Page 56 of The Sin

Because I’d been so caught up in the choice they’d stripped from women, I hadn’t once thought of the choice they’d kept for themselves.

The IVF treatments used frozen eggs selected by whatever method our medical practitioners determined, but the sperm was donated by the husband. The men in our world had never forfeited their right to biological offspring.

Daniel was flesh of Julian’s flesh, blood of Julian’s blood.

I jumped up, my fork clattering to the plate, my chair bouncing backward.

My mouth was too dry to swallow.

My brain was on fire.

Brenda gasped and leaned away.

“Georga?” Daniel said in a low, worried voice.

Julian’s features hardened.

Roman pushed back his chair and stood, not nearly as abruptly as I had. His movements were calm and mechanical. His face was sculpted in granite, the look in his eyes cold and careless.

But I knew something of what Roman’s mask looked like, and what lived beneath it was not cold and dead.

It was ferocious, arrogant and protective.

If I allowed the fury and bitterness lashing on the tip of my tongue to burn me to the ground, Roman would make some arrogant, silent vow to save me from the consequences. He wouldn’t stop, he wouldn’t give up, until he burned down to the ground with me.

I choked out a terrible noise and fled from the table, stumbling from the dining room. I knew I was causing a scene, but I didn’t trust myself to stay. I was just as reckless and stupid—stupid, stupid, stupid!—as Roman always claimed. I was weak. I didn’t have the strength it took to do the right thing. The sensible thing. I didn’t have a mask to pull over the storm raging inside me.

My heart pounded and my knees turned to rubber as I found my way along the passage to the entrance hall.

What had I done?

Strong arms swept around me from behind, turned me until I was wrapped in Roman with my cheek to his broad chest. His heartbeat thudded against my ear, slow and steady, and my own heart finally started to slow to his rhythm.

“I am so sorry,” I breathed out.

His chin rested on the top of my head.

“It’s okay,” he said softly. “I made our excuses. You haven’t being feeling well all day. Must be a stomach bug.”

My mouth curved into a smile. I would never, not in million years, have thought there’d be anything about today to smile at.

But then there was Roman.

McKinnon appeared magically with our coats. The butler had an uncanny sense of everything that happened in this house.

Roman thanked him and helped me into my coat. I offered McKinnon my smile, but it was already thinning out.

“I’m not like you,” I said to Roman as we hurried across the courtyard to his truck. “I don’t know how to do this.”

“You don’t have a choice.”

He was just stating the obvious, but it was a hard truth that whipped the coil of anger stuck inside me.

I slammed my body into the passenger seat, slammed the door closed. “I know I don’t have a choice. I’m not a complete idiot. But my brain was on fire. You don’t understand. It literally felt like there were flames. Coming out of my head. I can’t just take and take and take all this bullshit.”

Roman settled in behind the wheel and we didn’t hang around. He sped off, as if afraid Julian would call his bluff and come charging after us.

He didn’t say anything until we were on the main road.

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