Page 93 of Cruel Lies

"A while."

"That's not creepy at all."

"You slept better when I was in the room," he explains. "You'd start to stir, and I'd say something, and you'd settle again." He shrugs one shoulder. "So I stayed."

I look down at myself. At the dress, still on.

I look back at him. At the suit, still on.

I… don't understand.

I really, truly do remember asking him upstairs. He carried me! Picked me up like a newlywed bride in his arms and carried me over the front door. I was thinking, in some far-off part of my brain, that this was it, we were hurtling toward the finish line that had always been our destiny.

But after that, it's just a blank space. Black-out nothingness, until I woke up still zipped into my dress with my earrings digging into my scalp.

"Wha… what happened?" I mumble.

"Nothing," Ronan says. "Nothing happened."

That can't be right. "Nothing?" I repeat.

He sighs and looks at me. "You were drunk," he says. "And crying, at the end there, though I'm sure you'll deny it to your grave. You cried the whole way up the stairs." He uncrosses his ankle and leans forward, elbows on his knees. "I don't take what isn't given sober, Calista."

I'm dumbfounded. "So we didn't… we didn't…?

Ronan points at the end of the bed. "I took your shoes off. That's the extent of what I took."

I look down at my feet. They're bare. My heels are lined up neat by the door to the walk-in closet.

I feel like I'm going crazy. I don't know what to do with any of this. Old Cali would be embarrassed right now. Mortified. Old Cali would want to crawl under the covers and never come out.

But that's not exactly how I feel.

I mean, yes, I do, in part, because what woman wouldn't be ashamed by making a fool out of herself in that kind of situation? But it's not the whole story.

Because the rest of me feels unbelievably touched.

I mean, what man wouldn't take advantage of a woman making a fool out of herself in that situation? Ronan had a desperate, drunk woman in his literal arms, begging him to come upstairs in her child-free house and ravish her—and he chose tospend the night in a chair instead?

Hehadmy yes. Consent was given. Consent was pretty much slapping him in the face, let's be honest.

But he didn't.

He didn't take.

All he did wasstay.

"That's a really horrible place to sleep," I say, too stunned to communicate even half of what's on my mind right now.

He shrugs and pats the arm. "It's a good chair."

"It is definitionallynota good chair. Nobody has ever sat in that chair on purpose."

"Then I'm the first," he says. "Someone should. It told me it's very lonely over here."

My head hurts too much to properly laugh, but the intention is there.

He stands up and rolls his shoulders once. I hear something in his back pop, and I think,Good, serves you right for sleeping in that chair instead of putting me through the mattress.Then I immediately feel guilty and flushed and confused all over.