He moved back to his seat, took a moment to compose himself. When he spoke again his voice was low, firm. ‘I didn’t bring you here to row with you, Saskia. I brought you because I wanted somewhere private for us to discuss what happens next.’
‘Discuss?’ she asked.
But he noted that her tone was softer now. His attempt to defuse the situation had clearly worked. At least to some degree.
‘Or for you to command and for me to listen?’ she went on.
‘That will very much depend on whether you accept what I say, zvyozdochka, or decide to argue against it.’
Zvyozdochka. The endearment he had used that weekend slipped out before he could stop himself, causing Saskia to snap her head up.
He cursed himself for giving too much away.
‘I didn’t think you accepted people arguing with you?’ she challenged softly.
‘I don’t,’ he bit out. ‘So allow me to tell you exactly what is going to happen, Saskia.’
He watched her swallow. Hard. Then she folded her arms over her chest. Nonetheless, he didn’t miss the tremor that rippled through her body. Just as he noticed that she didn’t say anything to stop him.
‘You are carrying my child. Mine. Whatever you might think that idiot ex-fiancé of yours would have done, or wanted to do, is of no consequence to me. I don’t care about him, or the life you thought you were building with him. I don’t care about your broken heart or lack of trust. I care that my baby won’t suffer because of your hang-ups.’
Or his own, if he were honest.
Though Malachi chose not to voice that.
‘Good to know,’ she choked out. ‘Anything else?’
‘Yes, as it happens...’ He had no idea what he was saying, just knew that words were flowing from him as though they’d been there all along. ‘Forget just moving in with me. You will be my wife.’
It hung there between them in the shocked sil
ence. For how long, he had no idea.
And then Saskia gave an indelicate snort. ‘That’s even more preposterous than your first suggestion.’
An hour ago he might have agreed. Half an hour ago. But now he’d begun to get used to the idea.
Far more quickly than he might have expected to.
‘I disagree.’
‘We’re not living in the last century. I don’t have to be married to have a child,’ she declared vehemently. And then, almost as an afterthought, added less emphatically, ‘Besides, I don’t want to be your wife.’
As if she had belatedly realized that was something she ought to have thought, rather than something she actually had thought.
‘Marriage is not an institution that I thought I would ever enter,’ was all he could answer. ‘But for the sake of your baby, this will happen. Our child will know only a close family unit.’
She sucked in a shocked breath. ‘You can’t be serious.’
‘Do I look like I am joking?’
She opened her mouth, closed it again, then shot back at him. ‘And in this ridiculous scenario of yours, do you imagine we will be sleeping together, like we’re really a couple?’
He could tell she regretted the words as soon as they came out of her mouth, and he knew precisely why.
‘How interesting that that’s where your mind went, Saskia,’ he purred. ‘Though I assume sleeping together is a euphemism for having sex, since I’ll remind you that we didn’t actually do much of the former.’
She shifted in her seat and then glowered at him.