“Not like you’ve been dreaming of,” he said softly. “Our marriage won’t be a fairy tale. Not like the poets say. But I want you, Rosalie. And I know you want me.” He drew closer to her in the moonlight, pressing her hands against the white shirt of his tuxedo. “We can be good together. Raise our son together. We can be happy. Friends. Parents.” He kissed one cheek, then the other. “Partners. In life.” He ran his thumb slowly across her lower lip. “In bed.”
Her body trembled at that touch. Her gaze fell unwillingly to his beautiful mouth as she heard herself whisper, “All right.”
Alex blinked and pulled away. He looked down at her. “Think about what you’re saying, Rosalie. Can you really be happy without a grand, romantic love? Because I take promises seriously. Happy or unhappy, marriage is forever. I’ll never divorce you. Once we speak our vows, we’re wed for life.”
She swallowed. Her heart was pounding.
Was she making a terrible mistake? A corner of her soul was terrified and shrieking for her to slow down, to back away, to stop, to consider. But the rest of her just wanted Alex, at any cost. And that part was arguing even louder.
Rosalie wanted a real home, and knew she could never return to Emmetsville. She was tired of feeling sad and unsure about her future. Put other people first if you want to be happy, her mother had always said. How better to start than by putting their son first? And how better to do that than by marrying her baby’s father?
For her whole life, she’d dreamed of having a loving marriage like her parents had. Wasn’t that why she’d fled to San Francisco—because she hadn’t been willing to settle for less?
But after her parents had died, everything changed. The light inside Rosalie had died. She was no longer sure she’d find that kind of love. No longer sure she even deserved it.
And so she’d agreed to be a surrogate. To help someone else. Because, in her soul, she’d given up hope.
How many times over the last year had she wished she’d married Cody Kowalski? Wishing she hadn’t refused him because she’d wanted to wait for true love?
Her parents had paid the price for her selfishness. And if she refused Alex’s proposal now, wouldn’t she be doing the same to her baby? Holding out for some impossible dream of romantic love, that deep at her core, she no longer believed in?
We can be good together. Raise our son together. We can be happy. Friends. Parents. Partners.
Yes. Wasn’t that what her baby deserved—a stable home and two parents living together not just for a few months but for always?
Partners. In life, he’d said huskily. In bed.
Rosalie shivered. It was the best offer she’d ever had in her whole life. She wanted it more than anything. So why was she hesitating?
“I’m not a man who is comfortable sharing feelings,” Alex said slowly. “I will never sing you love songs. If that is what you need—”
“It isn’t.” She didn’t need love songs, Rosalie told herself desperately. She needed a home. She needed a partner. She needed a lover and friend. It would be enough—more than she deserved. She had to stop dreaming of some unreachable star. Alex wanted to marry her—wasn’t that enough of a miracle? How could she possibly be greedy enough to cry out for more?
She was no longer a child, to believe in fairy tales, or expect life to be fair. She didn’t need love. She didn’t think she’d find it, anyway.
Reaching up her hand, Rosalie cupped his rough jawline. “I’ll marry you, Alex.”
With a rush of breath, he turned her palm to his lips and kissed it, causing electricity to sizzle up and down her body beneath the pink satin dress.
And as Alex pulled her into his arms, as he kissed her on the bridge, all her last doubts, all her soul’s fearful cries, melted away like mist beneath the power and force of his hot, brilliant sun.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THREE WEEKS LATER, Rosalie held her breath as she looked at herself in the full-length mirror.
Her bridal gown was simple, a long white slip dress with a bias cut. The low-cut bodice, held up with spaghetti straps, caressed her full breasts and pregnant belly. Her long hair tumbled down her bare shoulders, crowned by a long translucent veil that stretched all the way to the floor, edged with lace. She looked like the perfect pregnant bride.
Except the face in the mirror looked scared.
The sweep of eyeliner accentuated her dark lashes above worried brown eyes. She’d already had to retouch her scarlet lipstick three times, because she kept biting her lips and smearing it.
How Rosalie wished she had someone here with her, to tell her she was doing the right thing in marrying Alex. If only her parents could be here, or childhood friends from back home. But the only person who might have come was Odette, and when she’d phoned her great-aunt to invite her to today’s wedding, she hadn’t exactly been reassuring.
“A wedding? So fast? What’s the hurry?” her great-aunt had demanded.
Rosalie could hardly explain that her fiancé had refused to make love to her until their wedding night.
I cannot give you everything, but I can at least give you that dream, Alex had said, before kissing her until she was dizzy.