The Marakaios Baby (The Marakaios Brides 2)

‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ He handed her the tea and then returned to his seat before snapping open his newspaper. ‘It’s always hard to sleep after a party, I find.’

Such bland, meaningless conversation—and yet it provided a necessary kind of protection, a return to the way things needed to be.

‘It wasn’t because of the party, Leo,’ Margo said.

He glanced up from the paper and saw her give him a direct look that stripped away his stupidly bland attempts at conversation, saw right into his soul.

‘It was because of our kiss.’

Our kiss. Memories raced across his brain, jumpstarted his libido.

He took a sip of coffee and answered evenly. ‘Yet you were the one who stopped it.’

‘Actually, you were,’ she answered.

‘Semantics,’ he returned. ‘You were the one who stopped responding, Margo.’

‘I know.’ She looked down at her plate, her long, slender fingers toying with her fork, her face hidden.

‘Why did you, as a matter of interest?’ Leo asked, half amazed that he was asking the question. Did he really want to know the answer? ‘It wasn’t because you weren’t interested. I could feel your desire, Margo. You wanted me.’

‘I know,’ she said softly. ‘Whatever you think...whatever you believe...I’ve never stopped wanting you, Leo.’

‘Ah, yes, of course,’ he drawled sardonically. ‘It’s loving me you have a problem with.’ Damn it. He had not meant to say that.

She looked up, her gaze swift and searching. ‘But you don’t love me, either.’

‘No.’ So why did he feel so exposed, so hurt? He let out a short, impatient huff of breath. ‘I’m not sure why we’re even having this conversation.’

‘Because I think we’re both trying to navigate this relationship,’ Margo answered quietly. ‘This marriage. And I’m not sure I know how to be businesslike with my husband.’

‘You seem to be managing fine.’

‘Maybe, but when you came into my room last night...when you felt the baby kick...it made me realise that we’re actually going to be parents.’ She let out a self-conscious laugh and continued, ‘I knew it before, of course, but for a moment I had this image of us together with a child—giving it a bath, teaching it to ride a bike. Boy or girl, this baby is ours and we’ll both love him or her. I know that. And I don’t know where being businesslike fits in with that. With a family. The kind of family I want...that I’ve always wanted—’ She broke off, averting her face.

Leo stared at her. ‘Yet you’re the one who has said you don’t wish to be married, who viewed this marriage as a sacrifice,’ he reminded her. Reminded himself. As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t get past that. The real feelings, or lack of them, that she’d shown when he had proposed.

‘I said that because I thought you’d hate me after what I said before,’ Margo said. ‘About there being someone else.’

‘And why did you say that?’ Leo challenged in a hard voice. ‘Why did you choose to lie in such an abominable way?’

‘I told you before. Because it was the only way I could think of to—to make you leave me.’

Everything in him had crystallised, gone brittle. ‘Yes, I remember. And why did you want me to leave you so much, Margo?’

She was silent—so terribly, damnably silent.

Leo reached for his fork and knife. ‘I see,’ he said quietly, and he was afraid he saw all too well. The brutal rejection of it, of him, was inescapable.

* * *

Margo had come to breakfast after a restless, sleepless night, determined to talk to Leo and, more than that, to come to an agreement. An arrangement. Even though the details remained vague in her head. She didn’t want to be businesslike any more—didn’t want this polite stepping around each other.

Yet what was the alternative? How did you engage your heart and mind and maybe even your soul without risking everything?

And she knew she wasn’t ready to do that. She hadn’t even been able to tell Leo that the real reason why she’d refused his marriage proposal was that she’d been so very afraid. Annelise... Her mother... The foster parents who had decided she wasn’t what they wanted... So many had turned away, and she knew she couldn’t take it if Leo did. Not if she’d given him her heart—fragile, trampled on thing that it was.

But her silence had led to this terrible strain, with Leo having turned back to his newspaper, his expression remote and shuttered.

‘What are you doing today?’ she blurted, and he looked up from the paper, not even a flicker of interest or emotion on those perfectly chiselled features.