Page 29 of Once Upon a Dream
The flare of a cigarette, the sound of a stranger’s voice, and the handsome Irishman in the shadows--I wanted it
all, but I wasn’t allowed to want. Ronan was danger and beauty, murder and mercy. To me, he was a mystery, but he was also the only man who ever knew me.
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I couldn’t see the man in the shadows. It was nothing but dark out here, and then there was the red flare of a cigarette to my left, and I stepped back. Embarrassed and shaking, I tripped over my shoes. “I didn’t think anyone was here. I’ll go—”
“Don’t,” he said.
“Don’t…what?”
“Don’t leave.” Just that. And I was getting bossed around plenty in the house behind me, but no one managed to do it so plainly. It was all dressed up in manners. I was wrapped in chains of politeness. I didn’t know what it said about my mental health, but I liked the fact that he didn’t ask. And he wasn’t polite.
This whole situation was fucking me up.
He didn’t step forward to introduce himself, and I stepped away from him keeping my name to myself, too.
“You were just about to do the fifty-yard dash in a ball gown,” he said.
“Not…really.”
“Then you weren’t about to scream, neither.”
“No.” The lie came easy. So quick. Second nature now.
“Bullshit.”
“You know, you could leave. Give me some privacy.”
His low laugh rippled out from the shadows, putting goosebumps up and down my arms. “Could I?”
“It would be polite.”
“I’m not much for polite,” he said and took another drag of his cigarette. “I like screaming better than running, though. Gets the blood up.”
“The blood up?” That sounded very Braveheart. Truthfully, I liked it.
“For fightin’ and the like.”
“I’m not much for fighting,” I said, and it was so true, so funny and true and awful all at the same time I had to put a hand over my mouth so a weird laugh/scream thing wouldn’t come tearing out of me. And my chance to run was years behind me.
He made some speculative sound in his throat. Which could be agreement or disagreement or some kind of mix of the two, and it hardly mattered. He hardly mattered. This moment on the patio hardly mattered.
It was why I was still standing there.
Everything inside, every word I said, every drink I had, every person who looked twice at me – all that mattered. It got rung up someplace and added to the price I had to pay.
And I just needed a minute.
“You all right?” He asked.
Terrified.
“You working the party?” I asked, changing the subject. It was always easier to talk about other people.
