Page 43 of Pregnant Rejected Mate

“You’d like to go home?” I murmur under my breath in disbelief.

“Yes,” she concedes, turning her face to me and offering me nothing regarding emotion. Her eyes are blank as she nods. “I’d like to go home if that’s not an inconvenience to you.”

The sarcasm is evident in her tone, slicing through me as if she wields sharp blades with her tongue. Maybe this was a bad idea—thinking I could simply change how she feels by gifting her flowers.

“It’s not an inconvenience,” I assure her. “Are you sure that’s what you want?”

She nods again, turning back to the picturesque sunset. “I’d like to go back home.”

A long moment of silence stretches, in which she doesn’t offer me an explanation. I have to stifle the urge to reach out to her, to hold her in my arms, or permit her to slap me across the face if that makes her feel better. If that changes things somehow. I’m not sure what will amend the situation, because the pain I’d caused her was too much to bear.

“Fine, you can go back,” I finally agree, seeing no way out of the mess I’d created when I left her seven years ago. Nothing I do will erase that past that looms over the possibilities of what could be between us.

I guess it’s something I didn’t consider when I wondered if things could work out between us. I’d spent so much time wondering if Sierra could be my mate, not realizing I caused too much damage.

One thing I can’t do is force her to be with me. I tried, and I failed dismally at that.

“I’ll arrange to take you back to Charlottesville tomorrow,” I relent, staring out at the horizon and trying to find the beauty in what she’s watching.

It seems to be more important than me being here, and I wonder if this is what she did over the past seven years. Just as I did—staring out at the setting sun and seeing her eyes staring back at me.

It was my only comfort back then. It must be comforting to her now. That’s how she learned to live without me. How she learned to stop loving me.

“Thank you,” she bids without turning my way, forcing me to leave the balcony and leave her in peace.

I’m just the disruption of that peace, and I have to accept it.

“Sierra…” I call out, wanting to try one last time, just for the sake of closure.

“Yes, Felix?” she calls back, folding her arms across her chest as she turns to me.

When our eyes meet, her brows lift expectantly, and I see the pain of seven years flashing in her eyes. It fills me with dread and remorse, and I can’t see past her heartbreak.

For someone who loved me so dearly, she hates me just as much. Perhaps this is the best thing for both of us. Being around her only reminds me of the pain I’d caused her, and I can only imagine that it’s the same for her.

“Nothing,” I lie, though everything I’d like to say to her hangs on the tip of my tongue. Everything I’d been rehearsing, a plea to give me a second chance. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I turn on my heel, and with my head hanging, I head to the door. As a dragon shifter who refuses to be forceful toward humans, I can’t force her to give me a second chance. I’ve done everything I can, showed her how much I love her on the top of Mount Aurora.

It clearly wasn’t enough.

Swallowing down the lump forming in my throat, I set the flowers on the pedestal beside the door and leave.

After tomorrow, I won’t see Sierra ever again. I have to make peace with the fact that I was wrong.

It could never work out between us. Perhaps the gods sent her in my path again just so I wouldn’t spend my life gazing at the sunset and picturing her staring back at me.

They’ve answered the question I’d been asking for months. It can’t work out between us.

Chapter 18 - Sierra

Just like that, he’d given up so easily.

Staring behind him as he leaves my bedroom, a wave of disappointment washes over me.

I thought he’d fight harder. I thought that he’d beg for my forgiveness and prove to me that he wasn’t the same man he was.

Maybe I was hoping for too much.

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