His Merciless Marriage Bargain

He studied her from across the table, his gaze slowly examining every inch of her face. “So you’ll stay here for the duration of the engagement?”

“I have a job, Gio, and I might not be the owner of my company but I have colleagues who count on me, and customers impatiently waiting my return—”

“I don’t want you to return to Seattle, not if you’re going to take Michael.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t want him with a stranger all day while you work. You deprive him of you. You deprive him of me. It’s not right, not when I’m here, and I want him in my life.”

“And what would I do if I stayed here?”

“Be his mother. Be my wife.”

“And you’ll compensate me, correct? You’ll give me an allowance or open a bank account for me.” She shuddered. “That is not my idea of a life. There is no independence. There is no freedom.”

“Do you have freedom now? Show me your independence. You were on my doorstep begging for help.”

Her lips compressed. She averted her head, her hands knotted in her lap.

“I know about your life in Seattle. You had a job, and a two-bedroom apartment—two bedrooms because Juliet often needed a place to crash—and a car with one more year of payments left on it. It’s a life, a respectable life,” he added quietly, “but it’s not fantastic. It’s not a dream. There’s no reason you can’t consider other options, and you need to consider other options, if not for your sake, then for Michael’s.”

She was so close to crying that she had to bite the inside of her lip hard, brutally hard, to keep the tears from falling. A marriage without love? What kind of future was that?

As if able to read her mind, he added, “Romantic love isn’t everything. There is companionship. And passion. I will ensure you’re satisfied—”

“Can you please drop this?” she choked, mortified.

“For now.”

* * *

Leaving the café, they walked in silence for several minutes, pausing to let a group of tourists push past. They were talking loudly and in a hurry, and Rachel stepped back close to the building, glad for the interruption as it had been almost too quiet for the past few minutes.

Another group appeared on the heels of the first, and Rachel pressed her back to the building, letting the next group get by them, too.

“The water is receding,” Gio explained. “The tourists have been waiting anxiously in their hotels for the tides to drop, and now that high tide has passed, the tourists are descending on the city again.”

“Does it flood this much every winter?” she asked as they started walking once more.

“We usually have a little bit of flooding every winter, but the amount varies. Acqua alta, which means high water, can range from just a few centimeters to three or four feet. Last year was a bad year. We had over four feet, and over half the island was covered. It was one of the worst seasons we’ve had in one hundred and fifty years.”

“You sound so pragmatic.”

“It can’t be stopped, and Venice is never totally submerged. Even when it’s bad, half the island is dry, and where we are now is the lowest part of the island. The piazza gets the worst of the high water, creating dramatic photos for tourists, but it doesn’t bother residents. We expect acqua alta. Venice is an island, crisscrossed with canals. Water is part of our life. We can’t escape it, nor would we want to.”

“It’s true, though, that the flooding has been worse in recent years, and that’s due to climate change?”

“Venice has been sinking for hundreds of years, but it’s not just because of climate change and the rising seas. The more we develop outlying areas, with the pumping of water and natural gas, the more Venice is negatively impacted. It is serious. It’s devastating for those of us who love Venice.”

She chewed on her lip, as she looked past him to the wet street beyond. “I think everyone loves Venice,” she said after a moment. “How can you not? It’s otherworldly. A fairy-tale city.”

“So you could be happy here.”

She shot him a pensive side glance. “I didn’t say that.”

“Then I will. You could be happy here. It’s a fairy-tale city, a place where dreams come true.”

* * *

Worn out from the emotional day, Rachel had dinner in her room, wanting some quiet and the chance to unwind with Michael.

She held him until after he’d fallen asleep in her arms and continued to hold him for another hour. She loved him so very much. The world was unpredictable and life could be overwhelming, but she was determined to protect him and do what was best for him until he no longer needed her.