Chapter 287 A Little Trip

Chapter 287: Chapter 287 A Little Trip

Emilia’s POV

The moment Sebastian came home that evening, I heard his footsteps take the stairs two at a time. He came straight for our room.

"What are you looking at?" he asked, coming up behind my chair.

I was sitting at my laptop, staring at a search page I’d been too much of a coward to close. Rows of clinics. Success rates. Words I’d read a hundred times.

I gave him a thin smile. "Nothing. Just browsing."

"It’s dinnertime. Come down with me."

"Sure."

I shut the screen before he could see it and followed him downstairs.

In the living room, Mila glanced up at us. Her gaze dropped to Sebastian’s hand, wrapped tight around mine.

After dinner I lingered, hoping to catch a quiet word with Mila. But Sebastian had other plans. He tugged me by the wrist and hauled me back up the stairs like a man reclaiming something that was his.

"Not working tonight?" I asked once we were in the room.

He dropped onto the sofa and laid his head down in my lap, closing his eyes like a big, stubborn cat. "I didn’t sleep last night. I’ve been buried at the office all day. If you seriously expect me to open a laptop right now, you’ve mistaken your husband for a machine."

"I was just asking." I bit back a smile. "And even if you begged, I wouldn’t let you. You’d probably fall asleep halfway through a sentence and drool on my dress."

"Charming," he muttered, but the corner of his mouth twitched.

I ran my fingers through the black hair falling across his forehead, slow, inch by inch, as if I were tracing something far deeper than skin. He caught my hand, pressed it to his lips, and kissed my palm.

"I wish time would just stop right here," he said quietly. "The way you touch me. I’ve never felt this kind of peace in my life."

I swallowed hard. "Sebastian. There’s something I need to tell you."

"Hmm? What is it?" He opened his eyes, and they were so full of contentment, so undefended, that every word I’d rehearsed dissolved on my tongue.

If I told him now, this calm would shatter. This was a man who had carried the world’s cruel label as the Alpha who’d killed six brides, who was rumored to bear a curse, when the truth was that he’d survived a betrayal and still lived with those scars. And now he would learn that his fated mate couldn’t give him a single pup. I couldn’t do it. Not with him looking at me like that.

"Why’d you stop?" he asked, frowning slightly.

"Nothing."

I turned my face away, and the ache in my chest was almost unbearable. After the whole Leighton Lind disaster, I’d honestly believed there was nothing left I couldn’t confess to him. I was wrong. Telling him I couldn’t bear his children was harder than admitting why I’d married him in the first place.

"Really? Because it looks a lot like something."

"It’s nothing," I insisted, and pushed him upright by the shoulders. "Go shower. You didn’t sleep last night, remember? Machine or not, even you have limits."

He was too exhausted to press me. He gave in, showered, and was asleep almost the second his head hit the pillow.

I lay there watching him. I’d once caught myself daydreaming about a little boy with his black hair and green eyes and that infuriating smirk. Now I’d have taken any child at all, any at all, and counted myself blessed. I turned my back to him and let the tears come, silent, so I wouldn’t wake him.

I don’t know how long I cried. Then a pair of warm arms wrapped around me from behind, and his voice rumbled low against my ear. "Emilia. What’s going on with you lately? Why are you crying?"

I wiped my face fast and rolled to face him. "Why are you awake?"

"Because you woke me up." No accusation in it. Just worry.

"Sorry. I didn’t mean to."

"Did I do something? Did I make you unhappy?"

"No."

"Then why?" His breath drew closer, his lips grazing mine, careful, questioning. "Have I been neglecting you?"

"No. It’s nothing like that." I shook my head against the pillow. His tenderness was slowly loosening the knot in my chest. My arms found their way around his neck. "You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s my problem. I’ve just been missing my mother."

Something in him went soft and pained at that. He kissed me more gently, brushing the hair from my temple. "Then I’ll love you the way she did. Twice as much, if I have to."

The words landed like a blade. It hurt so much I couldn’t breathe, let alone answer. I just looked at him.

He gathered me against his chest and drifted back to sleep, a faint smile on his lips, so utterly content with his life that he never noticed the woman in his arms lay awake until dawn, eyes open in the dark.

The next morning, the instant his car pulled out of the drive, Mila slipped into my room and shut the door.

"Well?" she asked. "Did you tell him?"

I said nothing. I twisted my hands together, lost.

She read the answer on my face and softened at once. "It’s all right, sweetheart. If you can’t find the words yet, you don’t have to force them. You can tell him after we’ve been to the clinic and know for certain. That’s soon enough."

It was the only path left, and I had no better one.

"I reached out to my old friend last night," she went on. "Dr. Vogel, in Zurich. She runs the finest fertility program in the pack territories, humans and wolves both. She said to come as soon as we can. When works for you?"

"Whenever suits you, Mila."

"Tomorrow, then. There’s no sense dragging our feet on something like this. The sooner we start, the better your chances."

"Okay." I nodded slowly. "Tomorrow."

"And what will you tell Sebastian? You’ll be gone from Silverlake several days."

"I’ll say I’m going on a trip. With you."

"My thought exactly." She patted my hand. "Then it’s settled. That’s the story for now."

That evening, over dinner with the whole family, Mila spoke first. "I have an announcement. I’m taking Emilia away for a few days. A little trip, just the two of us."