Page 120 of Lady and the Hitman

I blinked. “Okay …”

“You wrote about exposure. About how sunlightdisinfects. About how women can’t be safe in the shadows.”

Oh, God.

“I read every word,” he added. “Except for the part where you practiced what you preached.”

I flinched.

“You’re not just hiding me,” he said, voice harder now. “You’re hiding yourself. From me. From what this is.”

I heard someone stand nearby. I didn’t look.

“I didn’t come here to argue,” he said. “I came here to remind you that I’m real. That this is real. And that the woman who wrote this”—he tapped the headline—“is not the kind of woman who hides behind what-ifs.”

My whole body was vibrating.

“I’ll be at The Tasting Room on East Bay,” he said. “One drink. One hour. If you don’t show, I’ll leave you alone.”

He paused.

And then he turned and walked away, like a storm that had passed through.

I stood frozen in the middle of the coworking space, every nerve ending buzzing like I’d been struck. I could feel eyes on me—maybe real, maybe imagined—but it didn’t matter. The heat that rushed to my neck didn’t wait for confirmation. It just bloomed there, hot and bright and humiliating.

Who saw? Who heard? Who was already sliding into Slack or text or group chat to dissect the way I stood there, silenced and burning?

My fingers tightened around the edge of the table. I should’ve called after him. I should’ve said something—anything—that didn’t make me look like I was fallingapart in front of a bunch of strangers with ergonomic chairs and noise-canceling headphones.

But I didn’t.

Because all I could think about was what he’d said.

And God, I wanted him in every way a woman could want a man—wanted his hands, his mouth, his darkness, his devotion—but I was still keeping him in the shadows. Still pretending I could compartmentalize this into something safe. Something that wouldn’t bleed into my real life.

But it already had. He already had.

And if the whole thing blew up in my face—if someone at work caught wind, if readers stopped trusting me, if the wrong person asked too many questions about who I’d been flying off with and why I looked so ruined when I came back?—

What then?

What would I do if the career I’d spent my entire adult life building crumbled beneath me?

What was I, without the byline?

Without the platform?

Without the credibility that kept people listening?

I didn’t know.

And that terrified me more than Ronan ever could.

Because being with him made me feel more alive than anything else in my life—and more vulnerable than I’d ever allowed myself to be. And if it all came crashing down?

I might deserve it.

I might not care.