Page 67 of Beautiful Torment (Empire of Kings #1)

ABELLA

A ngelo slips into bed, his warmth pressing against me as he wraps an arm around my waist. When I feel his erection, my body stiffens.

I don’t want to tell him.

I really can’t bear to see that familiar flicker of disappointment in his eyes. I’ve let this go on for far too long, and I don’t know what the hell I’m doing anymore. It’s reckless, stupid, and selfish.

He deserves to know the truth, but every time I consider telling him, it makes me want to vomit.

“What is it?” he asks.

I close my eyes and release a shaky breath. “I started bleeding.”

It’s light, but it’s there.

His muscles coil with tension, and we linger in that silence for a long moment before he releases me.

“Let’s go to sleep.”

He rolls onto his back and stares up at the ceiling, leaving me without his warmth. I stay on my side so he can’t see how close to tears I am.

Everything about this situation is unfair, and sometimes it feels like I’m being punished, but I don’t know why.

After I got my diagnosis, I went down the internet rabbit hole, scouring forums for even the smallest sign of hope. But all I found was despair in the vacuous echo of empty platitudes women with infertility hear every day.

Everything happens for a reason. It could always be worse. Be happy with what you have. Maybe it’s not meant to be.

I read story after story of marriages destroyed, painful losses, and aching emptiness that never goes away. It only confirmed what I already understood from observing my own parents. In the Mafia world, if you can’t bear children, your value is less than zero.

I stopped hoping things would work out for me when I let Angelo go. I tried to do the right thing, so he could eventually fulfill the treaty and have everything he’d always wanted.

I needed him to loathe me because I wasn’t strong enough to stay away on my own. Matteo offered the perfect solution with our arrangement. It would guarantee Angelo’s hatred and my protection from other marriage prospects.

Between the two of us, we reached a private agreement that it would only be temporary. My father, on the other hand, believed I’d marry Matteo and accept that he’d reproduce with other women.

It was never an option I would have chosen for myself.

Angelo has always been my home, and now that I have him back, I can’t imagine my life without him. But it isn’t my choice to make.

When I think about him with someone else—having all the things we were supposed to have together—I just feel so fucking broken.

I’m in love with him.

And I can’t give him the future we planned.

A silent tear streaks down my face, and I let myself have that one. Then I force myself to close my eyes and lock that pain away for another day.

Something stirs me from my sleep, and after a moment, I realize the sound is coming from the bathroom.

I sit up, blinking into the darkness until my eyes adjust. The bathroom door is cracked, light leaking out beneath it, and I can hear drawers being opened inside. When I glance at the empty space beside me, it feels like a gut punch. Somehow, I already know what he’s doing.

I climb out of bed and pad to the bathroom door. When I open it, Angelo is standing in front of the vanity. Every drawer is open, and all my things are on the counter. He’s looking for something he’s not going to find.

“What are you doing?” I rasp.

He presses both of his palms onto the counter and exhales a frustrated breath.

“Are you on birth control?”

“No.”

“Don’t fuck with me on this,” he growls. “You know what’s at stake. If you’re lying to me?—”

“Don’t talk to me about the stakes.” My voice wavers. “You have no idea what I want, or how badly. You couldn’t even imagine how much I ache with it.”

“Because you won’t fucking tell me!” He slams his fist onto the counter. “Goddammit, Abella.”

“You sound just like my father.”

I regret the words the moment they leave my lips, but it doesn’t matter. The damage is done.

He stalks out of the bathroom, and I call after him, but he doesn’t stop.

I don’t blame him.

My father was a monster, and Angelo is nothing like him. I don’t know why I said it, but this is the fear that lives in my mind. A marriage where I end up just like my mother—waiting for her husband to come home, only to realize he’s still having babies …with other women.

When I press a hand against my abdomen, I can’t hold back my grief. This is the beginning of the end.

I’m going to lose him.

Again.