But as she stood in front of him in her wrinkled dress, her hair tangled from his hands, her mouth swollen from his kisses, she was… God, she was stunning. Just looking at her made him ache. And now that he knew how she felt in his arms? Now that he knew her taste? Now that he’d heard her sounds of pleasure?
No. He couldn’t let himself spin out on any of that. What he needed to do was keep his mouth and hands to himself from here on out, and then go confess everything to her brothers.
Pain speared him right in the center of his chest from the sure knowledge that tonight was going to be the last night he ever spent with her.
Ever since he’d become an adult, Roman had always done what needed to be done, no matter how difficult. But nothing in his life had ever felt as hard as saying, “I need to take you back to your house and confirm that your father can stay with you. And then I’m going to find your brothers.”
She shook her head, hard enough that her long hair moved as if in a wild breeze over her shoulders. “Don’t.”
“I have to.”
“They’ll insist you quit.”
The twisting in his gut tightened down. “They will.”
“And you’ll go, won’t you? You’ll just walk out of my life as fast as you walked in. Here one day, gone the next, as if nothing that happened between us mattered at all.”
“Suzanne.” He couldn’t hold back the emotion in his voice. Could barely keep himself from reaching for her as he said, “It mattered. You matter.”
Renewed hope flashed in her eyes. “Then you’ll stay.”
Lord, how he wished he could. “We both know that’s a bad idea.”
“You want to hear about bad ideas? The clothes I’ve been wearing, the skin-tight dresses and heels? They aren’t me. But I had a plan the first couple of days to try to seduce”—she put the word in air quotes—“you into kissing me so that you’d have to resign.”
Before he could say anything in response to her admission—one that finally had everyone’s reactions to her outfits making perfect sense—she said, “I know, it was stupid. And wearing heels this high and pointy all day sucks, by the way, although the dresses aren’t so bad. But I was so frustrated by the way my brothers had forced a bodyguard on me, and by how stubborn you were about taking the job, that I couldn’t see any other way out of it. Only, now that you’ve kissed me, I don’t want out of it anymore. Even before you kissed me, I didn’t want you to leave. And I don’t think you do either, no matter how many times you’ve tried to act like you do whenever we start getting close.”
“Suzanne—”
But she wouldn’t let him get a word in. “Don’t you see, we don’t know if we’re a good idea or a bad one yet. And if we do things your way, if we do things my brothers’ way, and you resign tonight just because we kissed, we’re never going to have a chance to find out. I’ve spent nearly my entire life writing code, and you know what I’ve learned a million times over? That if I give up every time something doesn’t work, it will never work. I’ve always fought like hell for the things that matter most.” Her eyes flashed in the moonlight. “For the people who matter most.”
The words had barely left her lips when she spun around and went flying through the forest in her dress and heels, back in the direction of the wedding reception.
CHAPTER TWENTY
With everything Suzanne had said spinning around inside his brain—inside his heart—Roman was slower than usual as he pursued her through the trees.
“Where are you going?” He knew, of course, but maybe a miracle would happen and she’d give him a different answer than the one he was expecting.
“To talk with my brothers before you do.” She whipped him a warning look over her shoulder. “And don’t try to stop me. This is my life, not theirs, and it’s long past time the three of them understood that.”
Roman saw where she was coming from, and he couldn’t say he didn’t agree. At the same time, Suzanne’s standing up for herself with her family didn’t change what he had to do. She needed another bodyguard, someone one hundred percent professional who wouldn’t constantly be distracted by attraction and jealousy. Someone who would do his job, rather than spend all his time trying to learn the inner workings of her heart.
She knew exactly where to find her brothers—two of them, at least. Alec and Harry were sitting on the end of a boat dock halfway between the Inn downtown and their father’s home, beers in hand. Roman could easily imagine the four Sullivan siblings together on this dock over the years.