“I never got the chance to find out.” Annie wraps her arms around herself, and every sorry feeling that I have for myself flees. She’s all that matters right now. Her, and getting the bastard who did this to her. “We went out on that date last night. I’ve been so unsure about it all. I haven’t exactly had much of a love life,” she adds wryly. “It’s hard when I had an overprotective father and brother and enough security to keep the Queen of England safe. Normal men don’t want to deal with all that, and men in our world who get it are all so… possessive. Old-fashioned. They wouldn’t have liked that I worked, that I helped run the family. So it seemed easier to just not date. Not do… anything.”
Fuck.Does that mean what I think it does?The thought that Annie might still be a virgin, that I might still be the only man who’s ever heard her moan, ever gotten so much as a shred ofpleasure from her, sends a bolt of heat through me so intense that I feel momentarily overwhelmed by it. My cock twitches and thickens, arousal searing through my veins, and it’s a battle to shove the burgeoning need away. This woman is hell on my blood pressure, that’s one thing for sure.
“Desmond made it clear he wanted me,” Annie says quietly. “We went out to dinner last night, and went out dancing. He wanted me to go home with him. And I thought…” Her voice cracks. “I thought maybe I should say yes. That maybe I needed to rip the band-aid off and just let it happen, even if I wasn’t completely sure. So I lied to Leon. I said I was going to a friend’s—” Her eyes well up, her voice breaking completely, and I swallow hard as I reach out to lay a hand on her knee.
She looks up sharply at the touch, her wet blue eyes meeting mine. “This isn’t your fault,” I say softly. “You shouldn’t have lied to your security, that’s true. But what Desmond did… that’s not on you. Security or no security.”
Annie sniffs, wiping at her eyes, but the tears keep coming. I can tell she doesn’t believe me. “I went back to his penthouse with him. Things got… they got…” She breaks off, chewing on her lip so hard I’m worried she’s going to draw blood. “God, Elio, I can’t talk about this with you.”
I draw in a deep breath. “If you’re thinking I don’t want to hear about you with another man, you’re right,” I say quietly. “But I’m here for you, Annie, not for me. You can tell me. Don’t worry about how it makes me feel.”
She looks at me unsteadily. “We ended up on his couch. And he was going so fast… I wasn’t sure—” Her voice breaks off again, and she shudders before the words keep coming, broken and wet as she speaks, tears running down her face. “I wanted him to stop. To just slow down, even. But he wouldn’t. He said I made him wait, that I teased him. That he was done waiting. I kepttrying to get him to stop, and it made him angry. He said he was going to take my virginity?—”
I stand up abruptly, hands clenching and unclenching as I walk to the other side of the table, fighting the urge to leave this second, track Desmond down, and kill him as slowly as I can imagine how. Annie breaks off, looking at me wide-eyed, and I try to calm myself. “I just… you can keep talking,” I say as calmly as I can manage. “I just can’t… sit there.”
She nods, chewing on her lip again. “He said when it was over, he’d go to Ronan and ask to marry me, and that Ronan would have to say yes because Desmond had taken my virginity. He wasn’t going to take no for an answer. There were two wine glasses next to the coffee table. One broke as I was trying to fight him, and…” Annie swallows hard. “I grabbed a piece of glass and tried to stab him with it. That’s why my hand was bleeding, why he had cuts all over his face.” The tears start to flow faster. “I should have told Ronan I was seeing him. He wouldn’t have liked it—he would have wanted me not to. He wouldn’t have liked us together even when Siobhan was alive, and he’d like it less now… and I probably wouldn’t have listened to him.” She lets out a shuddering sob. “I should have listened. It’s my fault?—”
“FuckingChrist,” I swear, my jaw clenching. “We’ll take care of this, Annie.” I come back around the table, sink back down into the chair next to her as I reach for her hands, careful with the one that’s bandaged. “I’ll tell Ronan his story was bullshit. That he did this to you. And he’ll die slowly, Annie, I swear to fucking God. We’ll make sure he pays above and beyond?—”
“No!” The word bursts out of her, and I stare at her, shocked. “No, you can’t tell Ronan?—”
“Then you tell him.” I rub a comforting thumb over her knuckles, but she jerks her hands away, standing up as she starts to pace anxiously.
“No. I don’t want Ronan to know.”
“Annie—”
She turns to face me. "Ronan and Siobhan's marriage was..." she pauses, searching for the right words. "It was toxic. They brought out the worst in each other. She was controlling and manipulative and honestly—a cold fucking bitch. He tried everything he could to make her happy. He was faithful to her. He gave up everything he enjoyed, every possibility of love or companionship or warmth, to be a good husband to her. And then shecheatedon him. When she died—" Annie's voice breaks, and she has to take a shaky breath before continuing. "When she died, Ronan blamed himself. For not being a better husband, for not seeing that she was spending so much time away from home, for not realizing that she was sending her security away. He blamed himself, and our father just made it worse. Leila was the only thing that made it better, coming along when she did. She healed him. And this—” Annie lets out a shuddering breath. “Don’t you see, Elio? I sent Leon away. I put myself in a bad situation. And Ronan is going to think it’s Siobhan all over again. He’s going to blame himself, find some way to make this his fault… that he wasn’t a present enough brother, that he didn’t pay enough attention to me, didn’t try to find me a better match. If he knows…” She sobs again, suddenly, covering her face with her hands. “I should have known better. Should have stayed away from Desmond, should have known that anything connected to Siobhan would be poison.”
I want to reach for her, want to pull her into my arms and tell her it's not her fault, that she couldn't have known what kind of man Desmond really was. But I force myself to stay where I am, to let her get it all out.
"Ronan’s finally healed from that," Annie continues. "Finally forgiven himself and moved on. If he finds out that Siobhan's brother attacked me, it'll bring it all back. He'll blame himselfagain—for not protecting me from Desmond, for not seeing what kind of man he was, for everything. I can't do that to him. He can’t find out about this.”
“Annie—he thinks you’re missing. He’s actively looking for you.Thisis tearing him apart. Just tell him the truth, and even if it hurts, there’s a solution to it. We canfixit. That’s better than?—”
“You’re right.” Annie wipes her face, and I feel a moment of relief. Just a moment, until she starts to speak again. “Wecanfix it. You and I. And Ronan never has to know.”
I stare at her for a long moment. “What are you talking about?” I ask, though I'm starting to suspect I already know where this is heading.
Annie looks up at me, and the determination in her eyes is both admirable and terrifying. Her wild grief from a moment ago is gone, and now she’s focused, planning, thinking. It’s scary and strangely a little arousing. "I want you to kill him."
The words hang in the air between us, stark and uncompromising. I've killed before—it comes with the territory in our world—but never like this. Never for personal reasons, never out of vengeance. And make no mistake about it, Iwantto kill Desmond. I want to kill him in a way that I’ve never killed anyone before… slowly, with prejudice. I want to make him hurt all the way until his last breath, want him to feel terror. I want him to plead the way I’m sure Annie did, for me to stop. I want him to beg for his life and know it’s not going to matter.
But I also know that doing it like this, without Ronan sanctioning it, is a mess that has so many layers I can’t begin to unravel them all. Without the detail of Annie’s assault, my killing a respected Irishman from Ronan’s territory would be a declaration of war. With that detail added, Ronan would never forgive me for keeping any of this from him, for hiding Annieand then taking matters into my own hands without involving him, all the while lying to him about what’s going on.
"Annie—"
"I can't let him get away with what he did," she says, her voice gaining strength with each word. "I want to feel safe, and I never will while Desmond’s still alive. And I can't tell Ronan without destroying him all over again. It’ll open up all the wounds of what happened with Siobhan. He doesn’t need that.Leiladoesn’t need that. They’re so happy, with the baby, and…” Annie takes a deep breath. “But if Desmond just… disappeared… then I could go home. I could tell Ronan I'm safe, make up some story about why I left town for a few days. He'll be angry with me for disappearing, but he'll forgive me eventually. And he'll never have to know about any of this."
I stare at her, trying to work through everything she’s saying, the consequences of it all. "You want me to lie to him forever."
“I want you to protect him,” Annie insists. “That’s not the same thing. Just like I want to protect him. I want you to help me keep this from unraveling all the good that’s happened to him recently. All the happiness he’s found. I don’t want him to know that his sister was almost raped by the man who used to be his brother-in-law. I don’t want him to have to kill Desmond to avenge me.”
The logic is twisted, but I can see the appeal. Ronan would never have to know that his sister was attacked by his dead wife's brother. Never have to carry the weight of failing to protect her. Never have to confront the ghosts of his first marriage all over again.
But it would mean living with a secret that could destroy us all if it ever came out. It would mean looking at a man who is practically my brother, who has given me everything, in the eye every time I see him, and lying to him about one of the mostimportant people in his world. It would mean crossing a line that will change who I am, how I think of myself, forever.
I think of how he reacted when Desmond brought up Siobhan. How he didn’t want to talk about her. How angry he was. There’s something to what Annie is saying, I know that. But I also know that it’s leading us down a dangerous path.
