Page 62 of Yours

I groaned, scrubbing my hands over my face. A week ago, I’d been a normal girl—well, mostly normal—who’d picked the wrong fight in the wrong club. Now I was standing in the middle of a man’s penthouse, wondering if I could be his woman for good.

“Get a grip, Kiera,” I muttered under my breath.

I stood and paced, desperate for something—anything—to do. My phone sat on the counter, and suddenly, I knew exactly who I needed to call.

Leena.

She’d know what to say, what to do. Hell, she was the reason I was tangled up with Ronan in the first place. But when I grabbed my phone and scrolled through my contacts, I remembered that Leena hadn’t brought her regular phone with her, at least not this weekend.

This was the weekend she went away.

Oh, fuck. Where was that number?

For a moment, I panicked, but then I saw my blue leather bag sitting on the counter waiting for me. In a rush, I started digging through my purse like a madwoman, praying I hadn’t thrown it out.

“Come on, come on…” I muttered, until finally, I found it—a crumpled piece of paper with Leena’s handwriting scrawled across it.

I grabbed my phone and punched in the number, holding my breath as the line rang. Once. Twice.

“Hello?” Leena’s voice came through, muffled but unmistakable.

“Leena, it’s me,” I said, relief flooding me at the sound of her voice.

“Kiera?” she said, sounding surprised. “How’d you—oh, right. I gave you this number.”

“Yeah, you did. Where are you right now?”

Leena let out a soft laugh. “Like I told you—I’m glamping. We’re at a lodge in the middle of nowhere, Kiera. It’s great. You should try it sometime.”

“This isn’t funny, Leena,” I snapped, gripping the phone tighter. “Something big happened. You need to come home. Now.”

The line went quiet for a beat. “What do you mean? What happened?”

I glanced around the penthouse as though Ronan might appear out of thin air, lowering my voice. “It’s all over the news. Lorenzo Benedetti’s dead. There was… there was an explosion. It’s bad, Leena.”

“What?” she breathed, all trace of humor gone from her voice.

“You need to come back to the city,” I said firmly. “You’re not safe out there, not alone. I don’t care how far north you are—if Ronan finds out where you are and that you snuck off, he’s going to lose his mind.”

Leena was quiet for another moment, and when she spoke again, her voice was more serious than I’d ever heard it.

“Okay. I’ll head back. But Kiera—are you okay? You sound… a little off.”

I hesitated. Was I okay? I didn’t even know anymore.

“I’ll be fine,” I said eventually. “Just get back here. Please.”

“Alright. I’ll call you when I’m on my way.”

The line went dead, and I let out a shaky breath. Needing some sense of normalcy, I walked into the master bedroom and then the closet. I found my clothes and got dressed in a pair of leggings and a long sweater. I splashed some water on my face in the master bath before walking back out into the living room.

What the fuck had I gotten myself into?

CHAPTER 23

Ronan

I was halfway down the steps of O’Malley’s when my phone buzzed in my pocket. The vibration cut through the mess in my head like a blade. I reached in and grabbed it, only to see Finn’s name flashing across the screen.

---