Page 57 of Claimed By the Silver Fox

“I would never change my mind,” he growls, and he sounds almost angry that I would entertain such a thing. “Never. I meant what I said, Julia.”

“Then where have you been?” I whisper. I lay my hand on his chest, imploring him, reaching for him as best I can. This feels like the first time he has been truly honest with me in a long time, and I’m not going to let it slip through my fingers now that we have come so close.

He tears his gaze away from me, as though fearful that I’m going to see something I shouldn’t.

“Antonio, please. Talk to me.”

His voice drops low when he speaks again, and I can tell he’s dredging something up from a deep, dark part of himself, a part of himself he might not want to acknowledge exists.

“It’s Andreo.”

“You’re wondering if you did the right thing?”

He shakes his head quickly. “No, no, it’s not that,” he assures me, slipping a hand to mine, lacing his fingers around it. “Never that. I just…I can’t stop thinking about…” His jaw tightens as he forces himself to keep speaking. “About why he turned out the way he did. And if this child that we’re going to have will turn out the same way.”

My eyes widen in shock. It’s about the last thing I would have expected to hear from him, and it takes me a moment to wrap my head around it, the enormity of what he’s saying.

“That’s what this is about?”

He nods, eyes reaching mine, searching mine. “I can’t stop thinking about it,” he admits, voice thick. “All the things I taught him, all the ways he used that to hurt you. How he betrayed me the first chance he got. How he was willing to sacrifice you and the baby just to get what he wanted. I don’t know how I created a child like that, and I’m worried that because I don’t know…it’s going to happen again.”

My mind reels as I try to wrap it around what he’s saying to me. He really blames himself for all of this? It seems crazy to me, given the differences I’ve seen between him and Andreo, the people that they are. The way that Antonio has protected me and looked out out for me and shown his loyalty to me, even when it was hard, even when it seemed like the world was against us.

I cup his cheek again, drawing his gaze to mine, making certain that he hears me when I speak again. “Antonio,” I whisper. “I…I knew Andreo well. I knew the kind of person he was. And I can tell you, without a shadow of a doubt, that there is no way he could have learned that from you.”

Antonio snorts slightly, but I shake my head, furrowing my brow.

“No, listen to me,” I insist. “I know what I’m talking about. I’ve come to know both of you pretty well, I’d say, and you’re so different. You couldn’t be further from each other if you tried. You—you’re caring, and protective, and you want to give this child and me a future. So much so that you worried yourself half to death about it. Andreo? He wouldn’t have thought twice about what kind of father he was going to be. That kind of thing would never have crossed his mind. He only wanted to take this baby from me because he knew that I wanted it so badly, and because he knew that it was yours. Not because he has a fatherly bone in his fucking body.”

I take a deep, shaky breath, and continue. “Listen. I’ve thought a lot about having a child of my own. If I would be able to protect them from the shit that my parents did—if I would end up like them somehow. And there’s no way in hell I would ever put them in a situation where I thought for a second that they might have to suffer like I did, you understand?”

His eyes are softening now, and I can almost see the glaciers melting, whatever has been keeping him at a distance from me giving way now.

“I know that Andreo didn’t turn out the way he did because of you,” I insist. “He might have taken what you taught him and twisted it to fit what he wanted out of the world, but that doesn’t make it your fault. And besides…”

I smile at him slightly. “It’s not just going to be you raising this child this time,” I point out. “It’s going to be both of us. It’s not going to be the same as last time. I don’t know what became of Andreo’s mother⁠—”

“She was never in his life,” he admits, shaking his head. “One-night thing. She dumped him on my doorstep, more or less, and that was the end of it. Didn’t want to be part of my world.”

“But I do,” I whisper to him firmly. “I want to be part of your world. And that’s not going to change, you hear me? It’s never going to change.”

His shoulders drop suddenly, as if a weight he has been carrying all this time has finally fallen away. I clasp his arms, as though I’m holding him up, as ridiculous as it seems.

“It’s not just you choosing me, it’s me choosing you, Antonio,” I insist. “And nothing is going to change that. Nothing.”

He wraps his arms around me in a sudden motion, pulling me in tight, pressing his face against my neck as though he’s confirming everything that I’m telling him. Promising himself that I’m really here, that I’m not going to leave him, that he can believe everything I’ve said to him.

It makes my heart ache to think of him torturing himself all this time, letting himself believe that he was the problem and that he would have to bear that burden alone, but now that I have him here in my arms, I can see that it doesn’t have to be that way. A circuit has closed, two ends of a whole coming together to let the energy flow properly.

“But you have to promise me one thing,” I insist, and he pulls back, brushing his nose against mine, eyes filled with sincerity.

“Anything,” he tells me gruffly.

“When these things are bothering you…I need you to talk to me,” I tell him firmly. “You don’t just go hide out in here and drink. I can’t stand that. My parents were always drinking, and I don’t want to deal with the same thing again⁠—”

“I’ll get rid of all of it,” he replies at once, and I can tell from the fervent tone in his voice that he means it. That it seems, to him, a small price to pay if it means making right everything I need him to.

He catches my hand in his and lifts it to his lips, planting a kiss against the ring as though he’s swearing all over again that he will be there for me, love me, honor me, in every way that a husband should.