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She felt so fucking perfect. Like she was made exactly for me.

I only wanted to protect her. Why couldn’t she understand that? Why couldn’t she realize that she was my everything now? I would never forgive myself if anything happened to her and our baby. Why couldn’t she understand that simple fact?

Her knees slid forward as she cried out in pleasure, her hands scrambling for purchase on the headboard. “Oh fuck! Ronnie―”

“Don’t run from me, Sofia.” I shook my head, tugging her closer, staring at the sweaty arch of her spine. “Hate me all you fucking want, but you’ll take everything I give you.”

She was reacting to every move, and though the anger was still on her face, she couldn’t deny the pleasure she felt. Finally, I turned her over and pinned her shoulders into the bed. Then I dug even deeper than I had before.

“Oh God,” she moaned, limp against me as one of my hands wrapped around her chest, squeezing the soft mounds of her tits and rolling her nipples between my fingers. “I’m so close. God, I’m gonna—”

But she couldn’t finish because I sank my thumb into her mouth, forcing her to suck as I tilted her head back.

Her walls squeezed around me, and I pulled out just to deliver another sharp thrust, but she was already shattering, convulsing as she came, her orgasm shaking against my body. And she was loud. Louder than she’d ever been before.

For those few moments, there was no past to explain and no future to fear. There was only the unbearable attraction that had survived everything we’d done to destroy it.

“Fuck,” I growled as I stilled, emptying inside her with my head buried in her neck. We panted harshly for a moment, struggling to catch our breaths. Then it hit her. Suddenly, she came back to her senses and punched me on the shoulder, urging me to get off her.

I resisted for a moment, needing to bask in her warmth. But she pushed me again, her anger rising by the minute. We’d both lost control, our desire for each other overriding our resentment. Sofia looked at me, and I could see regret beginning to replace the anger in her eyes. I knew then that whatever had just happened between us hadn’t solved anything. It had only made this situation more complicated.

I could see her trying to understand why she’d allowed herself to forget, even briefly, everything that stood between us. She stepped back.

“This was a mistake.”

I said nothing. She looked at me as though she expected me to argue, but there was nothing I could say that would change what had just happened. We’d both known exactly what we were doing, and neither of us could pretend that the past had disappeared simply because desire had temporarily overwhelmed it. Sofia turned toward the door.

“Wait.”

She stopped, but didn’t look back. I wanted to tell her that I regretted nothing. I wanted to tell her that I’d wanted her from the moment I first realized how much she affected me, and that no amount of hatred between us had managed to change that.

Instead, I remained silent. She walked out of the room and closed the door behind her. I stayed where I was, staring at the empty doorway. I’d known desire before Sofia. I’d also known what it meant to want someone and then walk away without thinking about them again.

Desire had always been simple for me. It was something I could control, something I could separate from the rest of my life. But Sofia had destroyed that simplicity.

Wanting her was no longer separate from caring about her. Her anger affected me. Her rejection affected me. Even her hatred had begun to matter more than it should.

She was my wife. She was carrying my child. And despite everything that had happened between us, she was still the woman whose opinion of me could reach places no enemy had ever touched. That frightened me more than I wanted to admit.

I’d watched people I cared about become targets, and I’d learned to survive by keeping everyone at a distance. Sofia had slipped through every barrier I’d built.

I could control the syndicate. I could control my enemies. I could control almost every situation I entered. But I couldn’t control what I felt for her. Fuck, this was more complicated than I’d thought it would be.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Sofia

Pregnancy made the penthouse feel smaller. The nausea left me exhausted and the constant security reminded me that I still wasn’t free to move through my own life.

Ronan called it protection, but I felt watched every time I moved. What made it worse was that I still found myself attracted to him despite everything I knew.

I hated that part of myself because every moment of weakness reminded me of the man I’d loved before discovering who he really was.

One night, I finally decided that I could no longer live with unanswered questions. I found Ronan in his office and stood across from his desk.

“I want the complete truth about the fire,” I said. “I don’t want another explanation designed to make the past easier for me to accept. I want to know exactly what happened, why my family was targeted, and what you did that night.”

Ronan studied me for several seconds before standing. He walked toward the window and remained there, with his back to me.