Page 62 of Pregnant After One Forbidden Night

It was not the same thing, Jenna knew, but it was Sebastian.

Of course, his child would be treated the same.

The tidal wave of all of the emotional highs and lows of their past month together—mornings and nights, making love as if they were honeymooners, cooking and eating together, relaxing and reading together, the nausea and conversations about the baby and moments just being quiet together—infused their kiss.

It was going to kill her to let go of the only place that had ever naturally felt like it belonged to her.

It felt like kissing him goodbye.

All she could do was ride the wave as it carried her through to its inevitable end. She could not stop the tide.

He pulled back, eyes closed as if he lingered, savoring the taste of her on his lips.

The tears that had threatened throughout the episode sprung up and made their move now, filling and spilling in heavy, fat drops.

He opened his eyes. Alarm flashed through their mesmerizing emerald depths.

“What’s wrong, Jenna?”

“I can’t do this, Sebastian.” Her voice broke.

His eyes narrowed. “Can’t do what?” he asked.

“This. This crazy thing between us. This is no kind of family for a child. We have to stop. I won’t live at Redcliff. I told you it’s too late for games. I’m not willing to play house. If you don’t want a family, I’m going to find a man who does.”

He stilled, becoming almost unreal with his lack of motion.

“Unacceptable,” he rasped, his voice implacable. Then, he added, the words hushed, “You know how I feel about you.”

The vulnerability was a dagger in her heart, but she could not relent. “I haven’t blamed you, Sebastian. Not once have I blamed you for the wreck that my life has become since you’ve come into it. I take responsibility. I went with you willingly, over and over again. That’s my fault. But I’m stopping it here, and you’re going to let me. You’re going to walk out that door and wait for me to call you and you’re not going to monitor my calls, and you’re not going to have me followed. And you’re going to do it because if you don’t, it will become your fault, and I will blame you, and, for whatever reason, that,of all things, matters to you.” She had wrung out every word her heart had been holding up its sleeve, including nuggets she hadn’t even understood before saying them out loud.

The thing she saw—the bond she felt that defied her sense of herself as a modern woman of the world—he felt it, too.

He felt it and didn’t know what to do with it, didn’t recognize it for what it was, because he had never felt it before.

Her heart broke for him.

But her child didn’t deserve to inherit his wounds.

She didn’t deserve less because of them.

And it wasn’t her job to save him from himself. If he wanted what she represented, he could do the work.

His dragon eyes glowed, showing her words had hit their mark.

Looking at him, she noticed for the first time that he was completely disheveled—for him.

His hair was tousled, the midlength sandy blond waves lying akimbo as if he had recently run a hand through them. He wore jeans and a crewneck T-shirt, and his face was shadowed with a day and a half’s worth of growth. He was the most human looking Jenna had ever seen him.

But she wouldn’t break.

“I will never stop wanting you. Why can’t that be enough?” His voice was ragged and harsh.

She shook her head. “It’s not the same thing.”

“Isn’t it? I can’t say I’ve seen otherwise.”

“I know, Sebastian. And I feel sorry for you. We are the masterminds behind our own lives. You taught me that. But you’re so afraid of repeating your parents’ mistakes and cruelty that you’ve consigned yourself to living half a life. You have to be the one to change if you want something more.” She didn’t imagine people often felt sorry for him, but if he was too much of a fool to see what blossomed so obviously around him, she couldn’t help him. She couldn’t save him from himself, any more than he could save her.

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