Page 178 of Modern Romance September 2025 5-8

He had to make himself do it.For her.He lifted his hand and cradled her cheek. Stroked the pad of his thumb across her sculpted cheekbone.

‘Sebastian…’

He leaned in until her dark lashes fluttered closed and her lips parted.

It would be so easy to close his eyes, too. To lean in those few last millimetres and claim her kiss. Claim her. Keep her here with him. But he couldn’t. He knew this now.

She deserved everything.

Everything he couldn’t give her.

What kind of life would she have with him? If he put his ring on her finger, what kind of life would his child have?

They deserved to live their life fully. Free. And he’d only shackle them. Keep them on the fringes, on the outside of life. Where he belonged.

But they didn’t.

She didn’t.

He would set her free.

‘I will never love you,’ he breathed, the words between her parted lips.

Her eyes flew open.

‘Sebastian—’

He tightened his fingers, held her face, made her look at him.

‘You think this is love?’ He laced his voice with mockery, but he was only mocking himself. Because he loved her. Needed her like air.

‘It was never love. It could never be love. Not between us. I brought you here to imprison you because of my baby. Never for you. Only the child. You mean nothing to me.’

‘Liar!’ she spat into his mouth.

He was a liar. It was never all about the baby. It had always been about her. But he would tell a thousand lies to save her from a life with him. He now knew it wouldn’t be a life at all.

Not the life she deserved.

‘I do not love you,’ he said again, each word raw in his throat, his body, his mind, rejecting them as false.

It would be the only truth she knew. The only truth he would give her.

‘All you are to me,’ he said, and his heart raged in protest, ‘is an incubator for my heir.’

She gasped, and he felt the agony in it. But it was nothing compared to the agony she’d experience if he told her his truth. That his love would suffocate her.

She loosened her hold. Released his hand. And he felt the loss of her grip deep in his bones, as if her small, delicate fingers were the only thing holding him on his feet. But he did the same. He dropped his hand from her face. He stepped back. Away from her.

He would not take her with him.

‘It was all a game to you?’ she said, her eyes weeping angry tears. She swiped them away with a stiff wrist. ‘You played me to get the baby?’

‘Yes,’ he said, his body urging him to drop to his knees and beg her forgiveness. To tell her he wasn’t worthy. He was sorry.

But he couldn’t.

‘Was italla lie?’ she asked.