Page 42 of Ireland

Ronan assessed the space in a single sweeping glance, noting that the meeting in the glass-walled conference room had arrested his tigress the moment she’d exited the elevator. She stood utterly still, her lips parted and eyes narrowed beneath a confused frown.

“Cher,” he murmured, approaching her cautiously from behind.

Her head turned toward the sound of his voice, but her gaze remained fixed on the three people seated at the conference table as he took her hand in his.

He caught the attention of the dark-haired man and woman who sat facing a fellow with silver-dusted auburn curls whose back was to the elevator. That man noticed when their focus shifted to someone behind him, and he spun his seat around to face Ronan.

There was a moment of utter stillness in everyone, then the man’s face contorted with mottled rage. He bolted from the chair and shoved through the glass doors into the reception area.

Ireland sidestepped to shield him with her body despite the tableau in front of them.

Incredible.

“Dad!” She dropped her duffel on the floor and lifted her hand, still gripping Ronan with the other. “Calm down.”

“Get out of the way, Ireland!”

Ronan raked him with a derisive head-to-toe glance, cataloging the round brass glasses, wrinkled khaki slacks, green cardigan, and scuffed loafers. A harmless-looking man despite his fury, but his looks were deceiving. “You know my face,non?” he taunted with an icy smile.

“Let go of my daughter!”

The receptionist stood behind her desk. “Should I call security, Mr. Vidal?”

“Yes. Do it now.”

“Hey!” Ireland’s voice took on a note of steel. “We’re all adults here. We can sit down and figure this out rationally.”

She turned toward Ronan in what felt like slow motion, looking first at him and then down at the badge he wore. The color bled from her face as her lips read silently:Ronan McCaffrey.

Her hand went slack in his. It would've slipped from his grasp if he hadn’t been holding on. Regret became a sharp ache.

Rubbing her suddenly cold fingers between his, he spoke softly so only she could hear. “As I said,cher, we have things to discuss.”

“What the hell is going on out here?”

Ireland glanced at Christopher as he exited his office and entered the reception area. She decided in an instant that she was already up to her neck in bullshit, thank you very much, and wasn’t sticking around for more.

The elevator dinged behind her, and she turned on her heel, smiling rigidly at the tiny pop singer with teased blond hair and minuscule blue latex dress who exited the elevator with an entourage of half a dozen people.

“Hey, Ireland,” Chantal greeted her.

“Hey, superstar,” she replied, catching the woman’s hands and spinning with her so that Ireland’s back was to the elevator again. “We have to catch up soon.”

Then she walked backward into the car and hit the button for the ground floor.

“Ireland!” Ronan and her father barked in unison.

How she resisted flipping off the former and sobbing over the latter was beyond her.

She watched Ronan snatch her abandoned overnight bag up from the floor outside the elevator as the doors slid shut.

There was a great deal she didn’t yet understand about what was happening, but she was catching up quick. The blows had been coming swift and hard all morning: the talk with her mother, seeing Ronan on the street outside Vidal, finding Jules and Claudette in the McCaffrey meeting with her father, and her father’s fury, which she’d never imagined him capable of. He was such a mild-mannered and inherently soft-hearted man who so rarely raised his voice that she couldn’t remember the last time he had done so.

And Ronan. RonanMcCaffrey. Dressed in a blue Glen plaid blazer with a white dress shirt, solid blue tie, and navy slacks, his business style was distinctly Southern and classically elegant. She loved it madly, as she adored everything about him.

There was a sharp pain blooming and spreading through her chest.

How?Why?

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