Page 143 of Modern Romance September 2025 5-8

‘I’m not upset.’

‘Then why are you leaving?’

He stopped in the doorway but didn’t answer.

It made no sense.

He made no sense to her.

‘I don’t want to be alone anymore,’ she confessed raggedly to his back.

His step faltered.

‘You kidnapped me,’ she said, standing taller, making her voice clearer. ‘You took me from the life I was readying to live with the baby and put me in your world instead.’ She moved closer to him. Invaded his space. ‘And still I’m alone. Lonely. When you are right there.’

She’d known he needed time initially, as she had, to acclimatise. To settle. And she had settled. She’d opened all the doors, looked in every room, threw off sheets over furniture so beautiful, she’d marvelled it had been hidden, the dust-cloths collecting years of dust.

‘I shouldn’t have to be alone, Sebastian,’ she said, her voice raw, because she knew what she wanted now. What thatmorewas that had been so elusive when he’d asked her about it.

She wanted a companion to be by her side through the small tasks and the big ones to come. She wanted to be there for him too… So why not use the time they had before the baby arrived to cultivate something they both so obviously needed?

Friendship.

He turned to face her, his eyes falling to her stomach. ‘In time, you will never be alone again.’

‘I wantyourtime, Sebastian.’

His eyes lifted to hers.

A low hum of heat gathered in her abdomen.

They could be more than friends.

They could be lovers.

She ached for it. His hands on her body. The fullness of him inside her.

A heated shiver licked at her skin.

‘Have dinner with me?’ she pushed.

His jaw was a throbbing line of stone, and the silence lasted too long.

It was too full, too intense.

‘At eight,’ he said abruptly, and nodded, a single deep dip. He walked out the door without a backward glance. Again.

He was as broken as she was, wasn’t he? They’d both lost so much.

She wrapped her arms around herself, but still she shivered.

If they couldn’t at least be friends…

She’d leave.

CHAPTER SEVEN

SEBASTIAN HADN’T BEENback inside the nursery.