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“Say what you have to say.”
“There’s no big conspiracy behind why I didn’t tell you sooner. First, I didn’t want to do it over the phone because you’d have just asked me to jump on a plane immediately and I still had things to sort through. Second, I... I didn’t even realize that I had missed my period for almost four weeks. Something happened to me at the house after Yana and Nush left. I...”
“What? What happened?”
“No, nothing dangerous. Between making sure my father was settling into rehab again, Nush and Caio’s sudden wedding and taking care of my grandparents’ home—which they left to me... I lost track of time. They could sense two heartbeats on the first checkup. That’s how late I went to see the doctor.”
“You shouldn’t have been alone when you found out.”
“It wasn’t by design. And I wanted to tell no one more than you.” She covered his hand with hers, willing him to believe the sincerity in her tone. “After that, I couldn’t wait to get away. I... I couldn’t wait to tell you, see your expression.”
I don’t want to go back. Not in five years. Not ever. I want to stay here with you and build our family and our future together.
The words lingered on her lips, begging to be given voice. “And what I said earlier about leaving... I was reacting out of fear. Out of anger. Seeing you hurt...” She pressed a hand to her chest. “...it’s not an easy thing. It’s not...something I can process fully yet.”
“Okay.”
“Okay, you’re not mad at me anymore? Okay, enough already of my pathetic attempts at begging for forgiveness?”
“Okay, I heard what you said. Okay, I’m still angry,” he said with that brutal honesty that she’d never appreciated before. “I understand saying the wrong thing when acting out of fear. But I don’t appreciate threats, Mira. Especially about your leaving me. Especially now that you’re carrying my...them.”
Mira nodded. She’d never felt as small as she felt right then. Because, once again, it was becoming clear that she’d hurt him where it would pain the most.
“As for my ridiculous, death-defying stunts, I’ll think about it.”
It was more than she’d hoped for, after messing it up so badly.
Gratitude and relief made her throw herself at him. “Thank you,” she said, pressing her mouth to his cheek, and he turned right at that time. And then her mouth was on his and Mira gave in with a long groan.
She’d needed this since the moment she’d left that morning. The heat of his hunger, the warmth of his body wrapped around her, the sheer intensity of being alive as his mouth plundered her... It was all she needed to go on. Her breasts ached to be touched, her sex damp and ready. She moaned against his mouth, begging him to take it deeper, and he complied. With filthy words whispered against her jaw and a hard nip of her lower lip that stung.
Mira rubbed her cheek against his, like a cat sunning itself, her entire body a mass of ache and want. “Will you come to bed?”
Pushing to his feet, he reached out for her and pulled her up. Mira would have stumbled if he didn’t keep an arm about her until she was steady again. Her head felt dizzy in the best way possible.
With the maturity of a woman that her teen self lacked, she realized now that the kind of heat between them was not normal. That sex between them would always be a flame that would start up at the slightest flash. And yet, she had a feeling it wasn’t fueled just by chemistry. It almost felt like their bodies understood something that their minds refused to or simply couldn’t.
Licking her lips, loving the taste of him there, she raised a heated face to him.
Whatever passion she’d spied earlier in his face was gone, leaving an inscrutable look in his eyes.
“As tempting as your invitation is, I have work to attend to and you need rest.”
Mira flushed and wondered if the large bed could open up and swallow her whole. “Work now?”
“There are things I have to see to, people I have to talk to, schedules I have to rearrange now that you’re expecting,” he said, with an infinite patience that bordered on condescension.
Shock at his swift but curt rejection had her responses dulled. She called out when he reached the door. “Aristos?”
“Yes?”
“You didn’t... You didn’t say anything about the pregnancy. About twins. About...us being parents.”
“Is there anything to say other than wow to our reproductive organs,thee mou?”
There was a flatness to his tone that Mira couldn’t cut through. The lack of humor in his words made it all sound clinical, like another project he’d finished, another deal he’d cut.
“It’s what we wanted,ne?”
