with me the one time hadn't been enough. I wanted to believe that was the case here, but deep in my heart I knew it didn't matter.
Because the reality was that I'd brought this moment upon myself. When Matias had confessed he didn't want a relationship, I hadn't had the strength to admit that I did. I hadn't even been willing to admit it to myself.
Just like I hadn't been willing to admit that I was well on my way to losing my heart for the second—and what I knew without a doubt would be the last—time in my life.
Chapter 17
Matias
I could easily say that few people ever got the jump on me. Ronan Grisham was one of those few people.
I was usually much better about noticing my surroundings, but needless to say, my thoughts were entirely focused on the occupants inside the house rather than outside of it. The fact that my boss was lurking in the very shadows I'd often lingered in myself as I'd watch Sam from afar was surreal, to say the least. By the time I had my gun drawn, Ronan was already stepping into the light. If he'd been an assailant, I would've already been dead and Sam and Ryan would've been left completely vulnerable.
"I suppose you want me to apologize," I murmured as I returned the gun to my waistband.
"What is it exactly that you would be apologizing for?" Ronan asked. "Leaving without telling anyone where you were going? Staying gone for two weeks without so much as even a text telling your brother you were still alive?"
Ronan glanced at the house. "Worrying him sick?"
I'd expected Ronan to bring up the first two points, but the reference to Sam caught me off guard. My immediate concern had me giving away more secrets than I'd intended because at Ronan's words, I instantly stepped forward, grabbed the man and barked, "What happened? Is he okay? Did something happen to Ryan?"
To his credit, Ronan didn't react either to the hold I had on his arm or my barrage of questions. But all that did was scare me even more. I dropped my hand and quickly hurried toward the house. "They aren't home," Ronan said.
"Where are they?" I asked as I turned back to face him.
"So is that how your relationship with him works?" Ronan drawled as he moved farther into the backyard. I felt this strange sense of possessiveness come over me when he leaned some of his weight against the side of Sam's little garden shed. "You get to know where he is every second of every day, but you're allowed to come and go without so much as a by your leave."
I wasn't as surprised as I probably should have been that he knew about my relationship with Sam but that was because I was too busy trying to control my anger. It wasn't so much the fact that Ronan was my boss, because truth be told, the job, while important to me, wasn't the be-all and end-all of my life. No, it was the fact that he was pointing out something that I was already feeling pretty shitty about. I'd tried to justify my silence in the past two weeks by arguing that communication with Sam or Cruz would've put them in danger as I’d pursued the lead I'd gotten on Bishop, but I was tired of lying to myself. I'd fucked up. Plain and simple. I didn't need Ronan to dump his disappointment on top of all that shit.
"Does Cruz know?" I asked.
"That you’re back or that you're sleeping with the man who will likely be his father-in-law someday?"
I automatically fisted my hands but when I shifted my eyes to the picnic table where Sam and I had talked for the first time… really talked, I felt some of the tension in my chest ease and I drew in a deep breath. I could still hear him whispering in my ear.
You don't need this, Matias.
He let me take my anger and fear and frustrations out on him that day in the form of sex, but he’d done so much more too.
"Maybe I'm just taking a move out of the Ronan Grisham playbook. How is it that you ended up marrying your dead fiancé's little brother again?" I asked. I instantly felt like an asshole as soon as the words left my lips. I didn’t know much about Ronan’s relationship with Seth, but I knew Ronan’s young husband was his entire world.
There was