Page 81 of Married to My Grumpy Minotaur Boss

I press my hands to my hot cheeks. “What are you doing here?”

“Isn’t it obvious? I’m stalking you like a shameless creep because you won’t return my messages.”

My tongue gets tied in knots for a moment. “Oh!”

Harvey pulls away from the curb and Ronan reaches over me to grab the belt and clip it into place. My heart does a somersault as he leans close, totally ignoring all my good resolutions to get over him.

“Do you know how crazy it made me, not hearing back?”

Now I stare, but there’s no hint of humor in his black expression. “I-I'm sorry.”

Ronan sighs. “No. I’m the one who should be apologizing. I watched your exit interview.”

He says this heavily, like I should know what it means. “You did?”

He turns toward me, taking my hands in his, searching my face. “Please forgive me. I didn’t mean to ruin it for you. I didn’t think. But watching you... I can’t leave things like that. I owe you better. Will you let me make it up to you?”

“How?”

“Starting with a private flight to Paris, culminating in an obscenely romantic weekend away and plenty of expensive gifts. As long as that’s OK with you.”

My mouth drops open and I can’t think of a single thing to say for almost a whole minute. Ronan watches me intently the whole time.

Eventually, I stammer, “You don’t have to do all that!” I should say no, shouldn’t I? I’m sure there’s a reason I can’t quite think of right now.

He frowns. “Actually, I do. And if you won’t let me do it today I’ll have to come up with something even more extreme. So please take pity on me. I’m not sure I’m up to the task.”

I giggle. The thought of Ronan wracking his brain to come up with a grander gesture is amusing. I’m pretty stunned to be honest. It’s so thoughtful in so many ways. I’ve always dreamed about a trip to Paris or being swept off my feet in a grand romantic gesture. But...

“So will you come with me?”

“I’m not sure I should.” It’s risky. The very reason I wrote no on my card at the ceremony and didn’t try to contact him for weeks is because I was already at risk of falling far too hard. Now this?

My heart will stand no chance.

The problem is it doesn’t matter what I say, the damage is done. I’ve spent the last few weeks missing him terribly, even when I tell myself I didn’t. If I say no, I’m going to spend the rest of my life wondering what it would have been like. Wishing I’d been braver. Or dumber.

A hesitant smile creeps onto my lips.

“Please, Justine. You deserve to be spoiled. Let me spoil you.”

Why not? It might cost me months of mending a broken heart, but this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. “Yes. OK.”

His expression relaxes into the first genuine smile I’ve seen since he picked me up.

I’m desperate to ask him if this means he missed me, too. If he thought about me.

Then I remember. “Oh, but my passport!”

“On file at Bullseye. It doesn’t expire for another year. We can drop by your place and pick it up along with anything elseyou need. My jet is already waiting for us at the airport, though, so don’t be long.”

The rest of the drive to the airport passes in a blur. I try to squash down my nerves and my emotions, but it’s impossible to resist them all. Most of all, I want to ask what we’re doing here. Why make a romantic gesture if he doesn’t care about me at least a little?

But I’m too scared to spoil things when we might only have a single weekend left. I want to take every opportunity to enjoy this in case it’s the last chance I get to spend time with him. So I don’t ask. I just let myself be carried away with it.

Ronan’s private jet is as luxurious as I could have imagined. At the front are four huge leather reclining seats where the hostess ushers us to sit for takeoff. We’re served French champagne and tiny delicate snacks.

After takeoff, the hostess advises us we can remove our seatbelts and move around the aircraft. “Do you require anything else for the moment, Mr. Kernos?”

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