Page 124 of Lady and the Hitman
It just settled in. Cold. Real. I stared at him, trying to reconcile the man who held my hand so gently with the one who had taken a life.
Or lives.
“You said consulting,” I managed.
“I do consult,” he said. “But that’s not what pays the bills.”
I felt something tighten in my chest. “Then what does?”
He didn’t flinch. “I’m a fixer. I clean up messes for people who can afford not to have them.”
“Messes?”
“Threats. Leaks. Problems that can’t be handled in a boardroom.”
My stomach twisted.
“And if someone tried to hurt me?” I asked.
His eyes darkened. “They wouldn’t make it past the first try.”
A chill ran through me. Not fear. Not exactly. But the overwhelming certainty that this man—this ghost with a name—had remade his whole life around shadows and precision and violence.
And now he was here. Sitting across from me in a bar in Charleston. Asking me to choose him in broad daylight.
“I’m not normal,” he said. “I’m not clean. I’m not safe.”
“But you’re mine,” I whispered.
His breath caught.
I hadn’t meant to say it.
But I didn’t take it back.
“Jesus, Zara,” he said roughly, reaching across the table again. His fingers slid under my chin, tilting my face toward his. “You have no idea what that does to me.”
“I think I do.”
He kissed me across the table.
Not gentle.
Not soft.
This kiss was fire and possession and the kind of promise you can’t take back.
When he pulled away, his eyes were unreadable. “If you want out—after you watch what’s on that drive—say the word.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then you don’t hide anymore.”
I stared at the flash drive again.
The waitress came by. She started to ask if we wanted anything else, but the look Ronan gave her sent her silently walking in the opposite direction.
We sat in silence for a moment longer.
