Page 76

Two hours later,we reenter the neurologist’s office. Delilah darts off to use the bathroom while Silas rounds on me with a subtler curve of his lips.

“I stand corrected. You’re wrapped around her finger but you’re also in love with her.”

“How many incorrect declarations you plan on making today? The fuck is wrong with you?” I sweep my gaze around the vestibule, checking for nosy bystanders.

Holding a hand over his heart, he narrows his focus on me. “I know these are new emotions for you, so let me explain them in terms you understand.”

High-handed gibberish flows from his lips, but his last question snaps me back.

“Have you slept with her?”

“How is that any of your business?”

He lifts his shoulder. “I’m her doctor. You can thank yourself for that,” he points out in answer to my scowl. “I only ask because we could get her in for a birth control consultation. Just because you like her doesn’t mean she needs to be afflicted with your child anytime soon.”

Likeher?

That word doesn’t seem anywhere near adequate…

But my mind snags on something else, my voicedropping to an offended whisper, “Why did you say afflicted like having my baby is some kind of illness?”

“Because itwouldbe.”

“Fuck you. I haven’t had sex with her.” That doesn’t mean it hasn’t crossed my mind every single day and night. In the last six weeks, I’ve found more relief in my hand alone than I had with anybody in the past five years.

My sex drive had always been an afterthought. I thought it was because I worked so much and found people to be more trouble than they were worth. Now I know it’s because I needed more than a physical connection to get me there. I didn’t feel anything with other women because they didn’tfillme with anything.

But Delilah.

She fills me with rage.

With lust.

With longing.

With curiosity.

With the desire to be somebody worth her rage. Her lust. Her longing. Her infinite curiosity.

My libido isn’t a problem with her in the picture.

All Delilah had to do was scowl at me and I needed twenty minutes alone in my shower. The amount of strawberry body wash I’d gone through…

“Does she know about Chiara?”

Hearing my future fiancée’s name quells the rising swell of my arousal and an unwelcome sensation burns the back of my throat.

I know for a fact that Delilah had her period last week. I know what food she likes and, more importantly, the food she avoids. I know she loves the sun and dogs and hates reading because it was all she could do to pass the days for so long. I know she likes dresses, that piano medleys makeher sleepy and she likes bright colors that remind her of summer as much as she likes pastels.

All these things are imprinted in my mind. I can recite them without hesitation or prompting.

But Chiara.

Fuck, I don’t even know her favorite color.

I’m sure Victor put a folder together with that info somewhere and I couldn’t be bothered to look at it.

Another wave of uneasiness crashes into me.