Page 44 of Ruthless Savior
The next few days follow the same pattern. I maintain a careful distance, limiting our interactions to polite necessities. I can see the hurt and confusion growing in her eyes, but I tell myself it's for the best. She'll adjust. She'll understand that whatever was building between us was a mistake. She’ll realize that whatever idealized version of me she made up in her head is not the truth.
But it's killing me.
I almost tell her about Siobhan. I wonder, briefly, if telling her that I neglected my wife so much that I didn’t even know she was having an affair, that I ignored her so thoroughly that I was unaware she didn’t have her entire security team with her, would make a difference. If it would change the image of me Leila has in her head, if she knew my part in my wife and child’s death.
But I can’t open myself up to her that much. The vulnerability that would require is the exact opposite of the distance I’m trying to put between us.
So I don’t say anything. I keep track of what she’s doing via reports from my security team, but I avoid her as much as I can. She spends hours in the library, takes long walks in the garden despite the cold December weather, helps Ida in the kitchen even though she doesn't need to.
She's trying to make herself useful, I know. She’s not used to having things done for her, and it makes me respect her more. She likes to be busy, to not waste her days away, and it’sadmirable. It’s the kind of work ethic that I enjoy in another person, someone who doesn’t expect everything to be done for them.
The next evening, when I leave my office to go to dinner, she’s not in the dining room. Ida doesn’t know where she is, so I go looking for her, nervous suddenly that I’ve pushed her away too much, and she’s left despite our agreement. It’s a nonsensical worry—she wouldn’t get far with the security I have on the estate, and someone would have told me. But I feel the nerves clenching in my stomach all the same.
I find her in the music room, sitting at the piano bench with her back to me. She’s playing something light that sounds like an old-fashioned holiday song, not a popular one that I recognize, but it has some familiar notes. I pause in the doorway, watching her for a moment.
“I didn’t know you knew how to play.” It’s a stupid thing to say, I realize, as soon as it comes out of my mouth. Of course I don’t know such a personal thing about her.
She startles, turning to face me, and I find I’m disappointed to hear the music stop. "I can play a little. My mom taught me when I was younger." Her voice is cautious, uncertain. "I haven't practiced in years."
"You should. It's a good piano."
“It’s not mine.” She pauses. “I was worried maybe I shouldn’t touch it.”
The formality in her tone stings. This is what I wanted—distance, boundaries, appropriate behavior. So why does it feel like a jab to the chest to hear her speak to me this way?
“It’s fine,” I assure her. “No one is using it, and someone really should.”
She nods but makes no move toward the keys. There’s an awkward silence, the weight of everything unsaid hanging between us.
"Ronan," she says finally, "have I done something wrong?"
The question catches me off guard. "What do you mean?"
"You've been… different. Since the other night. Distant." She can’t quite seem to meet my eyes. "If I've done something to offend you?—"
"You haven't done anything wrong."
"Then why does it feel like you can barely stand to be in the same room as me?"
“Because I let things take an inappropriate turn between us,” I say firmly. “It’s nothing you’ve done, Leila. It’s my job to maintain boundaries between us. I have the power in this situation. It makes it complicated. And I overstepped.”
"Everything is complicated right now." She bites her lip. "That doesn't mean we have to pretend we're strangers."
She's right, and I know it. I should be able to find a middle ground between icing her out and pinning her up against the library shelves. But just being this close to her makes me want to lock the door and set her on the edge of the piano, slide her skirt up, and hear the sounds she’d make when I tasted her pussy for the first time. My cock stiffens instantly at the thought, need throbbing through me, and I know I want her too badly to give even an inch.
"It's better if we maintain some distance," I say carefully. "Given the circumstances."
Something flickers across her face—disappointment, maybe, or resignation. "The circumstances being that I'm your accidental guest, and you don't want me to get the wrong idea about why you're helping my mother."
The bluntness of her words hits me like a slap. "That's not?—"
"Isn't it?" She presses her hands flat against her thighs. "You're afraid I'll think you expect sexual favors in exchange for your protection, despite the fact that you already said no to thatoffer once. That I'll feel obligated to… reciprocate your kindness, even if I’m not doing it for that reason.”
My jaw tightens. She’s picked up on what I’m thinking too easily, and I’m not sure I like that. But she’s smart. I knew that from the start; it’s one of the things I like about her. "Leila?—"
"Well, you don't have to worry about that." Her chin lifts in a gesture of defiance that I'm starting to recognize. "I may be naive about a lot of things, but I'm not stupid. I know the difference between the wordsnoandyes. And I might actually trust you to mean what you say if you told me that what there is between us has nothing to do with anything else. If you’d stop acting like such an ass."
I blink, startled, as she stands abruptly and pushes past me, leaving the room as her footsteps echo down the hallway. I stand there for several minutes, breathing in the lingering scent of her perfume—another thing she asked for from home, a clean scent that smells like sage and salt—and trying to convince myself I've done the right thing.
