“I can.”
“You didn't last time.”
“I thought I was protecting you.”
“You were protecting yourself from watching me hate you.”
The truth cuts through him.
I see it.
His gaze drops to the floor between us.
“Yes,” he says.
The word is almost too quiet to hear.
I swallow.
There are a thousand things I should say. About the test in the bathroom drawer. About the two lines that have changed everything. About how his child may already be growing inside me while we stand here bleeding at each other in the dark.
But I cannot say it yet.
Not while every nerve in my body is still caught between relief and rage.
Stefano looks up again. “Do you hate me?”
The question lands low.
I stare at him.
He is not asking for reassurance. He is asking because he thinks he deserves the answer.
Part of me wants to give it to him.
It would be easier.
“Yes,” I say.
His face does not change.
“Sometimes,” I add.
Something passes through his eyes.
Pain. Relief. Both.
“But I loved you anyway,” I whisper. “That was the worst part.”
The words hang between us.
Stefano goes completely still.
I should stop talking.
I do not.
“I loved you when I knew better. I loved you when you were impossible. I loved you when I was lying to myself about it because admitting it felt like turning into every woman who ever let a dangerous man convince her that love was worth being afraid.”
