Page 163 of Modern Romance January 2025 1-4

Silence.

‘This is ridiculous,’ she said. ‘I was explaining how I used tofeel, not offering a genuine risk assessment—’

‘It doesn’t matter. Now that I know, it changes everything.’ He paused in the doorframe, his back to her, his shoulders squared. ‘Our marriage isn’t worth this risk, Rosalind. Nothing is.’

Rosie glanced around for her dress and pulled it on quickly, her mind spinning. She hadn’t expected this.

Because she’d had a long time to come to terms with her mother’s stroke, and to grapple with her own feelings and fear about it. She’d evolved from being terrified of having a baby to accepting that there was always going to be a small risk, but that she wanted to take it, because the gift of having Sebastian’s baby suddenly felt like what she’d been placed on earth for.

He had to understand that.

No, it was more than that.

He had to understand what he’d come to mean to her.

Rosie’s heart began to rush as she strode out to find Sebastian. He was standing in the kitchen, staring at the counter, as if the Magna Carta were inscribed into the stone.

‘I want to have your baby,’ she said softly, crossing the room. ‘Not because of the king, not because you need an heir, not because you asked me. I want to have your baby because something happened on the island, and suddenly, everything I am became bound up in you, and the idea of us creating a new life together seems like the kind of gift I never thought I’d be given. I was devastated when I saw that negative pregnancy test because having your baby is genuinely the beginning and end of what I want.’ She pressed a hand to her side, forcing herself to be bold. ‘No, that’s not true,’ she whispered. ‘I also want you in my life, Sebastian.’ God, it was terrifying to put herself out there like this. She felt an echo of every single one of the women her father had hurt, felt a kinship with their vulnerabilities and susceptibility. But maybe it was also incredibly brave to face your feelings head on? Maybe what she was doing was simply stepping into a truth she’d been fighting for too long.

He stared at her, his eyes flinty. ‘What are you saying?’

Really? He was going to make this that hard for her? ‘I’m saying that somewhere on the island, I stopped thinking of this as an arranged marriage. I think you did too. I think that’s why you don’t want to take this risk.’ She pressed a hand to his chest, her eyes beseeching. ‘Could it be that you care about me too much to think of losing me?’

A muscle jerked in his jaw. ‘I do care about you,’ he admitted after a long, painful silence. His voice was raw, the words almost dragged from him. ‘You’re so different from what I thought, and if we’d met under different circumstances, if I was a different man, perhaps—’ he shook his head a little. ‘But there is no sense in playing that game. Thisisan arranged marriage, and it always will be, and at its heart there is a rotten, rotten core we will never be able to outgrow.’

Her eyes widened, her breath shallow.

‘The king,’ he supplied, taking a step away from her. ‘You love him and will defend him with your dying breath. I feel the exact opposite. There is no way to get beyond that, Rosalind.’

Her eyes filled with tears. ‘He is a part of my life, but he doesn’t have to be a part of our marriage.’

‘You are too loyal to draw that line, and too filled with goodness to accept my stance. You will try to reunite us, I know it. You will try to make me forgive him, and I can’t. I won’t.’ His nostrils flared. ‘Could you really be married to someone who despises, with every bone in his body, your precious king?’

Rosie flinched. ‘Your relationship with him is complicated.’

He laughed harshly. ‘No, it’s not. It’s simple. We have no relationship—that was his choosing.’

Her heart hurt for the king. The foolish king, who’d sent his daughter away rather than simply love her through the turmoil of her marriage breakdown. Rosalind had always seen his way, but even that had been shifting. Though she was not a parent, she’d spent the last few weeks imagining their child, and the love that had begun to form in her heart for that creation was a mother’s love; she already knew there was nothing she wouldn’t do for a baby, if she was lucky enough to have one.

‘He was wrong to send you and your mother away,’ she said, quietly. ‘I think if you asked him, he’d admit that now.’

Sebastian made an angry noise, a sound of impatience and disbelief.

‘But that’s a separate matter.’

His eyes flashed to hers.

‘I’m telling you that I’ve fallen in love with you, and I’m asking if you feel the same way.’ She held a hand up to forestall an immediate response. ‘I mean real love. The kind of love that doesn’t give you a choice. The kind of love that demands you feel it and fight for it.’ He stared at her, his face blank, but in his eyes, she saw a swirling of emotions that tied her tummy into knots. She didn’t know what he was feeling, but she needed to. Urgency softened her voice, hastened her words. ‘We aren’t going to agree about everything—the king is a case in point. But I love you in a way that makes me want to fight through that, to reach out and grab this, you, this gift we’ve somehow stumbled upon, with both hands.’

He still said nothing. Her heart trembled. His nostrils flared as he inhaled, and his chest shifted. Finally, he opened his mouth to speak but the words that came out were like the cracking of a whip. ‘I cannot decide if what you are feeling is wishful thinking, blind optimism or some kind of Stockholm syndrome.’

She gasped, his response, ever so slightly mocking, the very last thing she’d expected after all they’d shared. She stared at him, trying to reconcile his words with the man she’d come to know—and love—and failing. ‘Sebastian—’

‘Or is it that you are telling me you love me to try to get me to give in to you? To acquiesce to your desire to have a baby, no matter what? After all, it’s what the king needs, so you must feel compelled to provide it.’

Her eyes hurt with the threat of tears. ‘You think I’m manipulating you?’

A muscle jerked in his jaw. ‘I don’t know what to think.’

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