Page 153 of Modern Romance September 2025 5-8

They both looked down at his hands. To the source of his pain.

‘You are more than your hands,’ she breathed.

‘I am not!’ he roared. The pain in each word ricocheted through her chest until it landed inside her heart. And she hurt for him. Desperately.

And she did what she knew she shouldn’t. She brought his hand to her mouth and kissed his knuckles.

‘Aurora…’ he husked deeply. But he didn’t tell her to stop, so she didn’t. She did the same to his other hand. Kissed each knuckle, each joint that wouldn’t work for him the way he wanted them to. The way he knew they used to work.

She was no artist. But she was human. A woman who had to learn to change, to adapt, to her growing body. To teach her mind to think differently, to react differently, because she had changed,waschanging, physically, emotionally, all the time…

She raised her eyes to his and said the only thing she could.

‘If they do not work the same, if your hands do notfeelthe same,’ she said, ‘then they are changed, Sebastian. Listen to them.’

‘They are not changed,’ he said, rejected her idea. ‘They are my hands. The same hands I have always had for forty years. I will always have them, as they are.’

‘No,’ she replied. ‘New York, it happened to us both. I’m changed because of it.’ Her gaze dropped to his lips. ‘I am changed because of you. Perhaps you are changed because of me, too.’

‘It is not the same,’ he said. ‘You are pregnant.’

‘I’m not talking about the baby.’ She released his right hand. ‘I’m talking about in here,’ she said, and brought his left hand to her chest. She held it flat against the drum of her heart.

‘After…after we were together,’ she continued. ‘I knew I could never go back. I could never go back to the Aurora who said “please” and “thank you” for all the things I didn’t want. I would never again hold my tongue in fear of offending someone else with my opinion. Or be someone I’m not.

‘I listened to my body—to my mind,’ she continued, wanting him to understand he wasn’t broken. He was never broken. He was changing. ‘I let the changes happen. I am letting them happen right now, here, with you.’

‘I do not want to change. I can’t.’

‘You can.’

‘No. I can’t.’ He pulled his hand from her chest, and she felt hollow without it. Her skin, her breasts ached for his touch.

But she let him go. She let him retreat.

‘I’ll call someone to escort you back down the tower staircase.’

‘I’m not going anywhere!’ she said. She wouldn’t leave. Not yet.

‘Fine.Iwill take you down myself,’ he said.

‘I won’t let you send me away again,’ she said. Even though his need to see her safe, the fact he cared about her, touched her deeply.

‘Talk to me,’ she urged. ‘Tell me, why? Why won’t you embrace change? Your body wants it. Your hands need it,’ she told him, a tremble taking hold of her core. She suppressed it.

‘I won’t let it happen,’ he said. ‘I will not change. Not for my hands. Not for you.’

‘Why is it so difficult for you to spend time with me?’ she asked, forgetting everything she’d promised herself she wouldn’t do, forgetting the pep talk she’d given herself about not pushing him too hard. But he needed to be pushed. ‘Why do you keep fighting my attempts to build a bond between us? Why are you fighting the chemistry between us? You don’t have to.’

‘I do,’ he growled, not with just his chest but his whole body.

‘Because you don’t want to get hurt again,’ she concluded for him. ‘Because your family died? People die, Sebastian. My brother and my parents are dead. Death doesn’t mean you have to push people away. You don’t have to push me away.’

His chest swelled. ‘But I must,’ he said roughly, and his fists clenched at his sides. His body turning into solid, immovable stone.

‘Why?’

His nostrils flared. His jaw squared.