Page 162 of Modern Romance September 2025 5-8

And she wouldn’t let him do it again. Hide from her.

For two weeks, they had been together. They’d shared every meal. They had touched. Kissed. Every night, he’d climbed into her bed beside her, learnt her body and she his with a famished, ravenous intensity.

But talk? They’d shared words, talked about the baby, shared pleasantries about their meals…but she had still not passed the surface level of Sebastian.

And she wanted in. She wanted in desperately.

‘Don’t,’ she said, and reached for his hand, pulled it away from his eyes and drew it towards her. Held it.

His eyes shuttered. ‘Don’t what?’

‘Don’t hide from me.’

‘I’m right here.’ He dragged his free hand through his hair. ‘Where I have been every day, every night, for two weeks? With you.’

He pulled his hand free from her grasp, shifted his hips backwards and sat up against the intricately designed wooden headboard spanning the width of the bed and reaching to the ceiling.

He turned to her, opened his arms wide. ‘Come,’ he said. ‘Come here.’

Thunder rumbled. More quietly now. The storm was moving. But Aurora understood she had a choice. She could crawl between his legs, sit on his lap and let him stir her tired body to life.

Or she could invite the storm inside.

Ignoring the heat stirring in her pelvis, she made a choice.

‘No,’ she said.

He turned from her, flipped on the beside lamp. The room filled with a soft amber artificial light. But he didn’t reach for her again. He dropped his hands into his lap covered by the white sheet, low on his lips.

He arched a brow. ‘No?’

She inhaled deeply, straightened her spine, and said more firmly, ‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because you’re hurting.’

‘I am not in pain.’

‘But you were,’ she pointed out. ‘And your body remembers it, even if you don’t want to acknowledge it. Youstillhurt enough for it to infiltrate your dreams.’

‘It’s only a dream.’ He dismissed her with a flippant wave of his hand.

‘It’s your mind, consciously or subconsciously,’ she said tightly, ‘and it’s telling you—’

‘It tells me nothing I don’t already know.’

‘But I don’t know,’ she reminded him. ‘And I want to. I want to know what your sister was like?’

‘What does it matter what she was like?’ he snarled, baring perfectly white teeth. ‘She’s dead.’

‘But you’re not.’ She swallowed. ‘And your sister lives inside you. In your dreams…’ She blew out a breath, wanting him to understand, to let him know she understood, even if she didn’t know all the facts, but she didn’t know how to do it. How to show him.

‘Do you talk about her?’ she asked.‘Ever?’

‘No.’

‘I don’t talk about Michael either. I thought it would hurt too much. Itdidhurt in the gardens when I told you a little of him, of our relationship, and what happened to him. But I didn’t tell you everything, and I… I think it hurts more not tell it. To not talk about him. All of him. Not just his death.’