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She blinked, her own eyes prickling as he leaned over and brushed a kiss over her temple. ‘He’s beautiful. As are you,’ he murmured.
Her fingers tightened within his, her racing heart screaming everything she wanted to say and was terrified to.
The doctor’s following words barely registered, but Sergios’s entrance into the suite broke her momentarily out of the urgency biting at her.
‘A healthy grandchild is all I have prayed for,’ he said. ‘But I am looking forward to teaching my grandson a thing or two about classic engines,’ he added with his customary eye twinkle. Then his expression grew serious. ‘Along with a few life lessons about not repeating your mistakes. You know?’
His stare bored into his son’s, then drifted to her. It was the most pointed he’d ever been, and that urgency dug into her harder.
Which made it all the more disconcerting when she tracked Ares down two short hours later and saw the open suitcase.
‘You’re leaving?’
She hated how much her voice shook. How hollow her chest felt already. It was a testament to how she’d grown to long for his scraps of occasional affection that she’d mourn his absence.
He looked up, his fingers tightening momentarily on one of the ultrasound photos they’d been given. ‘Yes.’ His lips tightened. ‘I’ll be back in a few days.’
She lifted her hand to brush back her hair, and the tanzanite bracelet and marching necklace she’d crafted at a local jewellery workshop should have reminded her how much she felt at home here. Today it only reminded her of how long she’d been in this gilded paradise. That its beauty couldn’t take the place of what her heart truly craved.
‘Okay, this has gone on long enough,’ she told him. ‘How long do I have to stay here?’
He tossed another shirt into the case. ‘Until your safety is guaranteed.’
‘And until then, what? We’re going to keep playing this hot and cold but mostly cold game?’
She almost wanted to laugh at how bewildered he looked. Then she wanted to grieve. Because this level of ignorance meant she didn’t mean as much to him as her heart yearned to.
‘What are you talking about?’
Dio, she hated how steady, how utterly commanding he was, while she floundered so desperately. The only time Ares seemed to be moved by anything was when it pertained to her pregnancy. Or when her needs got the better of her and she sought his touch.
Well, she was sick of it. And also sickened that this conversation needed to happen.
‘You can barely look me in the face. When I enter a room, you leave within minutes.’ Her voice choked. ‘You’re showing the traits of my father, Ares. And, yes, you might find it offensive to be compared to him, but that’s my only yardstick. And guess what? It’s just as deplorable when you do it.’
His face lost several shades, and even his eyes snapped in affront. ‘Odessa—’
‘No. I won’t live like this any more. Tell me what I’ve done or I’m leaving—even if I have to swim a hundred miles to get to land.’
He dragged his fingers through his hair. ‘I gave you a choice. You made it clear you would use it—use me—only sparingly. I’m guessing I have your pregnancy hormones to thank for that consideration?’
Her jaw dropped. ‘Wait... Are you accusing me of using you for s-sex? I didn’t see you complaining when—’ She stopped, her face flaming.
His hands raked through his hair, then he shrugged. ‘Something is better than nothing, I guess.’
Her mortification grew. ‘Ares...’
His face tightened at whatever it was he heard in her voice. ‘I don’t require your pity or—’
‘That’s good, because I wasn’t about to offer it,’ she snapped, and then the greater need to settle this once and for all drove her closer to him. She almost reached for him, but a lifetime of rejection loomed large, so she kept her hands balled at her sides. ‘Look, can we agree that sex isn’t really our problem?’
He stiffened, his eyes narrowing, but she caught something on the edges of his expression. Anticipation? Hope?
‘Then what is our problem?’ he asked.
She pressed her lips together, then made the plea. ‘Have faith. In me.’
In us.
