“Still, if I hadn’t?—”
Ronan approached her and pulled her into his arms. “All you did was ask to see the forest around the castle. It’s something other guests have requested numerous times when they come here for the first time. It wasn’t your fault. I blamed you for years, but I can’t any longer.”
She took a shuddering breath, her body shivering against his. “You’re not the only one with scars from that day,” she admitted. “The only difference is that mine aren’t visible.”
He stiffened, his arms tightening around her. “What do you mean?”
She looked up at him, preparing to tell him the truth. To let him even deeper beneath her guard. It would be just as big of a mistake as sleeping with him, but he’d made himself vulnerable with her. She knew how difficult that was for a man like Ronan to lower his shields.
Before she could speak, her sisters lost what little patience they had and began banging on the door.
“We’ll talk about this later,” she said.
He opened his mouth as though he wanted to argue, but her mother’s voice rang out, as her knuckles cracked against the door. “Dominique Jeanne Proxa, open the door this instant. We need to talk.”
Ronan glared at the door and magic sparked in his irises. Shadows seeped from his skin, twisting and writhing down his arms and hands. He looked back at her and Dominique could see that he didn’t want to agree, but he finally relented.
He released her. “Do not leave this room without me. I’m going to shower, and I’ll be back in a half hour.”
“I won’t leave without you.”
“And let me handle your mother and sisters right now.”
Dominique watched as he strode over to the door, opening it halfway and planting himself between the edge of the door and the frame. “Cease your noise.” While he wasn’t yelling any longer, his voice was still loud enough to drown them all out.
“Dominique is getting ready for breakfast. She will meet you in the dining room in an hour.”
Her mother sputtered for a moment, but Ronan didn’t give her a chance to find her words. “You will go to the dining roomto wait, or I will have you escorted off the grounds. Have I made myself clear?”
After a long pause, Dominique heard her mother’s voice. “Yes, Your Highness.”
Ronan didn’t wait for her sisters’ agreement. He shut the door with a bang and locked it again.
“I’ve changed my mind,” he said, stalking back toward her. “We’ll shower together in here.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t trust your mother or sisters not to barge in here despite the fact that I issued a directive. And I’m not giving them a chance to snoop in your room.”
Dominique wanted to roll her eyes at his show of high-handedness, but she also appreciated that his first action upon her family’s arrival was to shield her. Just like he promised he would.
She followed him into her adjoining bathroom, wondering how long he would try to act as her protector. While no one had ever bothered before, she doubted he would last long.
Not against the steamroller that was her family.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Anger still simmeredin Ronan’s blood as he entered the breakfast room, Dominique’s hand curved around the inside of his elbow. Both of their parents and siblings were already seated at the table. Aisling wore her “company” expression, something Ronan was accustomed to. Whenever his parents had visitors, he and his sister had to don masks. They had to behave as if nothing affected them.
Ronan could see that his sister was studying the Proxa women and Jurgen Mueller, looking for weaknesses and assessing their strengths. But his mother…she wore a triumphant smirk as she gazed at Dominique.
He had no doubt she orchestrated this just to fuck with Dominique, and that knowledge pissed him off all the more. He needed to make it clear that her behavior wouldn’t be tolerated. As much as he would have loved to make a show of it in front of Dominique’s family, what he had to do was better handled privately. Between his mother and him.
When Bronwyn saw the way he stared at her, she blanched, her eyes dropping to her plate. His father merely looked bored. Ronan doubted his father knew what his mother planned,though he likely wasn’t surprised. After over sixty years together, Caden knew his wife well. Probably too well.
Dominique shifted next to him, and he felt the fine tension fill her frame. Ronan glanced over at her in time to see the aloof expression slide over her face like a veil. She was erecting her internal fortress to protect herself from the very people who should have loved and cherished her.
It all pissed him off even more than he already was. The Proxa women, his mother, and the indifference of his father—they all infuriated him.
