging. “I don’t know.”

“Like physically violent?”

“No, no, no.”

“Or like a man who’s really excited that he’s about to get some so he can’t keep his grubby paws to himself?” She cocks a half smirk.

“Right. Like that.”

“Psh.” Araminta slaps a hand on her hip. “My God, Camille, can you blame him for getting pissy with you? You left with him. He thought he was going to get some ass.”

If only it were that simple.

“Why such a prude all of a sudden?” She laughs, shaking her head and strutting to the other side of the kitchen to grab a water.

“Whose side are you on?”

“Yours.” She sighs. “Always. Anyway, it should’ve been me last night. I’d have gladly taken one for the team.”

I hope she never has to.