Her hand came to his shoulder, not pushing him away, but stopping him.
He stilled at once.
“What is it,” he asked, voice low, careful.
She swallowed, heart pounding. This was the moment. If she did not speak now, she never would.
“Have ye changed yer mind,” she asked softly, “about having an heir.”
The words hung between them.
Maxwell’s mouth brushed her neck again, distracted, as if the question had not fully reached him.
“Nay,” he said.
The word was immediate. Unthinking.
Final.
Ariella went still.
Her hands fell from his chest.
Her breath caught somewhere deep and would not come back.
Maxwell felt the change at once. He lifted his head, frowning slightly. “Ariella?”
She stared past him, at the stone wall behind his shoulder, because if she looked at him she would break.
The room felt suddenly too small.
Too warm.
She should have known better.
That was the cruelest part.
She had known from the beginning. He had told her plainly. He had never hidden it, never softened it for her sake. And still, she had let herself believe that something had changed.
That she had changed him.
She sat up slowly, creating space between them, though every instinct screamed against it.
“I am sorry,” she said, and hated how thin her voice sounded.
Maxwell straightened at once. “For what?”
“For forgetting meself.”
His brows drew together. “Ariella, I —”
She shook her head, unable to bear whatever he was about to say. “Ye’ve been clear. From the start. I am the one who hoped.”
She swung her legs over the side of the bed, pressing her feet to the cold stone as if grounding herself.
“This was a mistake,” she continued quietly. “I shouldnae have let it happen again.”
Maxwell’s hand lifted, hovering, uncertain. “Ye’re shaking.”
