Fresh air came in through the opening in the roof and Angele leaned back in her seat, seemingly breathing easier. Good.
He mentally ran through a list of things needed doing. Consulting an eminent obstetrician was top of the list. “You are not taking this seriously, what this pregnancy means.”
“Oh, I’m taking it seriously all right. I know exactly what it means.”
“Oh?” She certainly had not shown proper understanding so far.
“Yes.” She shot daggers with her usually doe-soft eyes. “It means I’m agreeing to a marriage I don’t want.”
“Why?”
“Why what?” she asked, sounding genuinely confused.
“Why agree to the marriage?”
“Because I’m not a stone-cold bitch.”
“I never said you were.”
“My mother told me something a few years ago. It was after I found out about my father’s infidelities. I apologized to her for having to live in the States where I could know relative anonymity, instead of her home country of Brazil where she was better known. She’d done it to protect me.”
“I am aware.”
“Well, she told me I had nothing to apologize for, that from the moment a baby is conceived, his or her needs must come first.”
“You are willing to marry me for the sake of our child.”
“Under certain conditions, yes.”
The limo pulled to a stop.
She looked at him with that same sick expression she’d had before opening the sunroof. “We’re not at the restaurant. We’re hours too early for dinner.”
She swallowed convulsively on the word dinner.
“No, we are at your apartment building. I originally had planned to give you time to get ready for our date.”
“More like, you intended to seduce me before dinner and hoped to cement the romantic proposal over dessert.” The words should have been mocking, but she merely sounded resigned.
“You think you know me.” She was wrong. On the proposal over dessert part.
He’d planned to woo her in person for two weeks before popping the question, so to speak.
“What?” she asked. “It would have been a good plan, if unsuccessful.”
“You do not think I could seduce you?”
“I’m positive you could. Even feeling like my stomach is a jumping board for little green men right now, but I still wouldn’t have said yes to your proposal.”
“But you will now, because of the pregnancy.”
“Neither of us has a choice. This baby deserves better than to be shunted to the side as the unacknowledged offspring to a future king.”
“I would never refuse to acknowledge my child.”
“You know what I mean.”
“No, in fact, I do not.”