Climbing under the thick cream comforter, I lie in bed and stare at the ceiling, my heartbeat still pounding in my ears.
My relationship with Stephen barely even constitutes a friendship, so what the hell is Ronan going to be like if I have a real friend who is male? I suppose my only friend of that nature is Max, and he’s dead. But even when he was alive, Ronan threw a fit about me meeting up with Max too.
So, is that it? I’m only allowed friends who don’t pose a potential threat to my husband's ego?
“Urgh!” I bury myself under the covers.
Ronan says he trusts me, but his actions continue to tell me otherwise. He trusts me in theory but not in practice.
He can’t stand it when another man is in the same room as me or when I’m not within his reach. And after tonight, apparently, not even when I’m laughing with someone who isn’t him.
I want to believe this is just stress. That the weight of the war outside is bleeding into the home he’s trying so hard to protect. But deep down, I know better.
This isn’t about the war. It’s about Ronan’s possessiveness masquerading as protection, and I am terrified of what he’s going to be like when he learns he’s going to be a father.
Chapter Twenty-One
RONAN
Fuck.
I’m sure the whole damn house can feel my rage.
I press my palms flat on the desk and lean forward, breathing hard.
My knuckles are still red from punching Stephen, and I know they’ll be bruised by morning.
I want to feel good about what I did. I want that hit to have satisfied something in me. But instead, all it’s done is make me feel like a fucking idiot.
Ciara’s face flashes through my mind, and I can’t stop picturing the hurt in her eyes, as well as the fury as I threw Stephen out of the house like a disgraced dog. She has every right to be furious with me, but not because I don’t trust her.
Hell, my anger isn’t even because I don’t trust Stephen.
It’s me I don’t trust.
Just the thought of someone so much as looking at Ciara the wrong way lights a fire in my chest that I can’t seem to control. But that doesn’t excuse what I did.
I’m meant to be setting an example for my brothers and my men, and so far, I’m not doing a very good job. I mean, just a few hours ago, I put my hands on Kieran because he daredto question me, and now I clocked Stephen just for sharing the couch with Ciara?
What the hell is wrong with me?
What if I snap at her next?
The thought sends a cold shiver down my spine.
I sink into the leather chair behind my desk and drop my head back, staring up at the ceiling, thinking of Ciara. The way she looked at me… Fuck, it was like she didn’t recognize who I was, and that hurts a hell of a lot more than my bruised knuckles.
I need to get a grip on myself,especiallywhen it comes to Stephen.
There’s a reason I chose him to be Ciara’s personal bodyguard, and it’s not just because he’s had the most military training. It’s because I’ve known the guy for years, and I trust him more than anyone outside my brothers, which says a lot. But it seems those facts lose all their weight the second I see him with my wife.
I run a hand over my face as I exhale slowly. I feel like I’m being pulled in a thousand directions, and this war with Declan is only escalating.
Someone is leaking information from inside my circle, and the empire my father has spent years building is being chipped away piece by piece.
I’m barely holding on, and it’s in moments like this where I truly miss my father’s presence. Though he likely would have scolded me over my mistakes rather than comforted me with words of wisdom, just having someone who has truly stood in my shoes would make me feel less… alone.
But I don’t need to ask him what to do. Iknowwhat I need to do.
