Sold to Bastard Alpha after My Divorce!-Chapter 204

Aria’s POV

The room had gone quiet in that particular way it gets when someone is trying very hard to disappear without actually moving.

Lina had curled herself into a ball at the foot of the bed, apparently asleep—the kind of sudden, dramatic unconsciousness that only small children can pull off, full-body surrender in the middle of a conversation. Lilith had drifted off too, her head on the pillow beside mine, one hand still loosely wrapped around my wrist like she’d decided she needed to keep track of me even in her sleep.

Which left just me and Sophie.

And Sophie was acting very, very strange.

She’d been fine three minutes ago. Laughing. Crying. Squeezing my hand and demanding details about the baby in that loud, dramatic Sophie way that filled every corner of a room. But the moment Kael walked out the door, something shifted.

She’d gotten quieter.

Too quiet.

She’d been staring at her phone. Then at the wall. Then at her phone again. Her leg was bouncing. Just slightly. The way it did when she was thinking something she didn’t want to say out loud.

"You should probably rest," she said. Still not looking at me. "You literally just woke up from being unconscious for hours, and there’s a whole—a whole baby situation, and your leg—"

"Sophie."

"—is going to need proper care and attention, and really I think the best thing would be for you to sleep, and I should probably—" She started reaching for her jacket. "I have some things I need to take care of. Outside. Elsewhere."

"Sophie."

"You can call me later." She was already half-standing. "Or tomorrow. Whenever you feel up to it."

I grabbed her wrist.

She stopped. Completely. Like I’d pressed a button.

For a long moment, neither of us moved.

"Sit down," I said.

"Aria—"

"Sit. Down."

She sat down.

I looked at her face. That blotchy pink she got when she was embarrassed. The way she was very deliberately not meeting my eyes. The way her whole body was angled slightly toward the door like part of her was still planning an escape route.

"The more you act like this," I said slowly, "the more I know something is wrong."

"Nothing is wrong. Everything is completely fine. I’m perfectly normal."

"Sophie."

"I’m *fine.*"

"Did something happen with Cassius?"

She went absolutely still.

I watched the color climb from her neck to her face. Up her cheeks. To the tips of her ears.

Oh.

*Oh.*

"Sophie," I said, and my voice came out much more careful now. "What did you do?"

"Nothing." A pause that was so loud it was practically its own sentence. "I mean—something. But it was nothing. It was nothing significant."

"Tell me."

She covered her face with both hands.

"Sophie. Right now."

"*Fine.*" She made a sound that was halfway between a groan and a sigh and dropped her hands to her lap. Her eyes finally found mine. She looked like someone facing a firing squad and trying to appear dignified about it. "You know how that night—the dinner, when Lucian—when you and Kael had to leave suddenly?"

"Yes."

"And Cassius and I had to bring Lina and Lilith home."

"Yes."

"So we were just the two of us." She said it quickly. Like if she talked fast enough the words would somehow hurt less. "And the girls were in the back, which meant we couldn’t exactly—there was this atmosphere, you know? Like that kind of silence where you know the other person is thinking the same thing you’re thinking and neither of you is saying it—"

"Sophie." 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

"—and we got to the apartment and we put the girls to bed, which was actually very nice and domestic and they were very good, Lilith told Lina a whole story and they were both asleep in like fifteen minutes, so it’s not like I was being irresponsible—"

"Sophie."

"—and then it was just the two of us again and I thought, you know what? I’m a grown adult. I’m twenty-six years old. I’m allowed to make decisions." She pressed her lips together. "So I made a decision."

I stared at her.

"We had wine," she said. Very small.

"How much wine?"

"A reasonable amount of wine." A pause. "He cannot hold his liquor at ALL, by the way. I had no idea. He seems so composed, and then two glasses and he’s—" She waved her hand. "Anyway. We had wine, and there was a moment, and one thing led to another, and—"

She stopped.

Looked at me.

Waited.

It took me exactly two seconds to understand what she was saying.

"WHAT."

She winced. "Shhh—"