"I mean… I don't blame him for feeling that way. And even though it caught me off guard, I can't say I was surprised by it," Qian Meng told Mo Yize. She shifted her little nephew in her arms. "It made me sad, you know? Hearing him say that I wouldn't be a good parent."

  The sympathy in her eyes didn't make Qian Meng feel any better.

  "And what did you say?" she asked.

  "Nothing." Qian Meng shrugged. "I said nothing."

  "What? Qian Meng!" the other admonished. It felt uncomfortably foreign to Qian Meng because she rarely had someone reprimand her in such an affectionate way. "Why didn't you tell him how you felt about what he had said?"

  "What was I supposed to say, Yize? That he was wrong? He has every reason to feel that way. I am rash and aggressive. He is cold and… we are both busy." Qian Meng looked down at the baby blinking up at her. "We have a turbulent relationship. He's right."

  "That is not true. But even if it were, so what? It doesn't matter if you think he has reason to believe you wouldn't be a good mom. He is your husband. He needs to know if he said something hurtful to you!"

  Qian Meng sighed. "You're taking my side over your brothers?" she asked.

  "Obviously. I know that he is sensitive towards you, but he is strict in what he believes and sometimes blunt. He doesn't realize his words make people stay up at night."

  "I don't know… Part of me wishes I had never brought up the baby thing at all. Everything was blissful before I opened my mouth."

  The baby squirmed in her arms, wanting to be put down to crawl around, so Yize took him from me.

  "How long would it have stayed that way?" Yize asked sharply, and Qian Meng knew she was about to make a good point. "You want to be a mother. That's a huge deal. If you kept something like that inside and hadn't told my brother, it would have eaten away at you."

  She was right. It was too much to keep inside. Even though she had tried to keep her feelings at bay, she felt like she would burst.

  "I know you are right. But its… uncomfortable."

  "What?"

  "It's the elephant in the room. Mo Qingchen…" Qian Meng's heart warmed at the thought of her husband. "Mo Qingchen overanalyzes everything. I know that this has been constantly on his mind. I see it when I look at him and there is nothing I can do to make him stop thinking about it."

  "So you need to wait until he figures it out. Whether he wants babies or not."

  The answer was simple, but waiting was hard.

  Qian Meng looked up and saw Yize hesitate to say something. "What…" she gulped. "What happens if he decides he doesn't want kids?"

  Qian Meng had considered this many times. But it didn't lessen how her chest clenched when the question was posed out loud.

  "Then we don't have kids."

  "And you would be okay with that?"

  Qian Meng looked down, touched her ring once again. "Yize, the only thing I wouldn't be okay without is Mo Qingchen."

  And she meant every word——

  Qian Meng was an emotional wreck for the rest of the day. She couldn't seem to figure out why her conversation with Yize had upset her so much. Until she woke up to the culprit the next morning.

  It was Monday and her period had come with immaculate timing.

  Figuring out the cause of her hormonal turmoil didn't help. Her heart was still heavy and as she drove to the psychiatrist's office to meet Mo Qingchen, her eyes filled with unshed tears of frustration.

  She craved another cup of iced green tea, so she stopped by the local café to get some. She didn't know how it tasted because, after only one sip, she dropped her cup in the parking lot and spilled the whole thing.

  She didn't know if her breaking point was the loss of the drink, the fact that it spilled on her new shoes, or her hormones. Whatever the case was, she cried the rest of the way to the psychiatrist's, dabbing at her tears frantically so she wouldn't show up with tears down her face. She preferred to keep her breakdowns post-arrival at her therapy appointments, not before.

  She cursed under her breath when she pulled into the parking lot and spotted Mo Qingchen lingering outside the office building.

  She was always happy to see him and although she could appreciate the business attire and the sunglasses that made him look like he had walked right out of a fashion magazine, she had been hoping to steal a couple of minutes to pull herself together.

  Ever the gentleman, he had been waiting to walk her upstairs.

  "Hey, pretty girl," he crooned, yanking her door open.

  But his smile was short-lived. One glance at her and he knew something was wrong. His face fell as he stretched into the car.

  "Hi," Qian Meng sniffed.

  "What's wrong?"

  "I'm fine."

  "You're not fine. You're crying." He found her hand and pulled at her until she slid out of the car. "Tell me what's wrong."

  "I'm just having a bad day."

  His hand was on her lower back, urging her closer. Her chest met his at the same time she looked up to his face. She pulled his sunglasses off to get a look into his eyes but caught only a glimpse before he pressed his lips to hers. Love burned too bright to keep her eyes open.

  "What's going on?" he muttered against her lips as he pulled back.

  Having gotten a taste of him, her craving swelled until it was too much to handle.

  "Well," she began after a moment. "I started my period and I spilled my drink on my new shoes."

  "Oh, baby." He kissed her temple and stroked her hair while she took comfort in the familiar scent of his cologne.