He focused on unpacking his essentials. “We should head down for lunch,” he said, checking his watch. “They’ll be expecting us.”
She nodded, disappearing into the bathroom to freshen up. When she emerged, she’d applied a touch of lip gloss and brushed her hair. The sight altered his heart rate in surprising ways.
“Ready, fiancé?” she asked, holding out her hand. Her eyes sparkled with teasing affection, even as her fingers trembled, betraying the nerves beneath her confidence.
He took her hand—small and trembling but stilling the moment it met his. “Ready.”
Lunch was an elaborate affair served on fine china beneath a white pergola draped with climbing roses. The conversation flowed with surprising ease, primarily because of her natural ability to charm and engage. She asked intelligent questions about Andrew’s newest investments, laughed at Eleanor’s stories about local politics, and somehow made him appear more human by association.
“So, Devney,” Eleanor said over dessert, a delicate panna cotta topped with fresh berries. “What was your first impression of Ronan? He can be rather intimidating, I imagine.”
Devney’s eyes met his across the table, lit with mischief.
“Terrifying,” she said with a laugh. “I spilled coffee on my résuméduring the interview and was convinced he’d throw me out on the spot.”
“Did you?” Eleanor asked him, clearly amused.
“The résumé was still legible,” he said, finding himself grinning at the memory. “And her qualifications were impressive enough to overlook the coffee stains.”
“Plus,” Devney said, “I think he was amused by how badly I was trying to pretend it hadn’t happened.”
“I could see your hands shaking,” he said, the detail surfacing from a memory he hadn’t realized he’d stored. “But you answered every question despite it.”
She stared at him. “You never told me that.”
“You never asked,” he said simply.
Eleanor watched with obvious satisfaction. “When did you realize it was more than work?” she asked, glancing between them.
The question hung in the air, deceptively simple, yet loaded with danger. This was the heart of their charade—the moment their story had to sound real.
“I knew after the Morris acquisition,” he said before she could speak, surprising himself with the certainty in his voice. “We worked through the night on the final contract details.
“Around four in the morning, when most people would have been complaining or making mistakes, she was still sharp, still challenging my assumptions, still improving the terms.”
Devney’s eyes widened, but he kept speaking, unable to stop now that he’d started.
“She fell asleep at her desk before dawn,” he said, the memory startlingly vivid, “her head on a stack of contracts, pen still in her hand. And I realized I’d met no one so stubbornly determined, so brilliantly persistent. A person who pushed back against my worst tendencies instead of accommodating them.”
The table had gone silent, everyone watching him with curious expressions. He cleared his throat, suddenly aware that he’d revealed more than he’d intended. “That’s when I knew she was different,” he said, reaching for his water glass to occupy his hands.
“How romantic,” Eleanor sighed, clearly delighted by this revelation.
Devney’s gaze remained fixed on him, an unreadable expression on her face. “I didn’t know you remembered that night,” she said.
“I remember everything,” he said.
A moment of charged silence followed, broken only when Andrew suggested they take a walk along the beach before dinner. Eleanor seconded the idea, rising from her chair.
“Wonderful plan,” she said. “The fresh air will do us all good.”
As they filed toward the path leading to the beach, Devney fell into step beside Ronan, her voice low enough that only he could hear.
“That was quite a performance,” she said.
“It wasn’t entirely a performance,” he replied, the words feeling like stones dragged from
deep within him.
