Chapter 323 The Straw of Dignity

Emilia’s POV

I was silent for a long time. Finally I made myself speak. “Titus. Give me some time. I need to think.”

He nodded and rested a hand on my shoulder, heavy and warm. “I know, child. I’m sorry. I truly am.”

I left the Ridgeline Club with a hollow feeling sitting behind my ribs. Tears had never been my weapon. Even if I cried a river, it wouldn’t turn one dark day of my life into a bright one. So I didn’t cry. I drove home, went straight up to the bedroom, and locked the door behind me.

He’s asking too much, Eve murmured, low and bristling somewhere inside me. He has no right.

Maybe not. But right didn’t seem to matter much to the men in this family.

I stayed in that room until the light went gray, then black. When dinner rolled around, I splashed water on my face, dragged a smile up from somewhere, and went downstairs. I wasn’t about to let them read the wreck of me on my face.

Sebastian caught it anyway. He reached over and pressed the back of his fingers to my forehead. “You feeling okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I’m fine.” I shrugged him off and grabbed my fork.

He wasn’t buying it. He speared the biggest cut of steak on the platter and dropped it on my plate. “Eat. You’re all skin and edges lately. You need the meat more than I do.”

I forked it right back onto his. “You eat it. You’re the one running a company into the ground every day.”

“I’m an Alpha. I could go three days without food and still throw you over my shoulder.” He pushed it back. “Eat it.”

“You have it. I’ll take the smaller one and be perfectly happy.”

“What is wrong with you? Just eat the steak I gave you.”

The plate went back. And forth. And back again, until half the table was watching a single piece of beef travel east to west and west to east like it owed us both money.

Tiffany cracked first. She reached across, stabbed the steak off the board, and dumped it on her own plate. “For the love of the Goddess. If neither of you wants it, I’ll take it. Growing wolf over here.”

Sebastian and I both blinked at her, then at each other.

“You two are unbelievable,” Tiffany said around a mouthful. “It’s one piece of steak. You’d think we were a broke pack scraping for scraps.” She pointed her fork at me. “And you, stop letting him bully you. Take the food.”

Sebastian rolled his eyes, tore off a second cut, and set it in front of me. “Eat fast. Before the bandit robs you again.”

Tiffany snorted. “Bandit. Please. Nobody wants to come between you two. You’re so sickeningly in love it puts me off my dinner.”

“You’re just jealous,” Sebastian said.

“Jealous?” Tiffany grinned, warming up. “You know what, since the two of you are so disgustingly cozy, when are you giving me a niece or nephew? I’ve been waiting to be an aunt for ages.”

The words landed like a stone through a window.

The whole table went still. Titus set down his glass. Mila’s smile froze. Sebastian’s jaw locked. And I stared very hard at my plate and said nothing at all.

Tiffany looked around, catching up too late. “What? Why is everyone looking at me like that? Do I have something on my face?” She scrubbed at her cheek.

“Would it kill you to keep your mouth shut for once?” Sebastian’s voice came out flat and cold.

Tiffany reared back. “What did I say? I just want you two to have a baby. Since when is that a crime?”

“Enough, Tiffany.” Mila’s tone shut it down.

Tiffany’s mouth fell open. Her eyes went from her mother to her father to me, lost, her fork stuck in the air. “Okay, seriously, what is going on with all of you?”

I pulled in a slow breath. There was no sense hiding it anymore. She was the only one at the table who didn’t know.

“Tiffany.” I met her eyes straight on. “I can’t have children. You’re the last one in this family to hear it.”

The silence went from awkward to unbearable. Tiffany’s eyes went huge. Her gaze darted to her parents, then back to me, and every clever thing she might have said dried up in her throat.

I stood, laid my napkin beside my plate, and gave Titus and Mila a small nod. “Excuse me. I’m not feeling well. I’ll head up.”

I felt Mila’s eyes follow me out, heard the soft, aching sigh she let go.

I’d just reached the bedroom door when Sebastian caught up, breathing rough. I turned to look at him and couldn’t find a single word.

“Emilia. I’m sorry.” He raked a hand through his hair. “Tiffany’s an idiot. She didn’t mean anything by it. She’d cut off her own arm before she’d hurt you.”

I gave a small laugh. “I know. I don’t blame her.”

His eyes were dark with worry, all that cool arrogance stripped clean off him. And suddenly I didn’t need him to say another word. I closed the space between us, wrapped my arms around him, and pressed my face into his chest, into the mint and cedar of him. He went still, then folded around me, tight.

Titus’s words from the day. Tiffany’s from the table. They ran on a loop in my skull the whole night through, and I didn’t sleep.

The next morning I called Titus myself. We met at that club.

“I’ve thought about it,” I told him. “I agree to your proposal. But I have one condition.”

He hadn’t expected me to fold so fast. “Name it.”

“I have no say over who carries Sebastian’s child. Fine. But it will never, under any circumstances, be Abigail.”

It was the last shred of dignity I had left, and I was holding it with both hands.

“You have my word.” Titus didn’t even hesitate. “I would never let that woman carry the Simons bloodline, condition or not. I’ve already arranged a surrogate. Everything’s in place. All that’s left,” another beat, “is for you to bring Sebastian around.”

A surrogate? That was the one thing I could never agree to.