“I told you, you weren’t going to like my answer. You said you weren’t going to care. One of us lied.”
I glower. “You want children.”
“Does saying it twice make it more real?” he asks, his fingers touching his jaw. He’s smiling, loving this way too much.
“Why would you want children? You’re…you.”
“You’re right. I am me. Andmewants eight screaming kids, who will bounce on our bed in the morning, who will beg you to braid their hair, who have your beautiful eyes and your brilliant mind. I want it all, Rose. And one day, our children will have it all too.”
“Eightkids?!” I fixate on this. “I can’t even stomach havingonekid and you want me to birth a lineage? I’m not the Queen of England procreating to secure our empire with an heir.”
He grins into a bright laugh, his teeth almost too gorgeous to stare at. He wrestles me back to the mattress, and he kisses my cheek. “But don’t you want a son and daughter to succeed you,” he asks, “to raise them as your own, to know that your legacy will still remain long, long after you’re gone?”
“It’s still all about you,” I say, understanding completely now. “Could you even love your children?”
His smile fades again, and he becomes impassive, poker-faced. “I’d love them.”
I wish, more than anything, he wouldn’ttryto lie to me. That angers me more than hearing the truth. “You only love yourself.”
“I love you.” He’s practically mocking me.
I push him up again, and I rise to my knees. My lips find his ear, my voice hot and cold all at once. “Idon’tbelieve you.” I scoot to the edge of the bed, to climb off. He catches my arm again.
“I meant what I said,” he tells me seriously, “before you brought love into the equation.”
“That’s the thing, Connor.” I untangle from him. “Love should always be in the equation when children are involved. You’re just lucky I don’t hold that stipulation.” I step off the bed and straighten my nightgown.
“Where are you going?” he asks, worry creasing his brows. We fight often. And we make up even more. It’s not as though my storming off is out of the ordinary.
“To take a shower.”
“It’s five in the morning. Come back to bed.”
“No,” I say. “I want to shower before anyone comes into the bathroom.” I head towards the door.
“Rose…” He starts but he stops himself before he gets that far.
I feel like I’m eighteen again.
And Connor’s that nineteen-year-old boy who lent me his college blazer.
I wait for him to speak, but like back then, he just stares at me with those deep austere eyes, with shadows of the truth hidden behind pools of blue.
So I say, “I don’t mind that you don’t love me the way I do you.” I tuck my hair behind my ear. “Thank you for at least trying.”
And I leave.
But he knows I’ll be back.
In nearly ten years of knowing Connor, we always seem to return to each other—even when we were thousands ofmiles apart, on two separate planes of existence—even when it seemed like our futures had strayed.
He may not believe in fate, but I do.
And I know I’m fated to be with him.
CHAPTER 12
ROSE CALLOWAY
