“That was necessary.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Necessary?”
I allowed myself a faint smile.
“She needed to understand something.”
“And what was that?”
I turned away from the city, looking back toward the dark windows of the estate.
Somewhere inside those walls she was pacing, thinking, fighting herself just as fiercely as she fought me.
“That she belongs here,” I said.
Ronan studied me carefully.
“And if she refuses?”
The question lingered between us, but the answer had never been uncertain.
“She will not.”
Because sooner or later, Sera would realize something inevitable.
No matter how much she resisted.
No matter how fiercely she hated me.
Our fates had already collided and there was no path forward that did not bind us together.
CHAPTER 31
Seraphina
I did not sleep that night.
The rain had stopped, but the storm inside me raged on. Memories of my father, of Lucien, of the argument and the kiss, twisted together, leaving me dizzy and breathless. I felt the weight of everything I had lost and everything I had not yet understood pressing down on me.
I wandered through the estate, hands trailing along the walls, tracing the cold stone and polished wood, grounding myself in the familiar textures. I passed the office where he had stood, staring at the city below, imagining me in his grasp, imagining the way he controlled everything around him, the fire in his hands, the obsession in his eyes.
I hated him for what he had done to my father. I feared him for what he could do to me, but I couldn’t deny the pull I felt, the undeniable magnetic draw of him.
I turned around and stopped before his office door, hand trembling on the handle. I wanted to confront him again, to scream, to argue, to test the fire between us but something, the memory of Ronan entering, the tension still lingering, stopped me.
I retreated into my room, closing the door behind me but even there, alone, I felt him. His presence, his obsession, his fire, and I realized something that I could not speak aloud, I was already burning.
Sleep never came.
I was awake for hours staring at the ceiling, watching the faint glow of dawn slowly creep through the tall windows.
My mind refused to rest.
Every time I closed my eyes I saw Lucien standing in that office again. The calm authority in his posture. The way his voice never wavered even when I shouted at him.
The way he had looked at me before he kissed me.
