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‘Well, you shouldn’t from me. Noteverfrom me.’ Her eyes filled. ‘Roman, I will be here for you. I will always be here for you.’

‘I don’t want that,’ he snapped. ‘That’s not what I want.’

She stared at him.

‘This has been a mistake,’ he said. ‘We shouldn’t have—’

‘What? Fallen for each other?’

‘That’s not what’s happened.’

Her heart stopped. ‘You don’t have to face everything alone, Roman.’

He stared at her for a long moment, calculating something behind his eyes that she couldn’t guess at. But it wasn’t good.

‘I’m not alone,’ he said gruffly. ‘I have Alex.’

‘And I just heard your conversation. You guys might be close but you don’t exactly communicate.’

‘We don’t all need to express every inner emotion with endless talkfests or journal entries.’

She blinked. ‘No. But expressing a few aloud mightn’t hurt. Better than bottling them up until the only way they can emerge is when you’re asleep.’

His mouth compressed. ‘I don’t need your support.’

The last thing he’d said to her last night had been a request not to leave him. But now he’d flipped back—from the solace of warmth to flames of fear.Shecouldn’t let fear hold her back from what she really wanted. Not this time.

‘No? Like you didn’t in the middle of the night?’ she challenged him. ‘Last night you asked me not to go. Not to leave you.’

‘I don’t recall,’ he said grimly. ‘I was barely awake.’

Last night had been like a fairy-tale—those glamorous guests, the decorations, the delight in everyone’s eyes. It had been lovely. But when she’d seen him walk in she’d been stunned—not because he’d looked so unbearably handsome, but because she’d known it had been a supreme act of courage, the choicenotto be alone in that moment. Especially when he’d explained everything. But today?

‘Then let me remind you,’ she said huskily. ‘You were brave last night. When you realised you didn’t want to be alone. When you came to find me. That took courage. Now you’re pushing me away. You’re running, retreating back to emotional isolation, because you’re hurt and you don’t want to be hurt any more.’

She knew it wasn’t the time to be saying any of this. To lay this on him when he had a big enough emotional burden to deal with today. But Violet had lost her ability to control her emotions. She felt for him too much. And she didn’t want to see him shut down from her again. She was terrified he’d never come back. Not the way she wanted him to.

‘That’s not what I’m doing,’ he said.

‘It’s exactly that.’

‘Last night was the result of a lack of sleep, and the fact is I sleep better alone.’ He huffed out a breath. ‘Look, we need to appreciate the reality. You’re pregnant, but you’re right—we shouldn’t get married. It was an old-fashioned impulse that’s taken me some time to untangle. We’ll live apart, but I’ll obviously support you both. But there won’t be anything more between us.’

Violet gaped. Then it hit—bursting the remnants of her heart apart. ‘You’re a zombie. An actual, bloodless zombie just going through the motions of life. You have no warmth. No heart. You don’t just want to shut me out. You shut everyone out—Linda and Dennis. Are you going to do this to your sister too?’

‘I’m going to apologise to her.’

‘For what? You really think you could have stopped what happened? You really think you’re responsible for everything? You wereten years old. Not strong. Not powerful. And even now you’re super-wealthy, super-successful, super...’ She shook her head. ‘You’re not in control of everything and everyone.No oneis. Accidents happen. Illness happens. Bad shit happens. You can’t claim credit for all of it.’

He threw her a furious look.

‘Deal with it, Roman. Accept that it happened and it was awful. Just awful. But move forward, live life, because there’s only the one.’

‘Like you do, you mean?’ He scoffed. ‘Your goal of “living in the moment” is simply a way to avoid making any really difficult decisions. You’re terrified of putting faith into any future plans.’

Maybe that had been true earlier. Before he’d given her confidence in her self—in her choices, in her ability to fight. Before she’d realised her own feelings. ‘I would have put my faith in you,’ she argued. ‘In us.’

‘Thereisno us.’


Tags: Natalie Anderson Billionaire Romance