Page 75 of Modern Romance September 2025 5-8

‘So badly did I want to paint,’ he continued, ‘so badly did I need an outlet for my pain that I left her. I left her at home. I locked her in her room to keep her safe, and then I snuck out. I thought she would be safe if I locked the door. If I kept them out.’

‘Who out?’ she asked, but he didn’t hear.

‘I thought… I promised myself I would only be out for an hour, and I was. But when I returned…she was gone. The fire has taken everything. I could have stopped it. I could have protected her if I’d have been there. If I hadn’t been so selfish.’

‘Your sister died in a fire?’

‘She did,’ he confirmed, and Aurora’s heart broke for him.

Losing her parents had been hard. She had grieved. But losing Michael had been a different kind of a grief. A deeper pain.

‘Sebastian…’

He dropped his hands to his sides and looked at her. The mist was gone, but the shadows lurked in his eyes.

‘My hands do what I tell them to now,’ he said. ‘I create to please others now. I create for the people who need to see the light beyond their own darkness. I do not make art for me anymore. It is for them. For her.’

‘For Amelia?’ she asked.

‘Yes!’ he hissed. ‘However unnatural it feels, I will keep my hands under control. Under my control.’

‘You’re punishing yourself?’

‘I deserve it,’ he said. ‘My whole family is dead because I failed to protect them. And I failed you, too. I pushed you away in New York. I left you all alone and pregnant.’

‘You didn’t fail me,’ she said. ‘You are a gift.’

‘I am no one’s gift ,’ he snarled. ‘But I will not fail again. I will not fail you . I will not make the same mistake.’ He stepped back, away from her. ‘I will keep my distance from you. I will keep my hands away. I will keep my head. Danger will never find you or our child.’

‘Why would danger find us?’ She stepped forward.

Followed him. ‘We’re safe. You have made us safe.

There’s no one here but us. No one wants to hurt us…

’ Her body trembled, and her hand shook, but she made herself lift it.

She pressed it to his chest, to the solid, unmoving muscle.

‘I am here. Safe.’ He inhaled deeply, and she felt it beneath his skin. He trembled too.

Aurora reached for his hand, and he let her claim it. Let her place it on the evidence of what they had made together.

Something beautiful.

Life.

‘The baby is safe,’ she assured him. ‘There is no danger here. It is only us. Only what we could be. A family. A mother and father who are here for their child and each other. Friends. More. ’

‘Do you think because I live in a house, with a bed, I am civilised?’ Sebastian murmured. ‘You believe I’m safe? I was raised on the streets since I was fifteen. I’m not civilised. I am not safe.’

‘Is that when it happened?’ she asked. ‘The fire?’

‘It doesn’t matter when it happened, it happened. I am still that man. That boy born into depravity, raised on the streets. You do not know me, Aurora. You do not know what I’m capable of. You do not want me to be your friend. Or lover. I am not capable of being either.’

‘I think you are,’ she countered, and her voice shook.

‘I know you’re a man of duty. A man who pretends not to care, but you care, deeply.

You cared enough in the garden the night we met to help me through my grief.

You are the man who cared about his unborn child enough to kidnap me.

A man who donates the vast proceeds from his art to charity. You care whether or not you like it.’

‘You are wrong.’

‘I’m not,’ she said. ‘I’ve never been more right. So why not embrace it, Sebastian? Embrace this change? Embrace us?’

‘Please go, Aurora,’ he begged, but his hand remained on her stomach. All five tense digits curved around their baby.

He needed more time to accept this change that was happening between them.

‘Okay.’ She stood tall on the balls of her feet and leaned past the bump between them. ‘One kiss and I’ll go. If you still want me to.’

And she knew her words were an echo of that night. They both remembered how one kiss had not been enough.

He said nothing, but he didn’t stop her as she leaned in. As she braced herself on his shoulders. And this time, she didn’t aim for his cheek. She aimed for his mouth. For the kiss she needed to take. To give. To him.

She closed her eyes, and she kissed him with everything she had. She let him know she was here. With him.

She broke the seal of their mouths. Opened her eyes and met his.

‘Listen to them,’ she husked. ‘Your hands, your body. Trust them and touch me the way you want to touch me. Kiss me the way you want to kiss me.’

He closed his eyes. His face contorted into a thousand lines of resistance. And she wanted to reach for each one, smooth them with her fingers. Her kisses.

‘I do not know how,’ he rasped, and pressed his forehead against hers. ‘I do not trust myself to take only enough. I do not trust myself not to hurt you.’

‘I trust you. All of you,’ she told him. And she did. In ways she’d trusted no one.

Not only with her body, or her desires, but with her vulnerabilities, with the truth. However scared it made her feel, he’d allowed her to speak her truth from the moment they’d met. He’d allowed her to be honest with him about her wants, her needs.

She needed him now

And he needed her.

‘Trust yourself, Sebastian,’ she breathed. ‘And—’

When she paused, he raised his head and stared into her eyes.

‘Kiss me,’ she demanded. ‘Kiss me now.’

‘It will be more than one kiss,’ he admitted, voice raw.

‘I know.’

‘It will be… more .’

‘I want more.’

He released a roar of both victory and defeat, and pressed his lips to hers.

And Aurora opened for him, took his pain and swallowed it whole.

And she recognised the taste. It was an echo of her scream given back to her.

The scream that had come from her when she’d thought she was all alone in the gardens the night they’d met.

But she hadn’t been alone. Just as he was not alone now.

And she heard him, not only with her ears, not only with her body.

But with her heart.