Page 49 of Cruel Kiss

Ronan keeps talking, gesturing like the good lawyer he is. "You are, in her mind, the single most dangerous witness she could ever get. You know how all this shit works now. You know what to look for. You could sit in that interrogation room chair and walk her through every dollar, the same way you walked a roomfull of bankers through Todd's infidelity." He bends forward to thrust his face into mine. "But the one thing she cannot do, no matter how many threats she hurls our way, is make mywifedo that."

"You want to marry me to make me useless to her. Gee, and here I thought you weren't a romantic at heart."

He shakes his head. "The privilege protects you, too, Calista. Right now, you're a loose end for both sides. Lev wants you. Mercer wants you. The marriage doesn't fix everything, but it takes one bad outcome off the table. It's the strongest wall I can build between you and a courtroom witness stand or a cell in a dark, concrete warehouse with a drain in the floor to drink up all your blood."

I stand back up. I can't sit anymore, I can't stand, I can't pace, I can't scream. Nothing feels right or comforting. All I can do is stumble around and hug myself to keep all the inside bits from exploding outward.

"This is exactly what you always do," I whisper. "You're just too fucking good at it. You find a real reason, agoodreason, asmartreason, and you make it seem like the only thing that makes any sense at all. The mirrors were for my own good. The trackers were, too. The babysitter, the company theft—and now, church bells and handfuls of rice, hooray, that's good for me, too."

I don't know if it's my anger or my tears that move him, but I can tell by the clenching in his jaw that he's not as emotionless as he is trying to pretend to be. "That's not the same, Cali."

"Of course it is! How is it not? It's been the sameevery single time,Ronan. We're caught in this awful spiral. But I want off the ride, please."

"The company," he gnashes, "I stole from you. I won't pretend otherwise. The mirrors, I took without asking. The trackers, I hid. Those were mine to be ashamed of, and I am." He comes over to force me to stop meandering around the kitchen. "But this isn't me doing something to you in the dark. You can say no. Sayfuck no,even, if that's what you choose. If you want, you can decide to take Mercer's deal and I'll drive you to her office myself in the morning. I don't think you should, but you can. So that's why I'm asking. Not telling—asking.I refuse to be the villain you want me to be."

I rip away from him and look out the dark window over the sink. My own reflection looks back at me, faint and blurred, a woman standing in a kitchen with her arms crossed, deciding something huge.

I meant what I said when I told him he's good at this. Ronan is the smartest man I've ever met. And this plan has true benefits.

If Mercer no longer sees me as useful, maybe she'll direct her attention elsewhere. Besides, who knows if I can even trust all her promises about protection and forgiveness?

Marrying Ronan Akov would be, without exaggeration, the second-stupidest thing I have ever done. The first being trusting him in the first place.

But when you lay all the pieces out and look at them… what choice do I really have?

I know what I'm going to say before I even turn around to look at him again. Before I do, though, I take a moment to remind myself of the one hard line in the sand that matters most of all:

This is not about love.

There is no romance here, and it's not a "proposal" in the sense that every little girl dreams of one day being proposed to. This is business, nothing more.

It has to be, and more importantly, that treacherous little organ in my chest needs to be told firmly, again and again until it gets the message, that it has real shitty judgment and cannot be allowed to drive the ship anymore.

Yeah, maybe I've had spare moments of indulging it. Of allowing myself to picture how it would look and feel and smell and taste for Ronan Akov to sink to a knee and ask me to be his.

He's not doing that, though. There's no candlelit love in the air.

There's just the things that must be done.

I turn back around.

"Okay," I say. "I'll do it."

He sags in relief. "That's the right choice,kot?—"

"But I'm doing it on my terms," I interrupt with a finger in the air. "And I have several of them."

He hesitates, then nods. "Let's hear it."

"One," I say. "It's paper. That's it. A paper marriage. We sign a piece of paper at a courthouse, we do whatever legal nonsense makes the privilege real, and that's where it ends. No honeymoon. I don't ever want to hear the words 'my wife' pass your lips unless you have adamngood reason for doing so. This is like the power of attorney bullshit, except this time, I know exactly what it's for going in."

"Fine."

"Two. The rules we already have will remain in place. That means you keep your hands to yourself. Even if I…" But my face gets hot, and I can't finish.

"Not even if you beg me," he finishes in a growl.

"Right," I say. "That."