Page 45 of Contractually Wed

“Then don’t do the thing that would make me mad and lead us to fight.”

“God, now you sound like the grumpy beast you were when we first met. Fine! At least we can have angry sex then.”

“Jia...” he said, elongating her name, telling her he was at the end of his tether.

“Rina’s getting married. I want to be there for the wedding.”

For just a second, Jia thought she saw him flinch. But why would he?

“When?”

She also had a feeling that his first impulse had been to say no and that he’d barely stopped it. “Next week. God knows where Vik is and my father’s definitely not attending. I don’t want her to be alone.”

“You were alone for our wedding.”

“I asked Rina but...”

“Right, you didn’t want anyone to see you going under the guillotine, even though it was for them.”

“First of all, it was a choice I made. So please stop calling it that. In fact, when things are better, I want to have a different...” God, was it any wonder he was looking at her as if she’d lost her mind? She was doing this all wrong. “I’m not going to spend the rest of my life being bitter about what they have done or not done for me. Especially now that Rina has apologized for ‘being naively useless’ and wants to start our relationship over. Even my father texted asking how I was, and he never ever texts.”

He raised a brow. Jia had the fantastical thought he looked like some apex predator waiting to pounce at the slightest hint of weakness.

“I just want to go for a short trip and I feel like I need to see them and...” Again, she swallowed her words. It was getting harder and harder. There was so much she wanted to tell him but...she knew the timing was wrong. And she needed just a little bit of courage. Courage she was hoping she’d find after one look at her old life. “I’m a little homesick, Apollo. Is that so hard to understand?”

The tension in his features eased just a bit and Jia knew she hadn’t imagined his flinch earlier. “We will leave in a couple of days.Ifyou continue to be well.”

“If I continue... Wait, you...you’ll come to New York with me?”

“Is that a problem?”

“You hate my family. If she sees you at the town hall, Rina will probably faint straightaway.”

“That’s her problem, no?”

“But this is...” She straightened and pulled back, feeling a sudden snap of tension coil around them. Tight enough that her breath shallowed out. “Why does it sound like this trip is conditional on your coming?”

“Why is it conditional if I just want to attend my wife’s spoiled sister’s wedding?”

Jia fell back on her haunches and stared up at him. There was a curve to his mouth that mocked her. It wasn’t a sneer but it was there sure enough. That part of her that was used to going on offense flared up but she fought the impulse.

Somethingwasoff with him and she had a feeling in her gut that she was responsible for it. And she had this overpowering need to soothe it, to soothehim.

“When we left after the wedding, it was in such a hurry. You barely gave me any time and every assumption I made about you, and this marriage and about us...it’s been turned upside down. I just...want to see my old home, my family, my life as it was before, with this new lens I have now. I want to say goodbye to my mom for the last time. I...”

Apollo stepped back from the bed, his jaw tightening with each word she said. “You can do all that with me by your side.”

The tautly stretched cord snapped. She jumped from the bed, that sudden energy she wanted to use up driving him to the edge, fueling her anger. “This is ridiculous. You do realize that I don’t actually need your permission to leave, right?”

“And if Iaskyou to not go without me?”

She threw her hands up in frustration. “Why are you being so...stubborn? I’ve played along with everything you decided from the moment I stepped into your damned penthouse and I’m truly asking for one thing. One thing for myself, that you already promised me and you’re acting as if you don’t even trust me to—”

“I don’t. I don’t trust that you will return.”

His words were so hollow that Jia wondered if she was imagining them. But one look at his tight mouth told her she wasn’t. Her stomach made an alarming swoop. “You don’t trust me to...return? You think I’m using this trip as an excuse to...” She rubbed a hand over her chest. “What? Leave you? Run away from you? How can you say that?”

“You’re pregnant. Pregnant with my child,our child. And you haven’t said a word about it. You’ve turned yourself inside out, you have made yourself sick, you don’t eat, you don’t sleep, you...stare up at me with those eyes at night.Three weeks, Jia!” The more agitated he became, the quieter his voice got and each word landed like a stone pelting her flesh. “You have known for three weeks and you have made me watch you torment yourself. I’ve never felt so powerless and this is counting that I found my father’s dead body.” He drew in a sharp breath, and paced around the bed, like a caged tiger. Tension poured out from every inch of his body. “And now, suddenly, you make this one-eighty today. You tell me things are going to change. You tell me to give you one last thing. How do I know you’ll return? How do I know you won’t take my growing child with you and disappear? Can you honestly tell me that you didn’t consider it for one second?”

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