by Dani Collins
Which was what she was experiencing right now, her heart sitting under a thorny weight as she revisited his marriage proposal based solely on the fact she was pregnant with his child.
She had never expected to marry for love, but she did expect to be a full partner with her husband. She brought wealth, reputation, intelligence and practicality to a relationship. She was well-groomed, articulate, and spoke several languages. She might not enjoy being the center of attention, but she could lead a team, run a household and organize the hell out of just about anything. She was a decent sketch artist and played guitar on beaches if someone else wanted to sing.
Sensible, gallant Sebastián would appreciate all of that and bring his own quiet strengths and runt puppies to the relationship.
While unpredictable, Angelo was all threats and demands and brain-erasing passion.
She hadn’t expected that. Not the kiss or the conflagration that had engulfed her the night of the ball.
Having given in to that once was causing a huge detour in her carefully mapped life. She couldn’t let him shake her off her footing any more than he already had.
Yet here she was, in the passenger seat of her own car, arriving where he had driven her. He handed her keys to a valet outside a newly built beachfront hotel with old-world wedding cake architecture.
She scraped herself together and asked facetiously, “This is your home?”
“I bought the chain last year and keep a suite in each of them.”
The one time she resorted to sarcasm and all she got out of it was his gotcha smirk for her trouble.
“I thought your focus was electronics,” she said in a not so subtle, I know things, too way.
“I’ve reached a level of success that forces me to diversify.”
Find places to park his money, he meant. She tried not to be impressed. She came from money, but his story was the sort of rags-to-riches tale she couldn’t help admire.
“We’re going for dinner, aren’t we?” she asked as he steered her from the entrance to the restaurant and toward the elevators.
“You led me to believe you didn’t want us to be spotted together.”
Moments later, he let her into a tower penthouse decorated in muted tones of gray and ivory. There was a full galley kitchen, a master and a smaller bedroom, a dining area, a workspace and a lounge. Two-story windows overlooked a beach populated with pale, English travelers seeking winter sun.
Pia stood at the windows and linked her fingers casually when she actually wanted to clutch her elbows and hug herself. She didn’t enjoy confrontation, but she knew how to frame a dispute and debate it calmly and constructively.
“Marriage isn’t possible, Angelo. Let’s take that off the table and discuss how to make shared custody work.” She hadn’t even begun to imagine that possibility.
“It won’t. We’re marrying.”
Apparently he was less versed in “discussing.” She bit back a sigh.
“If you think threatening a scandal will coerce me, you’re wrong. I’d prefer to avoid one, but we are an extremely formidable family.” She knew her parents would support her in every outward way. She would just have to suffer the rest of her life with the unrelenting knowledge that they’d had to. “You’ll fare better working with us, rather than against us, trust me.”
“First of all, I don’t. Trust you, I mean.” He came to stand next to her, hands pushed loosely into his trouser pockets, shoulders relaxed.
She had a feeling he genuinely was at ease while she was only pretending to be.
“Secondly, if you think threats of ruin will scare me, you’re wrong. Not because I think I’m impervious, but because I’m not afraid to lose everything I own to get something if I want it badly enough.” He turned his head. He was both laughing at her and deadly serious. “Can you and your formidable family say the same?”
Her stomach lurched. “There are no winners in war.”
“Then don’t start one.”
She looked back toward the horizon, mind racing while her body tingled with awareness of his. “I didn’t think one moment would risk my freedom,” she said, voice steady even though she was caught somewhere between disbelief and despair.
“Marrying a man your mother chooses for you is freedom?”
“Marrying you because you decree it certainly isn’t,” she shot back.
“I want to marry so our child will have immediate access to both its parents. What is your vision of parenthood? An army of nannies and off to boarding school the moment you can?” he guessed scathingly.
“No.” It came out reflexively because it was the last thing she would do to her child, not after having experienced exactly that mass production approach to child rearing. “The child won’t go away to school until he or she is old enough to make an informed decision about the benefits and drawbacks.” She would be hands-on, hugging and steadying and probably smothering, but she would work on not being too helicoptery.
“Why do you say it like that? ‘The child.’ Why isn’t it our baby?”
“He or she is not an object we own. Further, if I say ‘my’ baby, it implies that I’m excluding you from the decision-making process. If I say ‘our’ it implies we’re a couple. ‘The’ is a neutral acknowledgment that the child is a person in his or her own right for whom we are charged with making decisions that affect his or her entire life.”
He shook his head in bemusement. “You can take the scientist out of the lab...”
His chide shouldn’t have felt like such an indictment, but it did. She refused to flinch, though, only said, “I don’t plan on experimenting on any child, particularly my own. Marriage to a stranger comes with too many uncontrolled variables. There is little stigma these days in having unmarried or separated parents so I see no compelling reason to marry.”
“Every relationship requires time to get to know the other person. Those variables can be identified and labeled and filed into one of your folders however you see fit. The only reason I will accept for you refusing to marry is that you are in love with someone else. Are you?” His voice took on a lethal note that made her stomach wobble.
“No. But I’m not in love with you, either.”
“Yet,” he shot back with a wicked grin.
Her heart lurched and she looked away, fearful he would read into her physical infatuation and maybe even glimpse how reluctantly fascinated she still was with him, standing there countering her arguments in sabre-like flourishes of sharp and steely words. She couldn’t marry that!
Yet every night since meeting him, she had gone to sleep wondering about him, imagining things having gone a different way. Wishing. Yearning.
It was a passing phase. Por favor, Dios.
“Love is largely a romantic notion. I’m not a romantic.” She wasn’t allowed to be.
“I noticed,” he said pithily.
She hid her flinch.
“The only reason you’re balking at marriage is because your parents expect you to marry a milquetoast from a ‘good’ family with old money. I happen to be a reverse snob who feels nothing but disdain for those who inherit their wealth instead of earning it. But I’m willing to overlook that flaw in you.”
So magnanimous.
“Remind me to show you what I’ve earned from my patents in biofuels and recycling of recovered plastics.” She showed him what disdain looked like. Her mother’s blithe smile, right here, on her face. “My parents expect me to marry someone with an unblemished background who complements our business interests, yes. I expect to marry someone who shares my values and supports my aspirations, whether that be motherhood or scientific research.”
She didn’t know where that last bit had come from. She had resigned herself to giving up that part of her life and contributing to the betterment of mankind through—blech—charity galas and the patronage of scientists
who were allowed to pursue their passion.
“I don’t care how many microscopes you buy as long as you’re there when our child gets a ribbon at school. Which reminds me. Why weren’t any of your family at your thing today?” He waved a hand toward the dusk closing in beyond the windows. “A PhD is a big deal, isn’t it?”
“Not in my family.” It was more the price of membership. “It’s something we’re capable of, so we do it.”
“Everyone in your family has a doctorate? Attained at twenty-four?”
“My father was twenty-five.” She looked at her nails. “My brothers were both twenty-six.” And yes, she had pushed herself to squeak hers in before her birthday next month. It was the bargain she’d struck with her mother, to get it finished early so she could marry before her eggs went stale. She was quite proud of the accomplishment, but knew better than to expect a fanfare for it. It was enough to know privately that she had done better than everyone else.
“Your mother...?”
“Married a scientist so she doesn’t have to be one.”
“Ah. But you’d like to continue to be one.”
“Yes,” she said with growing certainty. “I’ve allocated the next few years to marriage and starting a family—”
“Such an overachiever, getting it all done in one day.”
Hilarious.
“I should probably disclose, I don’t possess a sense of humor. Dare I hope it’s a flaw that is a deal breaker?”
His mouth twitched. “I’m just as happy laughing at as with.”
She looked away, refusing to smile, even though she kind of wanted to sputter out a chuckle. The stakes were far too high, though.
“What’s your vision of marriage, Angelo?” she asked, bracing herself as she pointed out, “You’ve had an hour to process this. I can’t believe you’re really prepared to marry a stranger.”
“Believe it,” he said implacably. “My father was garbage. He gave me twenty-three chromosomes and a lot of bad memories. I’ll do better by my own child. A lot better. Full disclosure,” he mocked, “I have a blemished background. Flaws you will have to overlook.”
“What kind of blemish?” she asked warily.
Once again he gave her a look that was so penetrating it made her feel encased in ice, unable to move. After a charged moment, his expression changed from severe to dismissive. He contemplated the horizon.
“We’ll discuss it another time.”
Frustrated, she demanded, “When? After we’re married?”
She hadn’t meant to speak of it as though it was a fait accompli. She rubbed away the shiver his austere look had lifted on her arms.
“Look, I accept that you want to be a good father. For the baby’s sake, I’m pleased. That still doesn’t mean we should marry.”
“Live together then? I’m not hung up on making it official.”
“Oh? Why didn’t you say so? I’ll marry as planned and you can come live with us. One big happy family.”
“You’re right. Your sense of humor needs work.”
“I wasn’t joking.”
“I’m a man with an open mind, Pia, but my tastes don’t run to ménage.”
“I’m still seeing a solution, not a problem.”
“Let me spell it out. I’m possessive. Any man who lives with us will be skimming the pool. You and I will share one bed.”
“Optimistic, too.”
“You don’t want to sleep with me?” He hitched his shoulder against the window so he was facing her.
“Not something you hear often?” she inquired with a lift of her brows that she hoped conveyed disinterest.
“Not often, no. When I do, I accept it as the truth. Today...”
“Why would I lie?”
“I don’t know.” He studied her.
It took everything in her to hold his gaze and keep her uneasiness from reflecting in her face.
“How many contenders were there?” he finally asked.
“For what?”
“Paternity.”
“Excuse me?” She was pretty sure she was insulted.
“You were right when you said we’re both too smart to be in this position. The excitement of the moment got the better of us. I accept that. But in the cool light of day, you slipped up again and didn’t visit a doctor for a precaution. Given your extensive education, you are way too smart to make such a simple miscalculation.”
She didn’t know where he was going with this, but she felt as though he was peeling layers off her as he did it. She wanted to run, but she had to stand there and act completely bored.
“So?”
“You’re smart, but you’re not experienced.” He spoke in a tone of dawning realization.
“In what way?” Her stomach flipped over as she attempted to maintain her laissez-faire attitude. “The use of birth control? You’re right. It hasn’t come up.”
“No? Why’s that?” He had a look on his face that was both amused and bemused, as if he knew the answer while she still didn’t understand the question.
“Because I haven’t had to use it before.” Obviously.
“Because you were a virgin,” he concluded. He was smiling. Laughing at her. Dios, no.
“Why is that relevant?” she asked, as mortified heat climbed her cheeks.
“Because even with my vast experience, I usually know a woman more than ten minutes before I’m making babies with her. I always know her name.”
The air seemed to crackle and snap between them.
She clenched her teeth, not enjoying hearing about those legions of other women and refusing to examine why. “How many babies do you have?”
“Just the one.” He nodded at her middle.
He seemed to take the opportunity to track his gaze all over her sage-green jacket and its matching skirt. She had chosen the knit skirt because it was comfortable while the jacket’s turned-up collar lent her an air of polished authority.
He took in the rest while he was down there, skimming his gaze to her snakeskin pumps and back to the bronze lace of her camisole between the lapels of her closed jacket, then finally up to her eyes.
He hadn’t even touched her, but she felt restless and lethargic and self-destructive. Ready to abandon sense and propriety all over again.
It was all the reason she needed to reject him. He was far too dangerous, undermining her with a look. She couldn’t live her entire life with that!
“You understand this baby has been conceived?” she asked frostily. “No further action is required.”
He chuckled softly. “The question on the table is whether you want to.”
“I’ve answered. I said, no thank you.”
“Because you want to sleep with the overbred nob your mother has chosen.”
Put that way, she dreaded it, but, “When the alternative is someone who casts aside modesty or decorum, I struggle to see the strength in your argument.”
“I usually have enough decency not to have sex in public, but neither of us showed much decorum or restraint, did we? You gave up your virginity. It’s very rare for couples to react the way we do, you know.”
“Current levels of overpopulation lead me to believe lust is fairly common,” she murmured with another examination of her nails.
“Not this kind of lust. It’s extraordinary. Do you need another sample?”
His hand started to come up and she dropped her own, jerking back a step beyond his reach.
He scratched his cheek as he chuckled. “So jumpy.”
She smoothed her embarrassed irritation from her brow. “Deep emotions, such as lust, are detrimental to a comfortable life. Destructive, even. As we’ve demonstrated.”
“The damage is done, querida.”
“So let’s not compound it.”
“Agreed.
” He straightened off the window. “Let’s not bring anyone else into this child’s life that doesn’t need to be here.”
“Certain people, like my family, are already in my life. They will be affected.”
“What are they going to do? Disown you?” His pitiless gaze dismissed them either way.
Her chest constricted. No, her parents wouldn’t yell or reject her, but she would lose her chance to win their approval. For once.
Was that what she was holding out for? As that unpleasant truth slapped her, she knew that Angelo had won. Their baby had won. She was no longer the child. She was the parent and it was time to give up the fantasy of earning her parents’ affection and show the sort of concern and unconditional love that she’d longed for all her life.
Damn it.
“My mother will need to be informed,” she said with defeat. “Immediately.”
* * *
“I’ll go with you,” Angelo said as she exchanged a few brief texts with her parents and announced she would visit their home on the way to her own.
“It’s not necessary.” Pia dropped her phone back into her purse.
“It is.” Angelo didn’t need approval from her parents. From anyone, for that matter, but the influence her parents exerted over her shouldn’t be underestimated.
Pia was such a mystery. Coldly analytical, then flaring hot. Fascinating, but frustrating.
She moved to the mirror in the hall and set her purse on the table as she searched through it. “My parents are aware of your name in relation to the painting. They’ll want to know your motives. How you came to be at the ball.”
“Tell them you invited me.”
“I don’t lie to them.”
“Then tell them you had no idea who I was and made love with me anyway.” He shrugged it off, sidestepping what she was really asking.
He would have to tell her eventually, but he would wait until she couldn’t back out of their marriage. That was partly tactical, partly selfish. He wanted his revenge on his brothers and it would carry so much more flavor if he was marrying up. Marrying spectacularly well, in fact.