Page 66 of After-Hours Heir

She felt a sharp, stark pain in her chest, and she didn’t know what to do with it. There was a coldness in him that was frightening. But she didn’t believe that he would ever hurt their child. She also wanted to believe—so badly—that she was going to be able to reach him. That she was going to be able to connect with him. But it was terrifying. Terrifying to believe that she might not.

Maybe he was right. Maybe everything that had happened to him had made him into something other than a man. A gladiator. One that was still fighting for his life every single day.

Maybe there was no coming back from that.

She shook her head and buried her face in his neck. She didn’t want to live in that world. Where a boy could be sold into hard labor to pay his father’s debts and not be able to come back from it. Where he would pay for the sins of his father over and over again for the rest of his life. Where he would pay more than his father ever would.

She couldn’t believe it. Because she was having a child with this man.

“You do care about things,” she whispered.

“Not the right ones.”

“But you do care. It’s not all ice. Or you wouldn’t have enjoyed that.”

She clung to that. It was, oddly, something that gave her hope.

“But I was able to give you the publishing company back because I simply didn’t care about it. Do you know, you must learn to hold the thing tightly. And as far as I can tell, loving someone is the act of hanging on to them so nothing can ever tear them from you. I… I don’t even think I would want to do that if I could.”

“But what about our child?”

He looked absolutely filled with sorrow. “I don’t know. I don’t know how I’m ever going to… I don’t know how I’m ever going to be the right thing for him.”

“We have to try. Both of us. I didn’t go through what you did. Being hurt by my parents, it wasn’t the same as the way you were hurt by your father. My father didn’t mean to hurt me. But he loved the publishing company so much, and he made it very clear that the way to his heart was through the company. Through my interest in it. Not in a bad way. It was just what he loved to talk about. It was what he loved most of all, and I could never compete with it. And then there was my mother. Her preoccupation with herself. I have a career that I love, and I haveto make sure that I don’t put it before our child. Maybe we can just both learn.”

“The things that you want to learn are good things. It will certainly make our child happier. But you would never destroy him.”

“Neither will you.”

She rested her hand flat on his chest. “Trust yourself.”

“The problem is that I know myself.”

“Come to bed with me.”

“Sylvie, I—”

“Come to bed with me, Christos. Spend the night with me. If we’re going to try this, then we need to. You can’t stay hiding away from me. You can’t hide away from your child. You can’t run when it gets hard. You can’t revert to texting me like a teenager when it’s hard to talk.”

She felt him nod nearly imperceptibly.

Then she stood up from his lap and held out her hand. She led him back to the bedroom, and then it was her turn to hold him. Until his breathing began to deepen. Until it became even.

And once she was certain he was asleep she brushed her lips over his temple. Then she buried her face in her pillow and she wept.

For the boy he had been. And for the man he had become.

No one had ever loved Christos, and it wasn’t fair.

She wanted to love him. With the ferocity he should’ve always had love, but it was terrifying. Because she might end up in love alone.

People die of loneliness.

She clung to him.

Until her breathing matched his.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN