Chapter 13
STEFAN
But I don’t let her get that far.
I catch her wrist before her fingers close around the door handle. “Let me get this straight—you’re breaking up with me?”
Her eyes flash, pure fire and endless brimstone, but I notice she doesn’t pull away from my grip. That tells me everything I need to know about what she really wants versus what she’s saying.
“There’s nothing to break up,” she says. “We were never together. Not really. I was just meant to be the incubator. The oven for your heir.” It sounds like she’s been rehearsing this speech in her head for days. “That was the arrangement. That’s what we agreed to.”
“I’m saying something different now.”
“Only because I found out about your plans for my company!” She yanks her hand free, finally, and crosses her arms over her chest. Defensive posture. Walls up. “You were going to steal it from me, Stefan. Admit it.”
I drag a hand through my hair, buying myself a few seconds to decide how honest I want to be. “My mother really did get inside your head, didn’t she?”
“You’re not denying it.”
I don’t say anything for a long time. Too long. Because by the time I’ve started to find some kind of half-assed reply, Olivia is already laughing in my face.
“That’s what I thought,” she scoffs. “At least you’re honest about being a liar.”
She turns back to the door and this time, I let her go. Watch her walk out of the exam room with her head high, shoulders squared, like she’s a queen leaving her kingdom behind to burn.
But I see the tears she’s trying to hide. I see everything she doesn’t want me to see.
And that’s the problem, isn’t it? I’ve always seen too much when it comes to Olivia Aster.
The drive back to the manor is silent except for the hum of the engine and the occasional sound of Olivia’s breathing. She’s pressed herself against the passenger door like she’s trying to merge with it. Put as much distance between us as the confines of this car will allow.
I hate it.
Hate the space. Hate the silence. Hate that she won’t even look at me.
“Do you think we can call a truce, Olivia?”
She finally glances over, eyebrows raised. “A truce?”
“Yeah. You know, that thing where two warring factions agree to stop trying to kill each other long enough to have a civilized conversation.”
Her lips twitch. But she locks it down before a smile can fully form. “Sure, we can.”
I wait for the but. There’s always a but with her.
“But it doesn’t matter. I’m not doing this—by this, I mean us.”
“Because you don’t have feelings for me? Or because you don’t trust me?”
Her fingers find her cuticles, picking at the edges. “Both. Neither. I don’t know.” She picks harder, and I watch a thin line of blood appear. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It’s not over between us.” I reach over and catch her hand, stopping the self-destruction before she hurts herself more. “Or else you wouldn’t be attacking your nails like that.”
She jerks away from my touch. “You don’t know me.”
“I know you’re scared.” I take the turn toward the manor, but I’m in no rush to get there.
The longer I can keep her in this car, the longer I have to fix this.
“I know that you’ve never been in a proper adult relationship before.
That you’ve spent your whole life chasing your mother’s approval and never getting it.
And I know you’re scared to death of failing at anything.
Especially something as important as this. ”
“You have a lot of experience in adult relationships, do you?” she drawls venomously. “Because I’ve got news for you, Stefan: Fucking anything in a skirt doesn’t count.”
“Then we’re perfect for each other, don’t you think?”
She makes a wrenching, sobbing, distorted laughing sound. “We’re not perfect for each other,” she says. “We’re wrong. So, so wrong.”
“Why? Because you don’t trust me?”
“It’s obvious you don’t trust me, either.”
That stops me cold. My hands tighten on the wheel until my knuckles go white. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“You don’t tell me anything real. Anything that matters.
” She shifts in her seat to face me fully.
“You claimed you killed your mother, but you didn’t exactly give me details, did you?
You keep everything locked up tight. You dole out information on a need-to-know basis, but I’m never the one who needs to know, and I’m supposed to just accept that?
Just trust that you’ll tell me what I need to know when you think I’m ready? ”
“I told you I killed my fucking mother!” I roar. “What more do you want?”
“I want you to talk to me like I’m a person you actually care, Stefan. That’s what I want.”
I force myself to breathe. To count to five. Olivia isn’t my mother or my enemy or any of the countless people who’ve tried to destroy me over the years, and I need to remind myself of that.
She’s the woman carrying my child. The woman I lo—
Fuck. I can’t even finish that thought.
“What kind of conversation would you like to have?” I ask through gritted teeth.
“The honest kind. The kind where you actually give me answers and details instead of vague statements designed to shut me up.”
“Did you ever think that maybe the reason I didn’t give you details is not because I don’t trust you, but because I wanted to spare you?”
She blinks. Opens her mouth. Closes it.
“How bad is it?” she asks quietly.
“For someone like you? Pretty bad.”
“Someone like me?” Her hackles are up again. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Someone good. Someone kind, decent… normal.” I risk a glance at her. “I may be an asshole, Olivia, but that doesn’t mean I’m not self-aware. I know I come with baggage. I just didn’t feel the need to force you to carry it, too.”
Her expression softens. Just a fraction. But I see it.
“It’s almost enough to make me forget my original point,” she murmurs.
Then her hand goes to her stomach—protective, instinctive—and I know she’s pulled herself back from whatever cliff I almost talked her off.
“I appreciate the gesture. I do. But I deserve to know what I’m getting myself into.” She sounds calmer now. The worst of it has passed us. “If we’re going to co-parent this child, I need to know who you really are. All of it. Not just the parts you think I can handle.”
She’s right. I know she’s right.
I just wish she wasn’t.
“You’re right. I’ll tell you everything. Whatever you want to know.”
“Right now?”
“No. This is hardly the time or the place to have this conversation.” I gesture at the car, the road, the whole fucking universe conspiring against us. “We can have a frank, open discussion over dinner. Tomorrow?”
Suspicion floods her face immediately. “You’re using this as a pretense to wrangle me into a date.”
“I said dinner. It doesn’t have to be a date.”
“What’s the difference?”
I can’t help the smile that tugs at my lips. “A date implies that there might be sex afterwards. And I don’t expect anything from you. Unless of course, you expect something from me.”
“There will be no sex. Under any circumstances.”
“So even if you beg, I have to say no?”
She glares at me, but there’s heat behind it. Heat that has nothing to do with anger and everything to do with the magnetic pull between us. The thing we both keep trying to deny and failing spectacularly at.
“This is serious, Stefan.”
“And I will be the picture of seriousness at our dinner that’s not a date.”
“It is not a date!”
“It’s a non-date.”
“Let’s call it a business meeting.”
I laugh—can’t help it. “Since our business meetings usually led to sex, I’m not sure that’ll make things any clearer.”
“Stefan—”
“Is that a yes to dinner or not?”
She huffs out a breath, crossing her arms again. But this time, it’s less defensive, more exasperated. Almost playfully so.
“Fine. Yes. Dinner. Tomorrow.”
“I’ll take it.”
We pull through the gates of the manor, and I can already feel her withdrawing again. Pulling back into herself. Building those walls higher.
But I got my yes. That’s something. That’s a start.
“Seven o’clock,” I tell her as I kill the engine. “Wear something nice.”
“It’s not a date,” she reminds me.
“Humor me anyway.”
She opens the door but pauses before getting out and turns back to look at me with those lethal hazel eyes.
“Tomorrow, you tell me everything. No deflecting, no half-truths, no protecting me from things you think I can’t handle.”
“Deal.”
“I mean it, Stefan,” she warns. “If you hold back on me again—”
“I won’t.”
She searches my face for the lie, hunting for whatever trick she’s convinced I’m running.
But there isn’t one. Not this time.
“Okay then.” She slides out of the car, then leans back down to meet my eyes one more time. “Seven o’clock. And Stefan?”
“Yeah?”
“If you try to turn this into something it’s not, if you push me the way you always do—I’m done. For real this time.”