nothing except regret and broken words I wanted to shower over him like I’d poured my shattered soul into my songs. The very songs that’d been responsible for every dollar, decision, and heartache that’d brought me here to this very moment—standing before the man I didn’t deserve to see again.
Lord help me, I shouldn’t have been taking in every inch of his reserved dominance, but I was.
I wanted to apologize for it, apologize for what walking onto this plane meant, and tell him I was sorry for everything right before I asked him if he still thought of me, but I didn’t. I said none of the words I’d been aching to say for ten years, because I’d already sung them to millions of fans.
Instead, I stood proud. Then I said what was both the biggest lie and single greatest truth of my life. “It’s good to see you, Ronan.”
“Right.” Vance grinned, taking my arm as if I was his. “Let’s have a seat, love, and we can all have a catch-up.”
When a man holds you in his arms under the stars and looks into your eyes and says the very words every girl dreams of, something in your soul breaks apart. Pieces irrevocably fall away from your grasp and become his. But in the same breath, those fragments of his soul break away from him and become yours as surely as your own name.
Even though the decade between us was now an insurmountable lifetime, my connection to Ronan Conlon was as unbreakable then as it was now, and that’s how I saw it.
When his brother called me love, my Ronan, the one who’d held me under the stars, he reacted.
No one on this plane would see it, but I did.
His nostrils moved slightly with an inhale when they normally didn’t, and his beautiful eyes shut down. Then the frown creasing his eyebrows narrowed infinitesimally.
“Now that we’re all here, let’s talk.” Adam Trefor, the man I’d called in desperation three months ago, unaware that Vance worked for him, motioned for Vance, Ronan and the newcomer to take seats as the pilot brought the stairs back up and closed us all in before returning to the cockpit.
Vance’s hand moved to my lower back. “After you, darling.”
Masking my repulsion at his gentle touch, at any man’s touch, I moved to the farthest seat. Vance and his expensive cologne sat next to me, but Ronan took a seat toward the front of the plane. Adam sat in the middle, and the newcomer, a handsome dark-haired man that Adam had introduced to Zane as André Luna, remained standing as he assessed everyone on the plane.
“All right.” Vance clasped his hands as he rested them on his knees. “Per Miss Narine’s request, this conversation stays between the four of us, yes?”
Mr. Luna glanced at Adam, then addressed me. “With all due respect, Miss Narine, if Luna and Associates is being brought in as personal protection for you, I cannot guarantee the services of my company, nor promise successful execution while operating at a deficit. As I’m sure Mr. Trefor and Mr. Conlon informed you, a person with your level of fame and visibility needs a security team that encompasses more than four men on a grounded plane.”
“He did.” Adam had told me almost the exact same thing three months ago when I’d told him I didn’t want anyone else brought in on this. Then he’d said he already had someone in London and he sent the last person I’d been expecting. “With all due respect to your expertise and experience, I am only sitting here because Vance caught something none of my eighteen-man security team had.” I paused. “Twice.”
His shrewd gaze shifted with comprehension, and Mr. Luna nodded. “Understood. Continue, please.”
My hands steady in my lap, my posture straight, I forced my breathing to slow. “I’ve been threatened.”
Vance let out a sound of disgust. “It’s more than a threat. First it was one of the tour buses, then a hotel room, but the last one was in the stadium, under the stage.” Leaning back, he eyed his brother and André Luna. “Three bombs, ramping up in sophistication, all came with a written warning that got past security.” His gaze settled on his brother. “I need an explosives expert.”
When Vance had said he knew an explosives expert in the States, I never imagined it to be Ronan. And when he’d told me it was his brother, I’d refused to involve him. But then a second and