"Should we have sex?"
The question lingered in the room like poison gas: colorless, inescapable.
"Do you want to?" Maximilian asked quietly.
The familiar pain of the curse flared in his chest, sharp enough to steal his breath. He turned away first, carefully placing the baby into the bassinet, as if grounding himself in that small, fragile weight would keep the world from collapsing.
Catherine didn't answer.
Her head remained bowed, eyes fixed on the floor.
Want.
He asked as though it mattered. As though her desire still belonged to her.
Something inside her snapped.
A soft, broken laugh slipped from her lips.
This—this might be insignificant in the grand design of the curse, but she couldn't accept it. To be forced into intimacy with a man she hated just to reclaim her autonomy—
It was absurd.
No.
Unless—
Unless the bracelet hadn't been created by fate at all.
