He stands. Pulls me up with him. Holds me against his chest while I try to remember how to breathe.
We stay like that for a long moment. His arms around me. My face pressed against his chest. The steady thump of his heartbeat beneath my ear.
"Get dressed," he says finally. Soft. Almost tender. "We're leaving for the mansion in an hour."
He walks away before I can respond.
Leaving me standing there. Half-naked. Still trembling.
Realizing that what just happened changed something between us.
Something I'm not sure I'm ready for.
But it's too late now.
We've crossed a line. I let Adrian take care of me. I begged him for it.
And there's no going back.
The dynamic between us has changed, and I don't know if that's a good or bad thing.
CHAPTER 19
Adrian
"Your wife is like a ghost."
I look up from the shipping manifests spread across my desk. Bianca stands in the doorway of my office, arms crossed, expression unreadable.
"What?"
"Seraphina." She steps inside, closing the door behind her. "She drifts through this house like she's not really here. Silent. Withdrawn. I've barely heard her speak in two weeks."
"She's adjusting." I barely glance up from the map I'm studying. My men have cornered every inch of this city, and yet they've found neither Gabe nor whoever targeted our safe house.
It's driving me mad, which is why I've been obsessing over it.
"She's disappearing." Bianca sits in the chair across from me. "And you're too busy chasing shadows to notice."
"What would you have me do, mother?" I ask. "Bury my head between her legs and forget that the world exists?"
Bianca doesn't blink. "Isn't that how people generally spend their honeymoon?"
I scowl. "I'm protecting her. And our child. Or have you forgotten that someone blew up our safe house with her in it?"
There's a twitch in her face. She hasn't forgotten.
We lost good men.
We lost family.
And we fucking lost Gabe.
And much like me, my mother hates to lose.
"I have men working round the clock tracking down leads," I continue. "But so far there's been nothing. I need?—"
Bianca's voice is sharp. "You need to tend to your wife's needs. After all, a healthy mother begets a happy child."
