Chapter 48

All at once the fury in her gaze turned into something else—anguish and a terrible pity. “But you do have a choice, don’t you see that?” Her voice was hoarse. “You can choose to stop letting your childhood dictate your own heart to you. You can choose to let that go. You might not choose me, I can understand that. But at least you can choose our baby.” Tears slipped down her cheeks. “There’s always love left, Cedric. It doesn’t run out, no matter what you think.”

Dimly, somewhere inside him, there was pain, a brief, flickering agony. “You’re wrong,” he said harshly. “Because if love didn’t run out there would have been some left for me. And there wasn’t, Anna. There was nothing at all left for me.”

“Oh…Cedric…” she whispered brokenly, reaching up to him. But he let her go and stepped away before she could touch him. Before anything about her could touch him.

Then he turned on his heel and walked out.

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After Cedric had left for his gala,