A Marriage Fit for a Sinner

With Eva, he’d experienced an unprecedented and very caveman-like urge to claim her, to make sure every man within striking distance knew she belonged to him. And only him. That feeling was as unsettling as it was hard to eradicate. It wasn’t helped when she toyed with her champagne glass and avoided eye contact.

‘I don’t appreciate you messing with my schedule behind my back, Zaccheo,’ she said.

He wasn’t sure why the sound of his name on her lips further spiked his libido, but he wanted to hear it again. He wanted to hear it fall from her lips in the throes of passion, as he took her to the heights of ecstasy.

Dio, he was losing it. Losing sight of his objective. Which was to make sure she understood that he intended to give no quarter in making her his.

He took a bracing sip of champagne and nodded to the hovering waiters ready to serve the meal he’d ordered.

‘It was dinner here or summoning you back to the penthouse. You should be thanking me for bending like this.’

She glared. ‘You really are a great loss to the Dark Ages, you know that?’

‘In time you’ll learn that I always get my way, Eva. Always.’

Her eyes met his and that intense, inexplicable connection that had throbbed between them right from the very start pulled, tightened.

‘Did it even occur to you that I may have said yes if you’d asked me to have dinner with you?’

Surprise flared through him, and he found himself asking, ‘Would you?’

She shrugged. ‘I guess you’ll never know. We need to discuss the prenup,’ she said.

He knew instinctively that she was about to refuse him again. A different sort of heat bloomed in his chest. ‘This isn’t the time or place.’

‘I don’t...’ She paused when the waiters arrived at the table with their first course. As if recalling where they were, she glanced round, took a deep breath, and leaned forward. ‘I won’t sign it.’

Won’t, not can’t, as she’d said before.

Bitterness surged through his veins. ‘Because the thought of my seed growing inside you fills you with horror?’

Her fingers convulsed around her knife, but, true to her breeding, she directed it to her plate with understated elegance to cut her steak.

‘Why would you want me as the mother of your children, anyway? I would’ve thought you’d want to spare yourself such a vivid reminder of what you’ve been through.’

‘Perhaps I’m the one to give the Pennington name the integrity it’s been so sorely lacking thus far.’

She paled, and he cursed himself for pursuing a subject that was better off discussed in private. Although he’d made sure their table was roped off and their conversation couldn’t be overheard, there was still more than enough interest in them for each expression flitting across Eva’s face to be captured and assessed.

‘So we’re your personal crusade?’ she asked, a brittle smile appearing on her face as she acknowledged someone over his shoulder.

‘Let’s call it more of an experiment.’

Her colour rose with the passionate fury that intrigued him. ‘You’d father children based on an experiment? After what you’ve been through...what we’ve both been through, you think that’s fair to the children you intend to have to be used solely as a means for you to prove a point?’ Her voice was ragged and he tensed.

‘Eva—’

‘No, I won’t be a part of it!’ Her whisper was fierce. ‘My mother may have loved me in her own way, but I was still the tool she used against my father when it suited her. If my grades happened to be better than Sophie’s, she would imply my father was lacking in some way. And believe me, my father didn’t pull his punches when the situation was reversed.’ She swallowed and raised bruised eyes to his. ‘Even if I cou—wanted to why would I knowingly subject another child to what I went through? Why would I give you a child simply to use to prove a point?’

‘You mistake my meaning. I don’t intend to fail my children or use them as pawns. I intend to be there for them through thick and thin, unlike my parents were for me.’ He stopped when her eyes widened. ‘Does that surprise you?’

‘I... Yes.’

He shrugged, even though it occurred to him that he’d let his guard down more with her than he ever had with anyone. But she had no power to hurt him. She’d already rejected him once. This time he knew the lay of the land going in. So it didn’t matter if she knew his parental ambitions for the children they’d have.