Page 130 of Modern Romance September 2025 5-8
Reality returned in swift blows of anxiety. He shouldn’t be here. This wasn’t part of her plan. She was going to do this alone. Parenthood.
She did not need him.
‘The baby is no one’s but mine.’
He moved closer until her neck ached from looking up so high. ‘Answer me.’
She placed both hands on her stomach. Held it. Protected it.
‘Why would you care if it was yours?’
‘Because if it is, you should have told me,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘You should have found a way to tell me that you are carrying my child.’
She stiffened her spine. ‘You made it clear you didn’t share your life with anyone,’ she reminded him. ‘Not even a lover who had only moments ago trembled with the force of everything you shared. You didn’t want to share your life for a moment longer than you had to. You didn’t care that I needed to be held.’
She noted the way his pulse hammered in his bristled cheek.
‘You care for nothing, and no one, remember?’
‘I remember,’ he answered.
She did too. She remembered everything. The feel of him. How good it was. How beautifully it could have ended between them. How he’d sent her away with her flesh still burning. Her lungs still panting. Her body, her mind, stillneeding.
She’d made the right choice for her baby. To not even attempt to seek him out. To try her best to forget him.
‘So why would I tell you I was pregnant?’ she asked, wanting to hear his response. Why he thought it was okay to stand here, in her house, asking if he was the father of her child, when he didn’t care? ‘Why would I think you’d care?’ she continued. ‘Why would a baby be any different?’
His eyes searched hers. ‘So itismy child?’
She couldn’t lie.
‘Yes.’
His eyes dropped to her stomach. ‘My baby,’ he husked, and placed his hand on her stomach.
The possessive rasp of his voice, his touch, curled around Aurora. Her body responded to it, wanted to lean into it. Into him.
But why would she do that? He’d only push her away again.
She stepped back, and his hand fell away from her stomach, but his eyes did not leave hers.
‘Were you ever going to try and find me?’ he asked, his voice a low growl of accusation. ‘Have you even tried to figure out who the man was who took your virginity and put a baby inside you?’
‘No,’ she admitted tightly. She wouldn’t let herself feel guilty for her choice. ‘I was never going to tell you, even if I could have found you,’ she said honestly, and squared her shoulders. But still, she felt so small in front of him. His eyes watching her from up there with all that hair her fingers yearned to touch.
‘But now I know.’
She clenched her fists. ‘It changes nothing.’
‘It changes everything, Aurora.’
She swallowed, trying desperately to moisten her throat. Her name in his mouth did things to her, the way his tongue caressed it so gently, so smoothly.
She shook her head. ‘Not for me.’
She wouldn’t let it change anything.
She tore her gaze from his, no longer able to stand the intensity.
