Chapter 291 I Don’t Want One

Chapter 291: Chapter 291 I Don’t Want One

Emilia’s POV

"Sebastian, don’t," I breathed, even as heat pooled low in my belly and my body ached for him. "Don’t. I mean it..."

He didn’t stop right away, but he lifted his head, and his green eyes were burning. "A week apart and you’re telling me you didn’t miss me?"

"Of course I missed you."

"Yeah?" His hand slid up and pressed flat over my heart. "Missed me here?" Then it drifted lower, unhurried, deliberate. "Or here?"

Heat rushed straight up my face. I smacked his hand away. "Both. But I’ve been on a plane half the day and I’m exhausted."

I honestly thought that would never be enough to stop him. Restraint wasn’t exactly his strong suit. But he studied my face for a long moment, then nodded and softened. "Alright. Rest, then."

He scooped me up before I could protest, carried me to the bed, and tucked the covers over me like I was made of glass. A kiss landed on my forehead. Then he turned and headed for his study.

I lay there staring at the ceiling, honestly stunned. The Sebastian I knew did not surrender that easily. It went against everything about him.

But sleep wouldn’t come. I twisted one way, then the other, and then I remembered. The pills. I hadn’t taken tonight’s dose.

I slipped out of bed like a thief in my own room, keyed open the safe, and shook a small handful into my palm. One by one I swallowed them down with warm water. They were bitter. Not half as bitter as everything else pressing on me, though.

Zurich had given me hope. But hope is a fragile thing, and I couldn’t quite make myself believe in it yet.

Abigail was still out there, lodged in my mind like a splinter I couldn’t dig out. And Richie Lind. He’d gone quiet lately, but I knew better than to think he’d let go. Men like him didn’t. If not now, then someday.

None of it mattered as much as this, though. I had to give Sebastian a child. Maybe two. It shouldn’t have felt like the measure of my worth, and I hated that some small part of me believed it did.

I was still at the window, lost in it, when the door opened behind me.

Sebastian took one look at me standing there in nothing but my pajamas and grabbed a coat off the chair. He draped it over my shoulders, jaw tight. "You spent days in that hospital not long ago, and it was a chill that put you there. Have you already forgotten how that felt?"

"It’s warm out now," I said. "I’m fine."

"Warm during the day. It’s night, Emilia. You can catch a chill even in summer." He steered me back toward the bed and gave me a look that was half warning, half something else entirely. "Behave. Or I can’t promise I’ll come out of that shower a gentleman."

Maybe that actually scared me straight, because I lay dead still until he came back, not so much as a twitch.

He slid in beside me and pulled me against his chest. "Can’t sleep without me now? Is that it?"

"It’s not that I can’t sleep," I said. "I just sleep better when you’re here."

"So how was Switzerland?" His fingers traced lazy circles on my arm. "Where’d you go?"

I blinked. Right. As far as he knew, Mila and I had gone sightseeing in Switzerland, not spent those days in a fertility clinic in Zurich. So I reached for the story we’d agreed on. "Oh. Lots of places."

"Like?"

"All the famous ones."

"Which famous ones?"

I could hear where this was going. "You travel there for business constantly. Don’t you already know?"

"Sure I do. I want to know where you went."

"Lake Geneva. The Matterhorn. Lucerne. Interlaken." I rattled them off from memory, praying I had them even close to right, and prayed he’d drop it.

He raised an eyebrow, and my pulse ticked up. "Five, six days, and you covered all of that?"

"Yes."

"How exactly did you two pull that off, timing-wise?"

He wasn’t going to let go. And if I kept talking, I was going to trip over my own lie. So I yawned, big and theatrical, and burrowed deeper into the pillow.

"Ask Mila tomorrow. I’m dead on my feet. Goodnight."

I curled into Sebastian’s warm chest and closed my eyes.

For a moment neither of us spoke. Then he reached over and switched off the bedside lamp, and before I could stop myself, I said, "Sebastian, can I ask you something?"

"Hmm? What is it? Go ahead."

"Do you like children?"

His body went stiff against mine. A few seconds passed before he answered. "Why are you asking me that?"

"No reason. Just curious. So do you?"

"I don’t dislike them."

"Do you want one of your own?"

I already knew what he’d say. Of course he wanted one. He was the Alpha. Giving the pack an heir to succeed him was the greatest duty he carried.

"Do you want the truth?"

"Of course."

"I don’t want one."

I sat up straight in the dark. "What did you say?"

"I said I don’t want one."

My chest twisted, and I couldn’t have named the feeling if I tried. Part of me wanted to believe I’d misheard.

"Why?" My voice came out shaking.