“On the beach.” He threw back the covers and climbed out of bed in his boxers, then paced back and forth at the foot of the bed. “You brought up kids. I need to know if that’s a deal breaker for you.”
“A deal breaker? What do you mean?”
“I mean a family, kids. We never talked about it.”
My mind spun. I didn’t know why he was bringing this up now or why it even mattered. “No, we didn’t. But we have lots of time to talk about it.”
“No, we don’t. I need to know now.” He stopped and stared at me in the dark. “Do you have to have kids, yes or no?”
I didn’t like that he was pressuring me about this now, especially after everything that had happened recently and in the middle of the night. “I don’t know. Not right now, but in a few years...maybe.”
“Merda.” He rested his hands on his hips and turned to stare out at the moonlight shining over the water out the balcony windows.
My heart picked up speed. “Luc, what’s this all about?”
“I don’t want kids,” he said quietly, not looking at me. “Ever. And if that’s a deal breaker for you, we’ll get the marriage annulled. All you have to do is say I forced you, which I did. Fee can use her contacts to get you set up somewhere new.”
“Whoa. Hold up.” I threw the covers back and pushed out of the bed, moving to stand in front of him in his T-shirt that I’d worn to bed. “You didn’t force me to marry you. I asked you, remember?”
“Doesn’t really make a difference.”
I wasn’t sure what was going on here, but I didn’t like the chill to his voice or the fact he wouldn’t look down at me. I rested my hand on his arm. “Luc, what is this all about?”
“It’s about the future. Something I should have fucking thought of before.” He finally met my gaze, but his eyes were hurricanes, not the tender, loving eyes I’d looked into the last few days. “I’m never going to give you children, Natalie. And if you can’t handle that fact, then we need to deal with it right now.”
He was making this an ultimatum, about something I hadn’t even thought much about. And I didn’t like that. I didn’t like having to make a decision right this very second. But I didn’t say so, because he looked as if he might lose his shaky grasp on control, and after everything he’d been through, I didn’t want to push him and possibly lose him forever. Not when I’d just gotten him back. “I don’t need children, Luc. But I do need you.”
His jaw clenched in the moonlight as he stared down at me with those swirling, stormy eyes. And in the silence that stretched between us, I saw heat. I saw danger. I saw an inferno of emotions he was struggling to contain.
And I felt a rush of warmth slide through my belly in response and gather between my legs because I recognized that look.
It was the dark Luc. The domineering Luc. The one who could make me weak in the knees with just one command.
The one I had been waiting to come back to me.
My fingers trembled with need as I slid my hand down to his and squeezed. “I want you,” I whispered. “Let me show you.”
He stared at me for several beats with those eyes like roaring tempests, then tugged his hand from mine. “I’m not tired. Go back to bed.”
My heart rate shot up as he turned away, grabbed his sweats from the floor, and pulled them on. “Luc. Wait.”
He headed for the door. “This conversation’s over. Don’t follow me, Natalie.”
He tugged the door closed with a clack that echoed through the room around me.
Alone, as I stared at where he’d just been, I tried to figure out what the hell had just happened.
I had no explanation. Whatever had caused that reaction was rooted in something dark. In something he refused to share with me. And I had no idea how to reach him in that dark place. I didn’t even know if I should try.
A hole opened inside me. A chasm created by the growing distance between us. Along with a feeling that somehow, in some way, his family was responsible for this too.
Especially when I thought of that kitten who’d climbed over Luc in that ritual, and his mother’s comments in my ear about that woman possibly being fertile.
I couldn’t read Luc. He’d been on edge ever since that weird conversation about kids several nights ago. Every time I’d tried to broach the topic with him since, he’d said he was too tired to talk or he just flat out walked away from me.
He was doing that more and more—avoiding talking about anything even remotely serious, leaving me alone to go deal with his thoughts in private. I was trying to be patient. I knew he was dealing with a lot. But I was growing more frustrated by the day. And I was also starting to worry that not forcing him to deal with me and what had happened in that ritual room was actually hurting us instead of helping.
He was slipping away from me. I couldn’t deny that fact as I sat at the kitchen table, sipping my tea in the quiet afternoon light. He’d barely touched me in three days. All that cuddling he’d seemed to need before was gone now too. We were still sharing a bed at night, but instead of rolling into me as he’d done before, he was turning his back to me.
And I felt the void growing bigger between us each day. One that made my heart ache because I didn’t know how to bridge it. One I was afraid was just going to keep growing unless I found a way to get through to him.
That thought made my whole body hurt. But before I could get lost in the pain, a knock sounded at the kitchen door.
I startled and twisted toward the sound, then breathed a sigh of relief when I recognized Felicity’s face in the window.
Pushing out of my chair, I quickly crossed the tiles and pulled the door open. “Oh my God.” I hugged her, then Marco as they both stepped into the house. “What are you doing here?”
“Marco was tired of my parents.”
Setting several bags of groceries on the counter, Marco huffed. “She lies. I like her parents. She’s the one who wanted to leave.”
Felicity rolled her eyes then grinned. “Okay he’s right. My mother would not stop pestering me about weddings and babies. It was making me claustrophobic.”
I smiled, but inside nausea swirled in my gut because her comment just made me think about Luc’s declaration the other night that we were never having children.
“Where’s Luc?” Marco asked.
Running a hand through my hair, I told myself the whole kid thing didn’t even matter. I’d never even thought about having kids before him, so how could I be upset about the idea of not having kids now?
“Upstairs. He just got back from a run. He should be out of the shower if you want to go up and say hi.”
“Think I will.” With an ominous glance toward Felicity, Marco disappeared up the back stairs.
“What was that about?” I asked when he was gone.
Felicity moved around the island and sat on a barstool. “Guy stuff. I’m more curious about you. That look on your face makes me think things haven’t improved a whole lot since our conversation the other day.”
Unable to keep from frowning, I crossed my arms over my chest and leaned back against the counter. “They haven’t.”