For Duty's Sake
“No, but there are other Elsas in this world.”
“I have no interest in them.”
“I hope that’s true.”
“You doubt my word?” Zahir’s shock was almost comical.
She poured the tea, adding a scant teaspoon of sugar to hers. “Not exactly.”
“Then what, exactly?”
“The future. I doubt the future.”
“Well, don’t.”
She wanted to laugh, but simply shook her head. “If only it were that easy.”
“It can be.”
“Certai
n safeguards would make it easier.”
“The conditions.”
“Yes, my conditions.”
“For you to marry me, despite the fact you carry my child.” He stirred not one, but three teaspoons of sugar into his tea.
She’d always found his sweet tooth endearing, something she knew about him that few people noticed. Because he didn’t eat desserts. But he did drink cocoa and put lots of sugar in his coffee and tea. Seeing evidence of that sweet tooth now brought a measure of comfort, a reminder that not everything had changed.
He was still the same man she’d fallen in love with from afar, the same man she’d planned for most of her adult life to marry.
“Yes.”
“I’m not going to like them, am I?”
“No.” There was no point in sugarcoating it—no matter how much he might like sweet things, but she wasn’t going to feel guilty for trying for some semblance of assurance for her future, either.
She might not be that naive, year on from university woman who believed she could have a one-night stand with the man she loved and come out of it relatively unscathed, but she still had to have some level of hope for her future. His agreement to her conditions would give her that.
He sat back, his mug in one hand, his eyes fixed on her with that patented intensity of his. “I am all ears.”
She took a deep breath and went for broke. “I want a prenup that guarantees me the right to raise our children in the United States in the event you take a lover.”
She waited for the explosion, but none came. He simply sat, sipping his tea in silence and looking completely unperturbed.
“Nothing to say?”
“I assume there is more since you said conditions plural, not condition in the singular.”
“Yes.” Was he really as sanguine as he appeared? “I mean it.”
“I assumed you did.”
“You aren’t angry.”
“Considering your past, such a condition is hardly a shock.”