His Denial
RONNY’S POV
The scent of toasted bread and scrambled eggs clung to the air as I plated the food. It wasn’t much, nothing elaborate, but it was the first time in years I’d bothered cooking for anyone other than myself—and the irony wasn’t lost on me. A man like me, standing here making breakfast like some domesticated fool, when not even an hour ago I was convincing myself I wasn’t capable of love.
I let out a breath and shook my head, picking up the tray. On it sat two plates, coffee steaming in mugs, everything balanced with care I usually reserved for my guns. My hand tightened on the edge of the tray. I was taking this upstairs to her. To Liliana.
I didn’t know why it mattered so much, but it did.
I turned toward the stairs, intent on climbing them, when the front door creaked open. My entire body went taut in an instant. No one walked into my house without clearance. No one. My first instinct was violence—my mind already calculating where I’d left my weapon on the counter.
But then I saw her.
Diana.
She stormed in like a hurricane, her heels clicking sharply against the polished floor, her eyes ablaze. She looked good—she always looked good, perfectly put together with that hair spilling over her shoulders, her lipstick a lethal slash of crimson. But her beauty had never softened her poison.
And right now, her poison dripped from every step.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I asked, my voice flat, steel cutting through the space between us.
Her gaze flicked immediately to the tray in my hands. She froze. I watched her eyes narrow, her lips curl, and then her gaze dragged back up to me with something raw and dangerous flickering in her expression.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she hissed. “Ronny… I’ve spent five years of my life on you. Five years. You’re not about to throw me away for some—” Her eyes darted toward the tray again, disbelief etched on her face. “—for some woman who barely knows who you are.”
My jaw tightened. “What I do with my life is none of your business.”
Her laugh was sharp, humorless. “None of my business? After everything? You suddenly have this redhead crawling all over you, and now you think you can just—what? Push me aside like I’m nothing?”
I set the tray down carefully on the counter before I shattered the porcelain. Then I faced her, eyes locked on hers, letting the weight of my silence press down until the tension between us hummed like a live wire.
“I told you from the beginning,” I said evenly, “our relationship was just sex. I started it, and I can end it.”
Her face twisted, fury flashing before it melted into something darker—desperation. “You can’t do that to me.”
“I can,” I said coldly. “And I am.”
Diana’s laugh was unhinged this time, her head tilting back slightly. “Oh, this is rich. This is fucking rich. She just came into your life what? Two months ago? And suddenly you’re—” Her voice cut like glass. “—in love?”
The word detonated in the room.
My chest went tight. My throat burned. Love.
I clenched my teeth, refusing to let her see the way the word rattled me, refusing to let her cut into the one weak spot I’d been trying to deny since the moment I kissed Liliana’s forehead upstairs.
“I’m not in love with anyone,” I bit out. “I told you—it’s just sex for me. I’m not capable of love.”
Her lips curled into a wicked smirk, eyes gleaming like she’d won something. She stepped closer, her heels echoing like gunshots in the silence. “So that’s it, huh? She’s just sex too? Nothing more?”
I didn’t answer.
I couldn’t.
Because if I opened my mouth, I wasn’t sure what would come out.
Diana stopped in front of me, so close I could smell her perfume—a sharp, expensive floral that had once intoxicated me, but now just smelled like a reminder of mistakes I should’ve cut loose years ago. She leaned in, her eyes never leaving mine, her smirk widening when she realized my silence was an answer all on its own.
“That’s what I thought,” she whispered.
My fists clenched at my sides. I wanted to shove her out the door, wanted to end this conversation before it could pierce any deeper, but then—
“Ronny.”
Her voice.
Liliana’s.
It came from behind me, soft but cutting, like a blade sliding between my ribs.
And just like that, the air in the room shifted.
I went rigid. My heartbeat slammed against my ribs, pounding in my ears. Slowly, I turned my head, dread curling through me like smoke.
She stood there at the bottom of the stairs, my shirt still swallowing her frame, her hair tousled from sleep, her bare feet silent against the hardwood. Her eyes…
Christ.
Her eyes weren’t sleepy anymore. They were wide. Awake. And filled with something I didn’t want to name.
The tray of food on the counter, the smirk on Diana’s face, the silence stretching too long—it all collided into one brutal truth.
She’d heard enough.
And now?
Now I was about to lose the one thing I hadn’t even admitted I wanted.
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