Chapter 26

Victoria

It was late before we returned from the hospital. To give Adrian peace of mind, I had let the doctor poke and prod at me. My numbers had still been high when I had first gotten to the emergency room, but by the time I had been released, they had stabilized. The doctor did nothing that I wasn’t expecting, and I got a lecture from the tetchy old man and his nurse on taking better care of myself before he would sign the release papers.

Anya had shown up at the ER not long after we had arrived. After she had seen I was in good hands, and that her brother wasn’t in the best of moods after what I had just put him through, she made a quick escape. But not before I made her promise not to tell my brother. That was all I needed right then, for Cristiano to freak out and tell Papa. Then they would both come down on my head for being so irresponsible.

I got that I had been stupid, that it was dangerous to do what I had done. I had learned my lesson a million times over, and I wasn’t planning on ever repeating the mistake.

Scaring Adrian, who I knew didn’t scare easily, was enough to show me just how wrong I had been not to have told him in the beginning of our relationship. The look on his face when he had realized what was wrong with me—and not because of some fucking drug overdose—had proven to me that he loved me and had been terrified I was going to leave him forever.

Now he knew, and although he had told me he wanted me to teach him about my illness and what to look for should I have another episode, the way he normally was with me hadn’t changed. It put my fear to rest about him not wanting me if he found out how sick I could get with my illness.

“Ready for bed?” Adrian murmured as we climbed the stairs to our room once we were home again.

“Ready for bed, but not ready to sleep.” I looked up at him from under my lashes, giving him a sassy half-smirk.

He stopped short halfway up the stairs.

With a hungry growl deep in his throat, he swept his arm under my legs and lifted me like I weighed nothing at all. He buried his face in my neck, making me giggle, when I didn’t think it was possible to laugh after the night we had just had.

“I was hoping you weren’t tired, kotyonok. Because I am starving for you.”

I didn’t remember the rest of the walk to our room.

As soon as he placed me in the middle of our bed, he was falling onto me. His lips were everywhere, his hands pushing my clothes out of his way in his desperation to get to the skin underneath. I tore at his shirt, needing to touch him, but he had other plans.

Moan after moan was pulled from me as he lowered himself between my legs and latched on to my clit. His hunger for me had only escalated after the night before, as if he was just as much an addict for me as I was for him. He licked and nipped and made me cry his name, begging him for more before he was sinking deep into my body.

Then, he stopped. Just stopped. His breaths came in quick, sharp pants. There was determination in his dark eyes, but underneath, I saw what he probably didn’t want me to see. The doubt, the fear.

Those two emotions were something I knew he didn’t feel often. I knew, too, that he hated to let anyone see his weaknesses, yet he couldn’t hide it from me.

I stroked a hand down his cheek, wondering what had put that intense expression on his face. “What’s wrong?”

“Marry me,” he commanded.

“What?” I laughed, thinking he was out of his mind. He had just gotten his divorce papers signed; no way he would want to rush into another marriage so soon. “You just got rid of one wife, and you want to bind yourself to another?”

He wasn’t laughing. “I would give anything to bind myself to you for the rest of my life. I love you. I want you as my wife. I want us to give Theo a family. And I want more just like him to fill this house.”

More kids.

He wanted more kids. But as much as I wanted to give them to him, I would never be able to.

Adrian was offering me a lifetime with him, yet my heart was breaking because I would never be able to give him everything he wanted.

“Get off me,” I whispered, suddenly unable to breathe.

“What? What is it?”

“Get off me!” I cried, pushing at his shoulders.

He pulled out of me and pushed back onto his knees, his face a mask of concern.

As soon as his weight was off me, I hurriedly climbed off the bed, searching for something to cover my nakedness. Tears spilled silently down my face as I kept my back to him, not sure if I could do this after everything else that had already happened that night.

“Kotyonok, what did I say?” I could hear him moving behind me, but I couldn’t turn to face him. I couldn’t handle what he had just said. I couldn’t handle any of this.

He had proposed to me—or in true Adrian fashion, had commanded it—something I didn’t think would ever happen with us. Even though it was what I wanted, I couldn’t give him what he wanted in return.

My tears blinded me as I moved around the bedroom. I couldn’t look at him, couldn’t tell him that as much as I would have loved to have given him more little Theos to fill this big, beautiful house with, I couldn’t.

He caught me around the waist and carried me back to the bed. “You’re maddening, you know that? Do you take pleasure in twisting me like this?”

“Of course not,” I whispered. “I love you.”

“Then why haven’t you said yes?” There was real pain in his voice now, his eyes pleading down at me for an answer that I wasn’t sure I could give him right then without breaking into a million pieces at his feet.

Sitting on the end of the mattress, he pulled me between his legs before locking them behind my knees so I couldn’t run away. Clasping my hands in both of his, he lifted them to his lips then placed them on his chest, holding them there. “Talk to me, Victoria. I don’t know what I did wrong if you don’t tell me.”

I tipped my head back, trying to hold back the tears, but they fell anyway. “It’s not anything you did. You’re perfect. I love you. It’s me. I’m the defective one. I can’t …”

I felt his heart stop under my fingertips, his body stiffening. “You can’t, what?” His voice was lower, as if he were afraid to speak any louder. As if he were afraid of my answer.

“I can’t give you what you want,” I told him, finally forcing myself to look at him. I had survived telling him about my illness, but I didn’t think he understood the full extent of what it meant. Of what my body could and couldn’t do because of it.

“I want a lot of things, but what I want most is for you to marry me. Are you refusing me?” He tightened his hands over my fingers still resting on his chest. “Are you saying no?”

“I want to marry you,” I whispered, breaking a little more on the inside. “I want that so much it hurts to breathe. But, I can’t … We can’t ever have children. I can’t give you that, cuore mio.”

Understanding lit his eyes. “Because of your diabetes?”

I nodded, the tears falling in rivers down my cheeks.

He released a relieved breath. “Fuck, love, I thought you were telling me you wouldn’t marry me.”

“I would marry you tomorrow if I could,” I confessed, tracing my fingers over his heart that was beating wildly now. “I would love to raise Theo with you here in this house, but I can’t give you the rest, Adrian. We can never have our own children. My kidneys are already feeling the strain of my disease and there is a big possibility I will need a new one before I reach thirty.”

“I love you, not what you can or can’t give me. I don’t want a child if it means putting you at risk.” He lifted my hands to his lips again, pressing a deep kiss to the backs of each one, his eyes trapping and holding mine. “We will raise Theo as our own. That’s all I need, kotyonok. You and my brother’s son are all I will every need.”

My knees felt weak with relief and love for him. I fell against his chest, wrapping my arms around his neck as I kissed him, putting everything I felt into every brush of my lips on his.

He dropped his hands to my waist, pulling me up onto his lap. I automatically straddled his waist, feeling his still hard cock pulse against my inner thigh once, before he was pushing it up into my pussy.

Catching hold of my hair, he pulled on it until our gazes locked. “Marry me.”

“Yes,” I breathed, then moaned as he pushed deeper into me. “Yes, Adrian, I’ll marry you.”

He flipped me onto my back, then thrust into me roughly, as if he had lost the control he normally had over himself. “Fuck, I love you, kotyonok.”

I couldn’t repeat the words because I was too busy screaming his name as I came for the first time.

The first of many that night.