Page 114 of Filthy Rich Silver Foxes

Thinking about you. Hope today wasn’t too hard.

Let me know if you need anything. I’m here.

I don’t get the demands I expected. He makes no attempt to pressure me. Just...patience and the space I asked for.

For days, I wait for him to slip. For the tightly reined patience to snap and reveal the possessive, dominant man I met on the island. The man who took what he wanted without apology. But he never does.

He gives me space—but never so much that I forget he's there.

And I don’t forget. Not for a second.

It’s unsettling, the way he manages to stay in my orbit without pushing. I try to ignore it. I throw myself into work. Into the endless lists and deadlines that used to be enough to fill the spaces inside me. But there’s a crack now, a hollow spot where certainty used to live, and no amount of busywork can patch it.

I think about him when I’m folding laundry. When I’m answering emails. When I’m lying in bed, staring at the ceiling with Silas’s arm slung heavy around my waist and Max’s breathing slow and steady beside me.

I think about the way he looked at me outside the restaurant—the devastation carved into every hard line of his face. I think about the way his hands shook when he reached for the ultrasound photo.

I think about the man who was so terrified of failing me that he almost let me go for good.

And somehow, without even realizing it, the anger starts to bleed out of me. The raw, festering resentment dulls to something quieter.

I’m still angry. Of course I am. Unexpected pregnancy or not, the man left me with a note and refused to answer any of my calls or texts. But underneath it, there’s something else. Something heavier and harder to outrun.

I miss him.

So, when he shows up at my door five days later, standing awkwardly on the welcome mat with a bag of takeout in one hand and that same hesitant, almost boyish smile on his face, I don't hesitate.

I step aside and let him in.

I accept the unspoken truce wrapped in the smell of sesame chicken and fried rice. We eat mostly in silence, the only sounds the occasional scrape of chopsticks against the cardboard and the low hum of the city bleeding through the windows. It’s awkward. Stilted. But it’s also...manageable.

Sebastian doesn’t try to fill the space with small talk or apologies. He doesn’t demand answers. He just eats. And watches me.

I’m the one who cracks first.

“Did you always know how to use chopsticks, or is that part of your billionaire training?” I ask, forcing a small smile as I wrangle a piece of broccoli between my chopsticks.

He glances up, a corner of his mouth lifting. “My mother insisted. Said if I was going to embarrass the family name, it wouldn’t be because I couldn’t manage dinner utensils.”

The joke is dry, almost too dry, but it softens something inside me. I shake my head, picking at my food. “Sounds exhausting.”

“It was.”

“Where your parents strict when you were growing up?”

“You can’t even imagine…” He goes on to tell me a story about how he was required to read the classics and then present “book reports” about each one of them in front of his parents. He hated it with a passion, but he said he’s certain that’s part of why he has been so successful in business.

“They taught me about persistence and never quitting.”

The silence that falls between us after that isn’t as uncomfortable. I don’t know if I can forgive him yet. I don’t even know if I want to. But sitting here, watching him try so hard not to crowd me, not to make demands, I remember all the pieces of him that made me fall in the first place. The man who kissed me like I was something precious. The way he made promises without speaking a word.

I push the food away after a few more bites, my appetite a casualty of all my intense emotions.

Sebastian doesn’t comment. He just leans back slightly, giving me more space without making it feel like distance.

“I should go,” he says eventually, his voice low.

I nod, the motion jerky, conflicted. Some part of me wants to ask him to stay. To crawl into his lap, to bury my face in his chest, and let him carry some of this weight. But I can’t. Not yet.