Page 46 of His Broken Queen

“What do you mean?”

“What do you think I mean?”

“Umm…we’re not ready for that.” Did he seriously want to have this conversation now? “We can’t have a baby.”

“I’m pretty sure we can, but why not?” He sat up and somehow managed to tuck himself back into his pants and zipper them with one hand.

“This isn’t the right time.” I lived in constant fear now that Stella had been murdered in our home. Did he really believe bringing a baby into our lives was a good idea? “I just started school, and you’re running the club and, well, your other business. We can’t have a baby.”

“We can’t or you don’t want to?” He stood and walked to the bar cart in the corner of the patio, and then poured himself a drink. “Tell me, Luciana, do you want to have a child with me?”

“Yes, eventually.” I joined him by the bar cart. “When the time is right.”

“When do you think that will be?” He sipped his drink, never taking his eyes away from me. How did those beautiful green eyes filled with such desire for me a few minutes ago turn dark and frightening?

“I don’t know.”

“You better come up with some kind of explanation.”

“We never discussed this before.” I waved my hand in the air. “And with everything going on, now isn’t really the time to have this conversation.”

“You’re my wife. I just assumed you wanted to have a family with me.”

“I do, but not now.” I didn’t understand where he was coming from. “It’s no secret that I’ve been on birth control all this time. We had sex the other night because I needed you, but I shouldn’t have been careless. I stopped us tonight because you needed to know I missed a few doses.”

“That fact that you skipped some pills changes nothing for me. If you getting pregnant is meant to be then I don’t see what the problem is.”

“We have a lot of problems.” I had been trying to hold my shit together for days but I could only take so much. “You were shot, Stella was killed in our home, I wasn’t welcomed at her funeral because I’m your wife. My cousin drugged and kidnapped me. Am I missing anything?”

My body shook with frustration and anxiety. How much more could I endure before I snapped?

“You left out the part that you are fucking married to an arms dealer who kills people for a living and that’s never going to change.” He finished his drink and slammed the glass down on the cart. “That’s what this is really about.”

“I don’t want to fight with you.”

“Then maybe you shouldn’t have killed the mood between us.”

“That’s what you’re concerned with?” I shouted because now my emotions were all over the place. “I didn’t say I didn’t want to be with you. I just didn’t want to have sex. We can be intimate in other ways and still be close to one another. I only wanted to situate my cycle and get back on track.”

“Because you don’t want to have a baby with me.”

“That isn’t what I said.”

“It’s what you meant.”

When he took a step toward me, I moved away from him.

“That’s fucking great, Lu. You’re back to retreating. When am I ever going to be good enough for you?”

“You’re overreacting.” My tears betrayed me as they streamed down my cheeks. “We’ve both been through so much trauma this last week. We need to heal and come to terms with the violence that surrounds us. I want to do that as a couple. We need to be together.”

“We can’t do that unless you start accepting and understanding who I am. Who you married. Until you do that, we’re further apart than I ever imagined.”

“You’re reading too much into this.”

“Am I?”He took the bottle of vodka from the cart. “Did I read too much into your dream the other night? The one where I’m the legitimate businessman that you so desperately need me to be. The husband you could have chosen if you could have picked for yourself?”

“Romero.”

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