MILA I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN IT wouldn’t be so easy to get rid of Ronan. He might not be in the hospital room with me physically, but his presence was everywhere. After the doctors examined me, I often thought they rushed out of the room, phones to their ears, to update himon my condition. Only D’yavol would receive that sort of hasty, nervous response. The first conscious day in the hospital, a boy delivered a mini fridge full of vegan meals, a bag of dog food, and a note. Eat. —Ronan I would have rolled my eyes at the demand a couple of weeks ago, but this time, it brought a smile to my lips and a throb to my heart. Ronan had pulled some strings threatened someone to allow Khaos to stay with me, and I knew it because a dog’s portrait in the universal red no-entry sign decorated the wall outside my room. The gesture filled me with relief, because I didn’t think I could handle being alone with my thoughts right now. Khaos was the

MILAEIGHT HOURS LATER, I GLANCED out the window of the private jet. “Ronan . . . did Moscow get an Eiffel Tower of its own recently?” “I would never allow that kind of romantic tourismin my city.” “Huh,” I mused. “So why amI seeing the Eiffel Tower right now?” “We’re in Paris,” he said indifferently. And that had been his attitude the entire flight: indifferent. He and those stupid “Delicious!” sounds coming from his phone were driving me crazy. Albert wasn’t any better company. He was flipping through a Cosmo in the row of seats at the front of the plane. I hadn’t seen Ronan in four months. I’d been burning up for eight hours waiting for him to touch me, kiss me, and drag me to the convenient bed in the back. But he hadn’t done any of that. When I got tired of waiting, I’d straddled his lap, ran my lips down his neck, and cupped his erection as it grew harder beneath my hand. I thought I was finally going to get what I wanted, but then he shoved me off