The image of his hand wrapping around my neck comes back to me in a flash, and I close my eyes, savoring it. Who knows when I'll get that again.
I check the clock, then consider rising to get dressed and find breakfast. To be honest, I'm surprised he let me sleep away from him all night. A tiny part of me is expecting to open my bedroom door and find him leaning against the frame. I don't know. Maybe he realized he’d gone too far in his protection strategy. Knowing him, though, there likely isn't such a thing as too far in his mind.
None of it matters, though, because I'm hurt. Not in the easily dismissible way married couples argue. No, I feel like he's rejecting me in favor of our child, which is utterly ridiculous.
I resettle in the bed and decide against breakfast. Leaving this room means I will have to face him, and I doubt he'll let me walk away from him again. It's probably a cowardly move, but it's not like anyone is here to judge me for it.
I barely think the thought when a soft knock starts at the door.
“Go away!” I shout. It doesn't even matter who stands on the other side. I'm not in the mood to speak to anyone.
It comes again, this time harder and more urgent. “Valentina?”
It takes me a moment to realize Kai is the one knocking, but I still don't want to talk to him.
He calls my name again, and I let out a long huff. “I said go away. If you’re here for him, I don't want to speak to you because he's perfectly capable of finding me himself. If you’re here for you, I don't think we have anything to talk about.” I don't bother raising my voice. If he hears me, great; if not, I don't care. It's not like he'll walk in without my permission. If Adrian found him inside my bedroom, he'd kill him outright.
“You're acting like a child, Valentina,” he calls.
It's on the tip of my tongue to call him out for that low blow, but I don't. It actually works. Shame zings through me until I'm clutching the covers up under my chin to hide from it. How many times did my father use that same taunt? It had been his favorite way to berate me.
I'm about to give him a piece of my mind when the door rumbles heavily, and the hallway goes quiet. A flash of fear skitters through me, thinking he might barge in despite knowing how Adrian would react.
But nothing else happens. The doorknob doesn't turn. No one enters.
“I'm not leaving until you talk to me. I'm going to sit right here in this hallway and shout at you through the door until we can have a discussion,” he says loudly through the wood.
The sound must have been him sitting down to lean against the door. I giggle at the absurdity of him sitting on the floor in the hallway in thousands of dollars worth of wool.
“Don't you have work to do? I know he didn't send you here to yell at me through my door.”
There's a shuffle that makes the door shake. “He didn't send me at all. I'm here on my own.”
I snort, even if he doesn't hear it. “Yeah right, because you have nothing better to do than chase after your boss’s wife and mend fences.” Wonder how that trick would look on a résumé.
There's a long silence, and I hope he's gone. Just when I let my eyes slip closed to go back to sleep, his voice jolts me awake again. “I'm still here. Still not leaving.”
With a sigh, I press a pillow over my face to muffle a loud groan. I don't put it past him to stay out there all day until I give him my attention. The problem is that anything I say will go straight back to Adrian.
After a few moments, I decide to let him talk if it will get him to leave me in peace. “What do you want?” I yell louder than necessary.
His response is even and calm. “I want you to think about how Adrian feels right now.”
I slam the pillow down on the bed and glare at the door. “Oh, he didn’t send you here, did he? What bullshit.”
“He didn’t. I’m here on my own because I want you to see things from his perspective.”
Still glaring daggers through the door, I yell back, “His perspective is that I’m now only useful to him as a baby maker. As for the rest, I’m definitely not talking to you about it because it’s none of your business. Just know that it’s all very frustrating from every angle. There isn’t just his perspective to consider.”
The way he says that makes me think again about him saying I’m acting like a child. Then my father springs to mind, and I’m back in my self-loathing circle. All from a few words from a man I barely know. A man whose loyalty is to my husband despite the fact I saved his life.
“You are thinking too narrowly. Did it occur to you that he is scared? That he’s so terrified at the thought of losing you that he’d rather lose you in another way to keep you by his side.”
Oh, for heaven’s sake. “If this is about my leaving again, I promised I wouldn’t. And I won’t. I only left the last time because I got scared. Besides, I don’t have any other secrets tucked away that might endanger me. Fresh out.”
He makes an impatient noise, and I glare at the wood again. He can’t see it, but it makes me feel better.
“That’s not the kind of losing you I mean. Between now and when the baby is born, anything could possibly happen. We are at war with the council, you could have complications, or Sal’s family could sweep in to try to take their revenge. Shit could hit the fan in so many ways. He’s not scared of you walking away anymore. He’s terrified of you dying.”
I gasp and blink at the ceiling, my brain rolling over this new fact. Adrian isn’t exactly the kind of man who would admit this kind of fear, especially not to the person tied directly to it.
Damn Kai and his meddling. I shove the covers off, grab some spare sweats out of the dresser, shove into them, and then open the door.
To my satisfaction, he falls backward at my feet in his thirty-thousand-dollar Italian suit. “Fine. You said what you needed to say, so you can leave now. I need to get some breakfast.”
He eases back up to sitting, his knees bent so his elbows rest on top. “I haven’t finished speaking to you yet.”
I cross my arms under my breasts and glare down at him, content he can see this one. “Fine, what else do you need to get off your chest this morning?”
His eyes shift down the hall and then back to my face. Yeah. Tell me again how you came here on your own.
I move to grab the door and slam it on him, but he stops me, his big hand bracing against the wood to hold it open. “Wait. You need to understand something before you go off half-cocked and confront him about any of this.”
I still glare. It’s not like he’s giving me a choice about listening to him right now.
“He loves you.”
My shoulders slump. “You think I don’t know that. Of course he loves me or else he wouldn’t be doing this.”
He blinks, surprise chasing across his features. “But…”
“I know he loves me, and I love him too. But loving someone doesn’t mean they don’t hurt you. Hell, I know from experience what a loving hand feels like when it’s wrapped right around your neck,” I grit out between my clenched teeth. “So yes, I know he loves me, and I know he wants to keep our child and me safe, but I’m not willing to sacrifice our relationship for his overabundance of caution.”