Sold To The Cruel Pr Chapter 85: His Answer

Chapter 85: His Answer

Theron’s fingers trembled.

A family of her own...

She called herself an orphan, and now she was speaking of a family as though she had already decided she would build one without him. He could understand that yearning. He had once wanted the sa thing, had once looked at other people and wondered what it would be like to belong to soone, to be wanted without condition.

So was she wrong to want it?

No.

And yet it hurt.

It hurt in a place so deep inside him that he had not known it existed. He had never felt anything this sharp before, not even when people mocked him for being an orphan, not even when they looked at him as though he had been born lacking sothing essential.

He knew he would marry soon.

Naturally, so would she.

She would marry another man, laugh with him, argue with him, care for him in small ordinary ways, and grow old beside him until her life no longer had room for him at all.

Before he realized what he was doing, his hand lifted to her hair. His fingers slid through the long, heavy strands, then slowly wound around the ends as though they had a right to linger there. A mont later, he bent and pressed a kiss to the tip of her hair.

For her to beco soone else’s...

For another man to look at her as though she belonged to him...

Sothing in him rejected the thought with a force he could not yet na.

He did not understand these feelings. Not yet. Perhaps he never would.

"Then you should choose carefully," he said at last.

The words felt torn from him, scraped raw from sowhere he would rather not have touched. They hurt to say, and still he said them, because whatever else he was feeling, he knew this much was true: that was what was best for her.

She would not be safe with him.

Aveline closed her eyes.

So that was his answer.

She had thought she had provoked him into sothing honest, sothing real, but there it was again—the sa steady refusal, the sa impossible constancy. He loved that woman too much. He would not change his mind.

She should have known better than to expect a different answer just because she had asked it in a different way.

A soft scoff escaped her, brittle and wounded. She wanted to cry. She wanted to shout. But she was too hurt for either.

Theron watched her, still turned away from him, and the silence between them stretched thin.

He scooted closer.

"It is still wet," he said, touching her hair.

Then, without giving himself ti to think, he reached for a towel and lifted her thick hair carefully, beginning to dry it with slow, almost reverent movents. It fell in heavy waves down her back, far past her waist, and he had to gather more of it than he expected. Even hunger and hardship had not taken that from her.

Aveline felt the gentleness of his touch and did not know what to do with it.

What was he doing?

What did he think this ant?

The way he looked after her, the way he kissed her, the way he touched her so tenderly in monts like this... What was she supposed to believe?

The room was quiet except for the soft rustle of the towel through her hair. Crystal light glowed gently across the walls, and a faint soothing fragrance still lingered in the air from the bath, turning the atmosphere almost painfully intimate.

And in that soft, glowing silence, the ache between them deepened.

"If you accept it, you should understand what you are agreeing to."

Theron’s voice was low, controlled, but there was a firmness in it that made the words land heavier than they should have. He seed ready to leave it there, but sothing in him did not permit silence. Not yet.

Aveline opened her eyes.

For a mont, she could only stare, confused.

Was he talking about the robe? Did he honestly think that was what she ant—that accepting a man’s robe was the sa as accepting him, accepting sothing intimate, sothing she had not even considered?

"That is enough, Theron."

She sat up straighter, still keeping her back to him, and took the towel from his hand, almost snatching it away. Her chin lifted with wounded pride, though her voice trembled at the edges.

"I can dry my own hair," she said. "You should save such acts of service for your beloved. Not for ."

Then she got down from the bed.

Theron rose as well, unable to remain seated while she moved away from him like that. Aveline did not look back. She could barely stand properly now; a sharp cramp had twisted through her abdon, and the bleeding had beco heavier than before. One hand pressed instinctively over her lower belly as her vision dimd for a brief mont.

She did not want him seeing her like this.

Not vulnerable. Not exposed. Not when every word between them already felt too fragile to trust.

But even then, his earlier words kept echoing inside her.

Had he ant that if she chose another man, she would lose whatever chance she still had with him? Or had she only heard what she was desperate to hear?

She no longer knew.

Theron saw the sudden pallor in her face at once. His expression changed, the scent of blood reaching him before she could hide it. He reached for her, but she slapped his hand away.

"I am not looking for a man right now," she said, her voice tight. "Not until I own myself back. You should leave."

She staggered toward the partition, needing to change, needing to gather herself before her weakness beca too obvious. Her hands were shaking now. She did not know what was happening to her body, only that this bleeding felt wrong—far too much, far too heavy. She had been having her periods since she was fifteen, and never once had it been like this.

Her throat tightened.

She did not know who to ask. She did not know what to do.

And suddenly, painfully, she missed her mother.

Theron took one step as though he might follow her, but stopped himself. Every line of her body told him the sa thing: she did not want him near her. At least not now.

Her words hurt.

But being pushed away hurt more.

So, with his hands clenched into fists at his sides, he forced himself to leave her to the comfort she had asked for, no matter how badly he wanted to stay.