Chapter 67What Was Almost Ours #2
The bathroom is quiet. Too quiet. The kind that presses against your skin, that makes your thoughts echo louder than they should.
The silk slips off my shoulders and pools at my feet. I catch my reflection as I move; flushed cheeks, kiss-bitten lips, pupils still blown from the fire he lit inside me just minutes ago. I look like a woman who’s been claimed, who’s been loved so thoroughly her bones should remember it.
But I don’t feel any of that.
Not now. Not anymore.
My hands drift to my stomach before I can stop them. It’s flat. Smooth. Deceiving. It gives nothing away. It never did. But I know. I know what it held. What it lost.
I haven’t been able to bear to tell him.
My chest tightens, that old heaviness crawling up like vines. The kind that doesn’t scream. The kind that just... presses. Until you can’t breathe without hurting. Sometimes I miss the Prozac.
I step into the shower and don’t even wait for the water to warm. I drop to the tile, folding in on myself, arms circling my knees as I press my forehead to them and let the steam build around me like a fog meant to erase everything.
I sit there, barely breathing, until my chest starts to ache from holding it all in. And then it comes. Soft, broken, almost silent at first—a sob that shudders loose from somewhere deep, a place I’ve kept locked for too long.
But even now, I want to be quiet. I want to pretend.
The door opens behind me.
I don’t move. I don’t even flinch.
His steps are slow. Careful. Bare feet on tile. I hear the pause, the hesitation, and then the soft sound of him stepping fully into the room.
He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t demand.
He just joins me. He lowers himself beside me, shoulder to shoulder, knees brushing, and says nothing.
Not at first.
“What’s wrong,” he asks eventually, and it’s not sharp. It’s not cold.
It’s quiet.
And God, that hurts more.
I shake my head, curling in tighter. “It’s nothing,” I manage, even though I know he won’t believe me.
A beat of silence.
“I know the difference between silence and sadness,” he says, voice low. “This… isn’t nothing. You’ll need to let me in, just like I’m letting you in.”
I try to breathe, but it feels like shards in my throat.
He shifts slightly, just enough to look at me. Not with frustration. With patience.
And that, his patience, is what undoes me.
“I—” My voice breaks. I can’t say it. I can’t bring it out of me without falling apart. I squeeze my eyes shut, and for a long, trembling moment, I stay there, drowning in the pressure behind my ribs.
“I never took contraception,” I whisper eventually. The words are barely there. A confession made to the water.
He’s quiet beside me. I can feel him watching, but he doesn’t speak yet.
“I know,” he says finally.
That makes me turn, shocked. My breath stutters.
“You knew?”
He nods once. Slow. “Because you don’t need it.”
I blink through the water slipping down my face. My mouth opens to question, but he’s already answering.
“I read your file,” he says gently. “Remember? Your medical reports, too. I know you have Graves-Hughes Syndrome. I know what that means concerning fertility.”
His voice is a thread, careful and without blame.
I swallow hard. “I do. But I… I went on contraception after.”
That stops him.
He turns more fully toward me, brows drawn in something between confusion and growing concern. “After what?”
I bite the inside of my cheek. Hard. I taste copper.
A sob slips out before I can trap it.
His face changes, sharp angles softening, tension melting into something I never thought I’d see on him. Worry. Real, human worry.
He reaches out, but slowly. His fingers touch my arm like I might break beneath them.
“What happened?” he asks. Still soft. Still calm.
I try to breathe. Try to force the words past the knot in my throat.
“I got pregnant,” I say, and I hate how small my voice sounds. How broken. “Against every fucking odd. I got pregnant.”
He freezes.
His hand stays on my arm, grounding me. His eyes search mine like he’s afraid of what comes next.
“I didn’t dare to tell you,” I continue. “I barely had time to feel it before it was gone. I just… bled. And bled. And kept going like it didn’t matter. Like it wasn’t real.”
Another sob slips out and this time, I don’t fight it.
He pulls me in.
Fully. Without hesitation. I press my face into his neck and cry, really cry. He doesn’t shush me. Doesn’t tell me to stop. He just holds me. Strong. Unmoving. Infinite.
“You should’ve told me,” he says, voice thick but even.
“I didn’t know how,” I whisper. “And I didn’t want to watch your face fall.”
He pulls back just enough to look at me, eyes darker than I’ve ever seen them, but not with rage. With something more dangerous.
Grief.
“Watch my face fall?” he repeats, but softer. Like he’s tasting the weight of those words, letting them bleed onto his tongue. “Isabella…”
His hand comes up, slow, reverent, fingers brushing along the side of my face like he’s afraid I’ll disappear if he touches me too hard.
“I’ve watched my men die,” he says quietly. “Watched my enemies rot. Watched cities burn because I lit the match. But nothing—nothing—would’ve destroyed me more than watching you go through that alone.”
My breath hitches. My chest trembles beneath the pressure that rises again, more fragile now. His grief, his guilt, it settles over me like ash.
“There was never a chance for it,” I whisper. “Not with everything going on. Not with who you are.”
He stares at me like he’s been punched.
And then, softer than I’ve ever heard him, he says, “I swore never to create an heir.”
The confession cracks open something inside me.
“Swore it in blood,” he continues. “I told myself I would never curse a child with my name. My enemies. My legacy. That I’d never bring something into this world just to lose it, or make it survive me.”
His voice shakes. Barely. But it does.
“But if I’d known it was ours...”
His forehead touches mine. His breath fans across my lips, warm and raw.
“If I’d known it was you, Isabella, I would’ve stopped everything.”
I can barely breathe.
“I would’ve put down the crown. Given up every plan. Every body I swore vengeance on. For you. For them. For us.”
Tears slip down my cheeks, silent, unchecked. His thumbs catch them, like he’s afraid the world might break if one touches the tile.
He kisses me then; not hungry or bruising, but soft. So soft it aches. Like a man kissing something he knows he might never deserve, but would burn for anyway.
Our bodies press closer under the water. Nothing sexual, nothing charged. Just closeness. Heart to heart. Breath to breath. The kind of embrace that mends something long splintered.
“I would’ve been a father,” he murmurs into my hair. “Not a soldier. Not a Devil. Just a man with something to live for.”
I sob into his shoulder, and this time, I don’t try to stop it.
His arms tighten around me. His lips press into my temple like a vow.
“You’re not alone,” he says again. “You’ll never be alone again.”
We stay there, together, until the water runs cold and the heater dies.
And even then, he doesn’t let go.