Chapter 286 You Haven’t Let Us Down

Chapter 286: Chapter 286 You Haven’t Let Us Down

Emilia’s POV

I let myself lean into him, into that warm chest and the steady drum of his heart under my cheek. The tears came before I could stop them, sliding down quietly.

He thought he was the only one who’d been through hell these past ten hours. He wasn’t. For me it had been its own kind of torture, one I couldn’t even name out loud.

"Fine," I whispered. "I promise. I won’t do it again."

I dug my nails into my own palm to keep from breaking apart completely. I wasn’t ready to tell him. Not yet.

Sebastian tilted my chin up and pressed a kiss to my forehead, his brow creased. "What happened with your aunt? You went away for one night and you look like you haven’t slept in a week."

"She’s not well," I said. "Health problems."

"Do you want me to bring her here to Silverlake? I’ll get the best doctors in the pack lands to look at her."

"There’s no need. She’s stable back in Lakewood."

I noticed the dark shadows under his eyes then, and reached up with a shaking hand to brush them. "You didn’t sleep at all, did you?"

"Sleep?" A rough laugh. "I couldn’t find you, Emilia. I nearly lost my mind. How exactly was I supposed to sleep?"

"I’m sorry. For always making you worry like this."

"Silly girl. You didn’t make me worry about anything." His voice softened, and Ryder must have been close to the surface, because the growl under it eased. "If anything, I’m the one who should be apologizing. I’m the reason you keep ending up in tears."

My throat closed up again. "It’s not you who makes me sad, Sebastian. It’s fate. Fate is the cruel one."

The first half was for him. The second half was only for me.

"Then let’s stop being sad," he said. "You’re home. That’s the only thing that matters. Go downstairs, eat something, then come back up and rest. And you’re not going into the office today. No arguments."

I didn’t argue. In the state I was in, I couldn’t have focused on a single email anyway. "Okay."

We ate breakfast together, though I mostly pushed food around the plate. And then, running on nothing but caffeine and stubbornness, Sebastian went straight to the company without so much as an hour of sleep. Typical Alpha. The man would probably keel over at his desk before admitting he needed rest.

"He loves you," Eve murmured inside me. "Which is exactly why this is going to hurt him."

"I know," I told her. "Don’t remind me."

Not long after he left, there was a soft knock at the bedroom door. I wiped my face fast, pulled myself together, and opened it.

Mila stood there. Her eyes were red-rimmed too.

"Mila," I said quietly.

She took my hand without a word and led me to the sofa. Then she looked at me with that gentle, searching gaze of hers, and asked the question I’d been dreading.

"Emilia. Be honest with me. The reason you didn’t come home last night... it was the results, wasn’t it?"

That was all it took. Maybe because we were both women, maybe because I was simply too tired to keep pretending, but the armor cracked and I burst into tears right there.

She understood immediately. Her own voice trembled. "What did they find?"

"The preliminary diagnosis," I forced out, "is primary infertility."

I watched the words land on her like a physical blow. Her face went pale, and I could see her struggling to hold herself together the same way I had all night on that beach.

"Mila, I’m so sorry. I’ve let you down. All of you."

I couldn’t stop crying. I thought I’d emptied myself out completely last night, hidden away where no one could see me. But the tears came back like a dam had burst, and there was no stopping them.

Mila was crying too. I knew how much she’d wanted a grandchild, how she’d talked about little troublemakers running through the pack house. And I was the one who couldn’t give her that.

She wrapped her arms around me and held on for a long time before she finally lifted her head. "This is not your fault, sweetheart. Do you hear me? The Goddess played a cruel trick. That’s all this is."

She sniffed, then straightened. "Let me see the report."

With shaking fingers I pulled the crumpled paper from my pocket. I’d read it a hundred times last night, crushing it and smoothing it out again, praying the doctor had made a mistake. The words never changed.

When her eyes found the phrase Primary Infertility, they filled again. But this time she didn’t collapse into me. She lifted her chin and spoke with a fierce, steady kind of certainty.

"It doesn’t matter. Medicine has come so far these days. This can be treated, Emilia. Tomorrow I’ll call a specialist I’ve known for years. She’s helped thousands of women in your position. I believe with everything in me that she can give us a miracle."

The words were kind. But I knew the odds. Primary infertility didn’t just get "fixed." And the real question wasn’t whether I could be cured. It was whether the Simons family would still want me if I couldn’t be.

"Mila," I said carefully. "What if I can’t? What if there’s nothing anyone can do?"

It wasn’t the right moment to ask. But reality had knocked me down so many times that I needed to brace myself before the next blow.

She sighed, and looked at me for a long, unhurried moment. "Listen to me. Whether you can bear pups or not, you will always be the only Luna of this pack. The only daughter this family accepts. If the elders or the council ever try to pressure you over this, Titus and I will stand behind you. Every single time. You have my word."

The tears kept falling. Her answer was so much more than I deserved, and I didn’t know how to live with that.

She took my face in her hands. "You and Sebastian are fated mates. The Goddess didn’t tear this pack apart only to hand my son his true mate and then be this cruel to you both. I won’t believe it. So don’t you dare give up. No matter what it costs, no matter what price I have to pay, I am going to find a way to help you."

Something in me that had gone cold and hard overnight finally cracked open, just a little, and let the warmth in. In a situation this hopeless, I chose to believe her. This woman who had taken me in and loved me like her own blood.

"Okay," I whispered. "Thank you, Mila."

She patted my shoulder gently. "Then it’s settled. I won’t breathe a word of this to the rest of the family for now. As for Sebastian..." She paused. "That’s your decision to make. Whether you tell him or not. Just give me your answer by tomorrow."