“You know,” I told him, “you can try to stop this.”
“What?”
“You can try… but it’s too late for me,” I confessed, and damn, did it make me feel vulnerable. But I removed my arm from my eyes and looked at him. “I already love you, Ronan.”
“I don’t want to stop this,” he said in a low voice. Then he leaned in and kissed me gently, his luscious lips dragging over mine. “Fuck, I love you, Summer.”
My heart tore right open and angels sang. But I just whispered, “You better,” and smiled at him softly.
If I could just not cry, we’d make it through this night okay.
He groaned a little. “I’ve been fucking scared that I can’t protect you like this.” He fell back on the bed and rubbed his face. “With my emotions involved.”
“That’s bullshit.”
He cocked an eyebrow at me. “Why?”
“You don’t have to do it all. You’re my hero, Ronan. Let me be clear about that. But you’re only one man. You’re not actually superhuman. When we’re out on a date, it’s okay to have someone else watch our backs. You can have help. You don’t have to give up one or the other… being my bodyguard or being my man.”
He studied me. “Is that so?”
“Yes. It is.”
“Then maybe you realize that you don’t have to give up one or the other.”
“Meaning?”
“Your independence and strength don’t have to be sacrificed just because you need someone to watch your back.”
“I can’t believe you turned that around on me. But you are right.” I kissed his shoulder. “I can be a strong woman who needs a strong man.”
“Sweetheart, you already are. Maybe you just choose to stop fighting it.”
“And maybe you stop fighting whatever it is you’re still wrestling with,” I pushed back.
“Like what?” he asked, cautiously.
I blew out a breath. Yup. I supposed we were doing this.
Now was as good a time as any.
“You’ve said things, Ronan, that make me wonder…” I considered how to put it. “I know you’d go to great lengths to protect someone. Especially someone you care about. But… that scares me a little. I don’t want you to go too far, or get hurt.”
“I’d never do anything that would come back to hurt you. I promise you that. You don’t have to worry.” He sighed heavily. “Besides, I’ve been down that road before. It’s not good.”
“What do you mean?”
He seemed to hesitate.
“Please. Tell me,” I said softly.
So he did.
“Okay. I mentioned to you that I had a client with an abusive ex…”
“Yes.”
“She had a restraining order against him, and he’d definitely been abusive when they were together, before I came on the scene. But she lied to me. She told me he’d done things he didn’t, and I believed her. I guess she saw that thing you see… my need to protect people. And she fed stuff to me to fuel that. Then he showed up at her place one day, and… the situation turned violent. He wasn’t supposed to be there, but I overreacted. I beat him up pretty badly.”
I considered that. I rolled onto my side, facing him, studying his face.
“You had feelings for her?”
“I didn’t. She was just a client. But it turned out she had a thing for me. I didn’t see it. She manipulated me, and I couldn’t even see it because I was so bent on protecting her. And proving myself, maybe. This was many years ago, one of my first close protection details. I was lucky that my uncle had so many friends in high places. We were able to talk ourselves out of that one, but in reality, the guy should’ve pressed charges against me. I hurt him pretty bad.”
“He was abusing his wife, Ronan,” I said softly. “Maybe he deserved it.”
“Maybe. I felt pretty fucking bad about it, though. She’d used me to get what she wanted. She’d actually told me she wanted me to kill him. I didn’t take it seriously, but I think she probably was serious. It was an ugly situation, and it could’ve ended my career. We dropped her as a client after the dust settled, but I’ll always feel shitty about how I handled that one. It was a mess. But the thing that bothered me the most about all of it was the way I’d let her use me.”
“Why?” I asked, so curious to understand what made him tick. “Why did you feel that way? And why did you let her use you?”
“I’ve asked myself those questions so many times over the years. And I don’t have a clear answer. But there are patterns. My parents used me against each other in their never-ending fights. My mom cheated on my dad before I was born, and she’d use the affair as a weapon, a threat against him, whenever they fought.”
“Oh, shit.”
“You could say that. I was definitely my dad’s kid. I mean, anyone could see it. But he always lorded it over her, that maybe I wasn’t really his. And she was always threatening to leave, but never did. They chose this life of misery together, and they’d shove me back and forth between them, using me as an excuse to be cruel. If I fucked up, it was always the other one’s fault. So, as a teenager… I guess I just chose to keep fucking up. It was the only thing that got their attention.”
“Oh, Ronan. Jesus.”
“Yeah. It was good times. And after that… I had some pretty bad relationships. Maybe I didn’t know what a healthy relationship was. I mean, my uncle and my aunt were great, but somehow that never made up for the shit show of my parents. It seemed like every relationship I got into, I’d discover that the woman was using me for something, or betraying me somehow. Or both. They wanted protection, money, whatever. Whatever it was they saw in me that
