But he was pale and his forehead was beading with sweat. “I squashed the hell out of you. I’m so sorry.”

I extended my hand to grasp his but it was out of my reach. “It’s okay. Everything’s fine.”

He reached out and cupped my cheek with a shaky hand. “Fuck. I’m so sorry. What the hell is wrong with me?”

“Come here. Kiss me,” I said, trying to distract him. He looked like he was about to freak out.

Instead he rose from the bed and looked down at me. Eyes still wide with concern

We looked at each other for a long time. And I knew that our moment was over. We weren’t going to make love tonight. I sucked in a shivery breath and blinked back tears, pulling myself to a sitting position.

Adam knelt in front of me, putting his hands on my waist as if he were checking for broken bones. When he gazed up into my face, he saw the tears that were leaking out. I felt like a miserable failure.

“Please don’t cry,” he murmured, kissing me.

“What’s wrong with us?” I asked in a squeaky voice. “We’re broken.”

He sucked in a quick breath and shook his head. “No. No… it’s just. I’m worried about you. I don’t want to hurt you again.”

“You’re not going to, Adam. I swear that I’m fine.”

“When you are healthy… When we get home and you get the scan—”

I pulled away from him in frustration, scrubbing the back of my hand over my cheeks. I stood and went into the bathroom. He followed me.

“It’s how I look, isn’t it?”

His mouth thinned. “No. You are beautiful.”

I turned on the faucet and splashed water on my face. “You can be honest with me, you know. I can take it. You don’t have to spare me.”

I blotted my face with a soft white towel while he watched me in the mirror. When I turned to go, he stepped in my way, wrapping his hands around my forearms so I wouldn’t move away. “You. Are. Beautiful. A head of hair doesn’t change that one bit.”

I sighed and looked into his eyes. “I’m worried about us…”

He smoothed my cheek and smiled. “Don’t be. I love you more than ever, Emilia. I mean that.”

I swallowed a lump in my throat. There was something he wasn’t saying. I was certain of it. But I didn’t want to fight and I didn’t want to force something from him before he was ready to tell me. Maybe he was just worried about my health. God, I hoped it was something as simple as that. Because the moment that scan came back clean, I was jumping his bones.

I took in a deep breath and expelled it. “I’m so tired all of a sudden.”

He relaxed a little. Relieved, apparently. “Me too. I’m about to keel over into the nearest bed.”

I frowned. There were three bedrooms in this huge suite, all of them equally amazing and luxurious. “Please don’t say we need to sleep in separate beds.”

He pulled me into a gentle hug. “I’m not going to say that. I want you in my arms tonight.”

He wanted me in his arms. Sleeping. Nothing more.

Project Seduction was dead in the water. Mission failed.

Chapter Thirty

Adam

I folded her in my arms, held her tightly—like she sometimes asked me to do. I noticed those were the times when she was feeling the most lost, insecure. And I cursed myself for not having gone through with having sex with her tonight. It would have done good things for her self-esteem and body image.

I’d certainly wanted her, too. But that moment of hurting her had snapped me back into reality, back into all the problems and doubts and worries. There was so much that needed to be covered first. What about birth control? I hadn’t brought condoms with me—though they’d have been easy to get here. But I hadn’t planned that far ahead, had just assumed that things wouldn’t progress that quickly between us. I was still thinking of her as ill, weak, that semi-conscious sick woman in my arms declaring she deserved to die…

In the silence, I listened. She had long since started that slow, measured breathing of sleep and I kissed her, laying my cheek against hers. I closed my eyes, replaying everything in my mind again—thinking about my colossal fuck-up and how it had only served to hurt her more. As if in that one split second, all the good of the night had been erased.

But I couldn’t risk hurting her again. Not even the smallest hint of a risk. I fell asleep like that, with me wrapped around her. Like I was her coat of armor, protecting her. And I wished it could be as simple as that. But the truth was that sometimes I was her greatest threat instead of her protection.