Chapter 138 Adrian

Chapter 138 Talia
Talia's POV

"Love is weakness," he said, his voice flat and certain, like he was stating a fact rather than an opinion. "Every man I've ever respected who let himself fall into it ended up smaller for it. I won't be one of them."

I sat there for a moment, letting that settle over me, the steam from the bath curling around us both.

"My father loved my mother," he said, before I could respond. "Loved her enough to let her walk all over him for thirty years. Loved her enough that when she finally left, he couldn't run the company for six months. He nearly lost everything because of one woman and a feeling he refused to let go of."

"That's not love," I said. "That's just one bad marriage. You're talking about it like it's a disease."

"Isn't it?" he said. "Show me one man who loved a woman and didn't get weaker for it. Alexander loves Emma, or thinks he does, and look what it turned him into, A man who couldn't even tell the difference between protecting you and managing you."

That analogy stung, Alexander loving Emma, choosing the hurt me to keep her pleased.

"Fine," I said. "Then tell me something else. After all of this, after the revenge, after we've burned everything down with Alexander's name on it, what do I get to keep? What's left for me for the rest of my life, married to a man who's already told me he'll never love me?"

He didn't answer right away. He sat back slightly, studying me the way he studied everything, like he was working out the angles before committing to a move.

A chess player.

"You get safety," he said finally. "Money you never have to ask permission for. A man who will burn the world down before he lets anyone treat you the way Alexander did. You get a son who grows up watching someone actually fight for his mother instead of one who watched his father fail her."

"That's a transaction," I said. "Not a life."
"It's a better life than the one you had," he said.

He wasn't wrong, and I hated that he wasn't wrong. It stung and ached but at the end of the day, he was right.

“And you're saying that out of the goodness of your heart or do you have selfish interests in wanting to keep me tied to you?”

Something shifted in his face, quick and sharp, like I'd pushed a button he didn't expect me to find.
He moved fast.

One second I was sitting on the edge of the tub asking him a question he clearly didn't want to answer, and the next I was draped over his lap, the position so sudden it knocked the breath out of me.
"Adrian."

"You think you don't get anything out of this," he said, one hand sliding protectively beneath my belly, careful, deliberate, even as his other hand came down sharp against me, once, twice, a third time, the sound of it loud in the quiet bathroom.

I let out a quiet moan, shame making me blush.

Get a grip Talia.

"Do you understand what you're worth to me," he said, his voice low now, rough at the edges. "Do you understand what I've already burned down for you?”

I gasped, my fingers curling against the cool tile floor, my whole body lit up with something I didn't have a clean word for.
He shifted me gently after that, careful with my belly the way he'd been careful since the moment he learned about the baby, until I forgot entirely what I'd even been asking him.
"Do you understand now," he murmured against my ear, his voice doing something to me I refused to admit out loud.

I didn't answer. I couldn't.
He carried me into the bath after that, the water still warm, the candle still flickering against the tile, and whatever distance had been sitting between us all day dissolved completely the moment he stripped down and joined me.

His hands moved to my nipples, they were sore. He held them between his fingers and kneaded them.

“Fuck” I cried out, the pleasure sending hot jolts through my back. His hands grabbed my ass from behind, lips kissing my neck.

My whole body felt like there was tiny electricity jumping on it.

“Adrian please” I begged.

For what? I had no idea.

“Come on, let me help you finish” he skidded my neck and his fingers slid inside me.

My back arched involuntarily and a moan that sounded like a sigh escaped my lips.

He pumped his fingers, hitting that spot so good that tears gathered at my eyes. His thumb rubbed my clit while his index and middle finger stimulated my G-spot.

I came with his name on my lips, then slumped against him and closed my eyes.

I let him wash me, utterly spent. He looked really pleased with himself.

Afterward, I lay against his chest in the large tub, my head resting just below his collarbone, listening to the slow, steady sound of his heartbeat.

"You never actually answered my question," I said quietly, once I trusted my voice again.
"Which one."
"What I get to keep. After all of this."

He was quiet for a long moment, his fingers tracing slow circles against my shoulder.
"Me," he finally said. "Whatever that's worth to you."

I didn't know what to do with that answer. It wasn't love, not the way I understood the word, but it wasn't nothing either, and for the first time since I'd walked into his office that first desperate night, I let myself wonder if that might be enough.

The water had gone cold by the time either of us moved again. He stood first, wrapping a towel around himself before he pulled another around me and lifted me out like I weighed nothing.

"You don't have to keep carrying me everywhere," I said, but I didn't actually want him to stop.
"I know," he said. "I'm doing it anyway."
He set me down on the bed and sat beside me while I got dressed, watching with that same focused attention he gave to everything that mattered to him.

"Tomorrow I want to talk to you about the timeline," he said. "For Alexander. For all of it."
I sat up straighter, something hopeful flickering in my chest for the first time in days. "You're actually going to tell me what you're planning?"

"Some of it," he said. "Enough for you to understand what's coming."
I wanted to push for more right then, but exhaustion was already pulling at me, the kind that came from days of stress finally catching up all at once.

"Sleep," he said, like he could read exactly what was happening in my body. "Tomorrow."
"You're being kind to me," I said, "That doesn't fit with everything you just said about love making men weak."

He huffed something close to a laugh, low in his chest. "Kindness isn't love. Kindness is just good strategy."
"That's a terrible thing to say to someone right before bed."

"You'll survive it," he said, and pressed a kiss against my temple that contradicted every cold word he'd said all evening.
I didn't argue.

I let him pull the blanket over me, let him check on Noah down the hall one more time before he came back and settled into the space beside me.

I couldn't sleep, so I got into of him, and dropped my nightgown.