A look curled through his eyes and his nostrils flared as if he was gathering himself. The very deep, very real quicksand she’d been sinking in since she admitted the depths of her feelings for Ramon, threatened to suck her down even faster.
Because it was clear he was up to something.
‘Our current circumstances are a strong reason to advocate marriage, are they not?’
Her heart lurched harder, and she fought ready tears that prickled her heart. ‘When only a few weeks ago you fully denounced it? Your exact words were...marriage is not for me, if I recall correctly?’ Knowing now what she didn’t know then, the statement hurt even more.
He’d been betrayed by the woman he loved and had closed himself off for ever. For him to force himself back down that road...
‘Things have changed. I have changed. And we’re coming from a different place this time.’
She wanted to admire that earth-shaking sentiment. Perhaps, she even did somewhere deep within her. But the seething pain of her wrecked heart didn’t give her enough room to feel magnanimous right then.
‘Are we?’
He surged to his feet, moving towards her with speed that belied his overpowering presence.
‘Sí. If we’re both committed to making this work, we will succeed. I want to try.’
He stopped at the side of the bed, his green eyes blazing down at her with a light she wished with all her heart were hers to own. Hers to love. But she knew it wasn’t.
All this was for his child.
Heart mourning, she shook her head. ‘I... I don’t think I—’
His hand shot out, stopping her answer. ‘Perhaps this wasn’t the best timing in the world.’ He glanced at the lowered shutters then back to her. ‘Proposing at thirty-seven thousand feet is unique but it wasn’t what I had in mind. Don’t give me your answer now. For the sake of what’s at stake, take some time to think about it, sí?’
The light blazed higher in his eyes, his fists lightly bunched at his sides.
Suki nodded because she realised she did need the time. That saying no right then would be diving off a cliff before she’d constructed a safety net.
It was completely selfish, completely delusional, but she wanted to cling to it for just a while longer before it disappeared like mist in the sunlight.
He bent towards her, brushed his lips against her cheek. ‘Muy bien. I’ll see you in the living area when you’re ready.’
Straightening, he headed for the door, tall, powerful, holding her very life in his hands as he walked out of the room.
Left alone to work through the dizzying highs of imagining his glorious words had been powered by love and the cold lows of knowing the truth, Suki collapsed back against the pillows.
The comforting gesture of sliding her hand over her belly calmed a little of her roiling emotions long enough for the painful but extraneous nuggets to fall away, leaving her with the flags that spelled her reality.
She loved Ramon.
He loved his child.
She would never love anyone else.
Which meant a broken heart was already winging its way to her.
She could run away, wait for the inevitable day to happen and lick her wounds in private. Or she could stay, face it head-on, find a way to move past it while providing her child with the best possible foundation to life?
The thought that she was even considering his proposal sent her back upright, the sheets once again twisting beneath her fingers.
Why not?
She would have to face heartache one day, but was there any reason it had to be right now?
She’d already agreed to co-parent her baby’s formative years with Ramon. Just as he’d agreed to restructure his life to suit the baby. And just as they’d gone into conception with their eyes wide open, why couldn’t they do the same with marriage?