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CHAPTER 40

EMERY

As soon as I’ve said it, I know it’s the wrong moment to break the news to him.

He slides away from me and wraps himself in the bedsheet. “What do you mean?”

I explain about the email, my voice wavering as he stays silent the whole time, his expression unreadable.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I am telling you.”

He nods sharply. “And what we just did? What was that? A parting gift?”

My spine snaps straight and I scramble off the bed, his jersey falling to my knees. I ignore the slide of his seed down the inside of my thighs. “You think I gave you my virginity as a present? Like, see you later ?”

His throat works for a long silent pause before he finally grinds out, “It’s hard not to think that, yes.”

All the air whooshes out of me in a shocked gasp.

And then right on cue, Inessa wakes up. Because that’s life with a toddler. The universe really thought I needed a reminder of what it would mean to love Alexei—no honeymoon period, just a lot of real life. Arguments and misunderstandings and constant interruptions.

It would be real from day one, it already is real, and all the incredible intimacy we just shared now needs to be packed away with this disagreement on top of it.

We both stare at the baby monitor.

“I have to get dressed,” he mutters.

“Wait,” I say. “Please let me?—”

He gives me a disbelieving look that shuts me right up.

I sit down on his bed, heavily, and watch in disbelief as he stalks into the bathroom first, then to his closet. He avoids eye contact with me as he quickly and efficiently transforms back into Inessa’s Dad, and then leaves me alone to wonder if the man who I’d just seen, and held, and loved, was nothing but a mirage.