Page 34 of Ronan

“Because I can’t,” I whisper.

He moves to crowd my space and cups the back of my neck. I tilt my head back to look up into his eyes. He searches my gaze with his.

I bite my lip as his blue-hazel eyes bounce over my face. He begins to lean in, his breath brushing my lips. I close my eyes, but the kiss never comes.

“Ronan McGowan? Aye, I thought that was ya? What are ya doing here? This here is for the tourists. I didn’t start coming here until I started doing the tours for Da.”

I open my eyes and see a tall strawberry-blonde woman standing beside Ronan, looking at him expectantly. I take that as my cue to take a step back. Turning quickly, I head back for the car.

It’s beautiful out here, but I’m not walking that bridge. There isn’t enough fine in this world to make that happen. My heart begins to ache because I know I’d be disappointing my uncle.

He never caught on to my fear of heights. At least, I don’t believe he ever did. I’m sure he would have helped me to crush that fear if he had.

“Hold on, love. Wait,” Ronan calls after me as he grabs my wrist to halt me.

He turns me to face him and looks at me appraisingly. I feel like he sees right through me. I’m not sure how to feel about that.

“Aye, I see. I’ve found yer one fear.” He nods to himself.

“One and two,” I mumble under my breath.

I’m going to stop lying to myself. This man embodies my other worst nightmare. I could fall for him so easily and then I’d lose him.

CHAPTER11

Irish Fun

Ronan

“You’re quite the ladies’man,” Dean says as we walk hand in hand.

I shrug. “I’m a friendly guy; most want to know me, but don’t. I have friends here and there.”

“No commitments?”

“Not really. Business keeps me on the move. I’m never in one place for long. How about ya? Are ya single because ya don’t want the commitment?”

“It’s the same. I’m always busy with work. It’s hard to find a partner who will understand all that.”

“Ach, and then ya have me. The eejit who can’t pull off a romantic date to save his life.”

She laughs and wraps around my arm. I look down at her and smile. She’s taken the entire day well. This date has turned into a disaster.

“It hasn’t been that bad. Besides, we’ve had plenty of successful dates.”

I groan and shake my head. This one was supposed to be different. I planned to call her by her real name before the end of the night.

However, after all that’s happened, I’m taking it as a sign that this might not be a great idea. This day has been one big omen that this relationship is doomed before it even gets started.

Seeing the fear in Dean’s eyes when we were at Carrick-a-Rede made me second-guess what I believed to be true. Could a ruthless killer have such a fear? She looked like she had seen a ghost when she thought we were going to cross the bridge.

I wanted nothing more than to lift her in my arms and carry her across to show her she had nothing to fear.

I doubt they would have allowed it, but in that moment, it did cross my mind. I had thought it would be a great date. The view is spectacular. It happened to be a nice day for it too.

From there, we took the short trip to Dunluce Castle. Unfortunately, there were a bunch of tourists in, looking to have a look at the castle fromGOT, both Dean and I lost interest in spending much time there.

I had planned to have dinner in Belfast and then go for drinks before heading to our room I booked for the night. The restaurant had a kitchen fire and some langered jerks had a brawl at the pub I usual go to—getting the place shut down for the night.

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