‘We’re getting married.’
‘What?’ Her jaw dropped.
‘You’re pregnant. It’s my baby. I’m not having my child born illegitimate.’
‘And I don’t get any choice in this?’
‘So explain your choice to me, then. What are you going to do? Stay in this tiny bedsit? Are you going to head straight back to work the second you’ve given birth and leave my baby in a nursery all day? How did you think you were going to make ends meet, Leah?’
He was asking too many questions. Making too many judgments. A barrage of tests designed to trip her up—like those dreaded pop quizzes her parents inflicted on her randomly and repeatedly so she never had any chance of relaxing. Not when she failed them every time because their required pass mark was one hundred per cent correct. That old performance anxiety reared, rendering her unable to think at all. Instead she lashed out. ‘I’m not going to marry you.’
‘Why not? You know you’ll never have to work another day in your life,’ he exploded.
As if that were relevant? ‘I didn’t even know who you were. I wasn’t the one who provided the condoms. Or the one who put them on. I’m not the one who didn’t bother to check they’d...’ She trailed off.
‘Survived the event?’ he interpolated with dry precision.
‘No. And guess what? I like my life. I like my home here. I like the people I help in my job. I want to work. I certainly don’t want to leave it all to live a life of intolerable boredom in a foreign country with a husband who resents me.’
His face whitened. ‘Too bad,’ he choked. ‘Because here we are. It isn’t what you want? It’s not what I want either. But it’s what’s right. Pack your things.’
She stared at the stranger he’d become. Or perhaps he always was this ruthless and she’d just not seen it that night because she’d stupidly given him everything he’d wanted? She couldn’t reconcile that suave, amusing man with the cold authoritarian before her now.
‘I don’t want to fight, Leah.’ He ran a hand through his hair roughly.
‘You just want me to do everything you want.’
‘Yeah.’ He actually threw a smile in her direction. Well, a tight, determined baring of the teeth that a more generous person might mistake for a smile. ‘I’m good at fixing problems and you have to agree this is a problem.’
It was a huge problem. ‘What’s your plan, then?’
He ruffled his hair again and then sighed. ‘In the long term, we won’t have to impact on each other’s lives much.’
Chills swept over her skin. This was no romance. No rescue. He wasn’t suggesting marriage because he liked her. This was only about securing their child’s future. But the details were too scarce. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean we can come up with an arrangement that suits us both.’
Still not enough. ‘What kind of arrangement?’
He had a distant look in his eyes. ‘We’ll marry, we’ll raise this child. But you and I will live largely separate lives. I have several properties.’
‘Separate.’ She swallowed the sting of his cool rejection. She couldn’t let it bother her. He clearly didn’t feel any of the attraction to her that she still felt for him. Not even just physical. ‘Theo, we had a really nice night, but it was supposed to end there,’ she said stoutly.
‘Well, there’s no ending it now,’ he muttered. ‘We’re stuck with each other for a lifetime.’
‘We don’t have to be.’
‘What does that mean?’ he asked pointedly. ‘Are you prepared to give me full custody?’
All the air whooshed from her lungs. ‘What? No!’
‘Because I’ll not step back from my responsibility, Leah. If you’re having my baby, I’m going to provide for it. Always.’
His vehemence shocked her. He’d said he didn’t want to marry. She’d thought that meant he’d not want children either...but now he was all ‘instant family’—why?
‘Don’t make this more difficult than it needs to be,’ he added, watching her closely, his expression shutting down as if he could read the questions burning inside her. ‘We can work it out.’
‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘But it doesn’t have to mean marriage.’ She struggled to drag in a calming breath. ‘You said you’d never marry.’
Theo’s jaw locked so hard it hurt. ‘You’re pregnant.’
Nothing but regret filled him. History was repeating in the worst of ways. He’d failed her, his grandfather, himself. He knew accidents happened. He was one himself. And he had to do a better job of fixing this than his parents had. And as much as he didn’t want it, there was only one way to do that. But he could hardly compute what she’d told him. Truthfully he was still recovering from being in the same airspace as her again—still battling the urge to haul her close and kiss her. He needed calm and logic to create a cool-headed contract with her.
Yet as he stared, as she stiffened in defensiveness, a primal possessiveness stole his reason, its fierceness shocking his self-control from him. He’d claim what was his. He’d protect it. Always. He’d even protect it from himself.
‘I won’t have an illegitimate child, Leah,’ he said roughly. ‘He or she deserves my name and all the privileges that come with it.’
‘You mean money?’
‘I mean many things, but, yes, that’s one of them. My child also needs the proper protection... You do too.’ He glanced at her. ‘You have no idea what comes with wealth like ours.’
‘Is it a terrible burden?’ Her eyes glinted as she lobbed the acerbic little taunt.
He refused to react to her bite. ‘The child also needs more than physical security. A sense of belonging.’ Theo closed his mind to his own old memories of insecurity and betrayal. ‘I’m sorry if that’s too old-fashioned for you, but...’ Bitterness almost overwhelmed him. Surely he could give more than he’d received? Except he really couldn’t bear the thought of caring for a tiny, vulnerable baby. He didn’t have what it took.
‘It’s not old-fashioned. It’s honourable.’ She sighed. ‘It’s just—’
‘We’re talking about a baby, Leah,’ he interrupted, unable to stand the argument, let alone the actual reality. ‘It doesn’t get more life-changing than that. I’ll take my share of the responsibility.’
Her lips compressed. ‘But you’re taking all the responsibility and becoming a dictator in the process.’
Her flash of temper tested his determination not to lose his again. But if he reacted now the way he really wanted, then this wouldn’t become the safe, serviceable arrangement they both needed. Her earlier words haunted him—a life of intolerable boredom with a husband who resented her? She’d encapsulated his mother’s life in one sentence. And look at the mess of betrayal and hurt that had led to.
He refused to excavate the past now. All that mattered was that he ensured Leah had everything she needed. Except he didn’t really know how—not beyond the basics of providing four walls, a roof and food. He paced across the tiny room, rapidly working out the only way they could forge a viable future. She’d hardly have to see him. They simply had to agree to the arrangement.
Right now she wouldn’t look at him. She was scared and angry. Frankly so was he. ‘Pack your things. It’s getting late.’
She kept staring at the floor. ‘I’m not leaving with you.’
‘I’m not leaving without you.’ Her pers
istence tore his temper. ‘You might have only recently found out about this pregnancy, but you didn’t exactly try hard to get in touch with me. How do I know you’re not going to skip town in the middle of the night?’
‘You don’t trust me.’
He braced inwardly at the hurt he heard in that soft sentence and just reiterated the fact. ‘I’m not leaving without you.’
‘Well, I’m not leaving here tonight. Good luck on my tiny sofa.’
‘I’m not sleeping on the sofa, Leah.’
‘You’re not welcome in my bed,’ she declared huskily.
‘Is that right?’ He stepped closer and felt the frisson of sensual awareness. Her words were pure challenge—a denial of the electricity sparking between them. It was still there—he’d seen it the second they’d laid eyes on each other again. But it was in both their interests to let her deny it. ‘Then it’s my hotel suite.’
‘I’m not—’
‘It has more than one bedroom,’ he growled. ‘Will that appease your outraged virtue?’ He whirled away so he wasn’t tempted to prove how hollow her words were. But the room wasn’t anywhere near large enough for him to get the distance he needed. ‘It’s that or we stand here arguing all night.’
She folded her arms. ‘I can’t just pack up everything tonight.’
He glanced about. ‘Why not? It won’t take long.’
She shook her head. ‘You’re a jerk, you know that?’
‘Leah.’ He struggled for control—so close to throwing her over his shoulder and carting her down to the waiting car himself. He never let his emotions get the better of him, but it was almost impossible now. ‘It’s getting late.’
‘I could join you later. In a week or so.’
It was unacceptable to him. ‘We’re sticking together until we’re married.’
She looked aghast. ‘We can’t just get married.’
True. He nodded. ‘It’ll take about a week to get the paperwork processed.’
‘A week?’
Yeah, he was moving fast but he’d make no apology for it. He could only try a little joke. ‘That’ll give you time to find something to wear.’
‘Because that’s the most important thing I have to consider?’