Page 7

“Shit! That’s not what I meant.” He stared at me for a long moment, love and warmth emanating from his eyes. Still, all the love in the world couldn’t pacify my roiling emotions.

I felt like such an idiot.

“Get dressed and come to your room,” he said finally. With one last glance in my direction, carefully perusing every inch of my bare skin with his heated eyes, he stepped out of the room and closed the door behind him.

Alone.

I felt nothing but numb. That numbness clambered from the tips of my fingers to my heart, squeezing it in iron claws.

Rejection.

It was an emotion capable of killing you.

Robotically, I dressed in a pair of leggings and a sweater. My hand trembled as I combed through my brown tresses.

I was an idiot. An absolute idiot.

I had stupidly assumed that Ronan felt for me the way I did him, but when had he ever said anything about having feelings for me like that? When had he ever given any indication that he wanted to kiss me?

He watched once, when Ryder ate my pussy, his hand stroking his brown cock. Maybe it was a one time encounter. Maybe he had lost himself in the moment.

Tears burning my eyes, I stepped out of the bathroom and into the connecting bedroom.

The first thing I noticed was that all of my blankets had been removed from my bed. The second thing I noticed was that those same blankets had been haphazardly thrown over chairs and my desk to create a makeshift fort.

My throat closed with emotion, the fort reminiscent of the one I had made for Ronan so many months ago.

The man in question poked his head out, smiling sheepishly up at me.

“In this fort, the outside world doesn’t exist. It’s only me and you. You and me. Us against everything.” Lowering his voice melodramatically, he added, “Enter if you dare.”

This time, the tears that sprang to my eyes were the product of an entirely different emotion.

“You remember,” I whispered, crawling in after him. There was a single candle flickering in the center of the fort, and I momentarily feared Ronan would knock it over and set the house on fire.

“I’m not going to light the house on fire, Princess,” he snorted amusedly.

I blushed. Even after all these months, I still had a tendency to say my thoughts aloud. A way to cope with past trauma, my therapist had told me. An inherent part of myself.

“In this fort, there are no secrets, do you understand?” Ronan asked me, eyes reproachful. I bobbed my head decisively.

No secrets. I could do that.

“Is there something you want to ask me?” I questioned.

“Maybe.” Shrugging, he reached for my hand and tugged me onto his lap. I went willingly. “I just want to know that you’re okay.”

“Truthfully?”

“Always.”

I took a deep, pent-up breath, one that I felt like I’d been holding for years and years. “I’m not okay, Ro. I don’t know if I’ll ever be. It hurts. Constantly. Every little thing is a reminder of what I lost. And I know, Iknow, that they would want me to be happy, but I don’t know how I’m supposed to be. It feels like I’m disrespecting their memory by smiling.”

It was the first time I had voiced my fears out loud.

Ronan kissed my temple. “You have it wrong, Beautiful, but I think you know that. Calax would fucking kick my ass if he knew that I was allowing you to mope. He loved you more than anything, and he would want you to be happy. He would want to see that beautiful smile of yours and know that you are loved and in love. I know it’s hard, but all we want is for you to be happy. Not fine - I don’t think that’s possible after what you’ve been through - but happy. Could you try? For me? For us? For him?”

He didn’t have to clarify for me to know who the “us” and “him” he was referring to was.