Luxury Escapes: A Mistake, A Prince and A Pregnancy / Hired by Her Husband / Captured and Crowned

“I’m trying to do the best thing. You’re the one that’s too selfish to do the right thing by our son or daughter.”

She took another swallow of ginger ale to prevent herself from gagging. She’d been touched when she’d realized that he’d brought her the crackers and soda, but she was much less impressed now that she realized he was just using it as an opportunity to try to goad her into agreeing to marry him.

“I don’t understand why you’re the one pushing for marriage,” she said when she was certain she wasn’t going to be sick all over the floral duvet. “Shouldn’t it be the other way around?”

A short, derisive laugh escaped his lips. “Perhaps traditionally, but then this is hardly a traditional situation. In this case, I am the one who has the most realistic concept of what it means to be a royal bastard.”

“Don’t call him that!” she said, putting a hand on her stomach, anger flaring up, hot and fast. “That’s a horrible term. No one even uses it in that way anymore!”

“Maybe not in the U.S., or maybe just not in the circles you’re in. But I can guarantee you that here, among the ruling class, legitimacy matters a great deal. Not just in terms of what our child can inherit. Do you want our son or daughter to be the dirty secret of the Rossi family? Do you want him or her to be the subject of sordid gossip for his or her entire life? The circumstances of the conception don’t matter. What matters is what people will say. They will create the seediest reality they can possibly think of and that will be the new truth. Whether you like the term or not, if you’re intent on refusing to marry me, you had better get used to it.”

The picture he painted was dark. She could see it clearly. People would stop talking when their child walked into a room, their expression censorious, their rejections subtle but painful.

“You may not want to be married to me, and frankly, I don’t want to be married at all,” he said. “But you can’t deny that it makes sense.”

“I just don’t like the idea of it.”

“Of marriage without love?” Maximo knew that most women would reject the idea, at least outwardly, even if their motive for marriage was truly money or status and not finer feelings at all. “I can assure you that love within a marriage does not guarantee happiness.” He didn’t like to talk about his marriage to Selena. Inevitably it brought up not only her shortcomings, but his own failures. And neither were things he revisited happily.

“That isn’t it.” She drew her knees up to her chest, the action, combined with her messy hair spilling over her shoulder and her pale, makeup-free face, made her look young and extremely innocent. “I never planned on marrying at all. So love isn’t really an issue. I just don’t want to be married.”

“Is this some kind of feminist thing?”

She snorted. “Hardly. It’s a personal thing. Marriage is a partnership, one that asks a lot of you. I don’t have any desire to give that much of myself to another person. Look how often marriages end in divorce. My own parents’ divorce was horrible, and during my two years as a divorce attorney I saw so much unhappiness. Those people grew to depend on each other and for one of them, usually the woman, divorce left them crippled. It was like watching someone trying to function after having a limb chopped off.”

“I know what it is to lose a spouse,” he said grimly, the brackets around his mouth deepening. “You can survive it. And what you’re talking about is love gone sour. That isn’t what we have. Our reasons for marriage are much stronger than that, and they will be the same in ten years as they are now. Love fades, lust does, too, but our child will always bond us together.”

He was right about that. Whether they married or not, Maximo Rossi was a permanent part of her life, because he would be a permanent part of her son’s or daughter’s life. A key part. One of the most important parts. He was her child’s father. Hadn’t her own father, or rather his absence, shaped her life in more ways than she could count?

And that was a whole other aspect of the situation she hadn’t considered before. It wasn’t just the presence of a parent that had an effect on a child, but the absence of one. What would it do to their child to live in a separate country from his or her father? What would it mean for them to be shuttled back and forth?

That was another tragedy she’d witnessed during her time as a divorce lawyer. The way it hurt the children involved. What it did to their self-esteem. Often, the children she helped in her new job, the ones who were on trial for petty crimes, were from broken homes.

She knew she would never let her child fall through the cracks like those children had, but the issue remained the same. If she could offer her son or daughter a greater amount of security, a better chance at success, shouldn’t she do it?

But marriage hadn’t factored into her life plans. She didn’t want to be a wife. Didn’t want to need Maximo. But no matter whether or not she needed Maximo her child would.

Logically, if she’d never intended to get married she wasn’t sacrificing anything by marrying Maximo. But … she still didn’t want a husband-and-wife-type relationship. It was too much. Too intimate. Too revealing. Even without love.

“I don’t want to do this,” she choked.

“It isn’t about what we want, Alison. It’s about what’s right. What’s best for our child. You’ve already made so many decisions based on that. I know you love the baby already, that you were already prepared to make major changes in your life in order to offer him the very best you could give. Now the best has changed.”

It would be so much easier to refuse him if he were simply being an autocratic tyrant, if he were being demanding and arrogant and commanding and all those things she knew he was capable of being. But he wasn’t. He was appealing to her need to reason and plan and choose the best, most sensible way to do something. And he was winning.

He was right. The only reasons for her not to marry him were selfish. All of the reasons to marry him benefited their child. If she could see another way she would grab it.

“Okay,” she said slowly, feeling the words stick in her throat, “I’ll do it. I’ll marry you.”

CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_b95fe765-ca86-5d95-b62e-0de71c947ed2)

A SENSE of triumph, along with a compressing sensation in his throat that felt suspiciously like the tightening of a noose, assaulted Maximo. It was necessary; the only thing that could be done. The only way for him to truly claim his child, make him his heir. And the only way to claim Alison.

A heavy pulse throbbed in his groin at the thought of claiming Alison in the most basic, elemental way. He wanted her with a kind of passionate ferocity that was foreign to him.

He would have wanted her no matter what, would have desired her had he passed her when she was walking down the street. But the intense, bone-deep need to take her, to enter her sweet body and join himself to her … that had to be connected to the pregnancy because it was outside anything in his experience. He’d experienced lust—the basest kind that had nothing to do with emotion—and he’d been in love. This didn’t resemble either experience.

He could satisfy his lust for her without marriage, but marriage was necessary for him to have the sort of relationship with his child that he wanted, that he craved. And it was the only way he could give his child everything he or she deserved.

“My acceptance isn’t without provisos,” she continued, her gorgeous face deathly serious. “I agree that marriage seems to be the best solution, but don’t expect that I’m just going to cave into all of your demands.”

“Even after knowing you for only a few days, I would never expect that,” he said drily.

She swung her legs over the side of the bed, a cracker still in her hand, and stood. She wobbled and he reached out for her, hooking his arm around her waist to steady her. His response was immediate and fierce, his blood rushing south, his body hardening instantly. He could feel her heart pounding hard against his chest. Her copper eyes were wide, her lips parted slightly. How easy it would be to dip his head and taste her again …

She straightened, much too quickly for his taste, and pulled away, adjusting the hem of her casual T-shirt, her mouth now pulled into a tight line.

“Thank you,” she said tartly, moving back from him again, creating even more distance between them. “I’m not feeling very well.”

“So you said. Is it like this every day?”

“Pretty much. It hit with a vengeance right when I entered my sixth week.”

“How far along are you?” He realized then that he’d never asked.

“Seven weeks.”

His stomach tightened. She was nearly two months along already. It wouldn’t even be nine months until he held his son or daughter in his arms.

She was still slender, her stomach flat. He had to wonder if her breasts had already changed or if this was her normal shape. He could easily imagine her filling out, her belly getting round. Some previously undiscovered, primitive part of him surged with pride at the thought.

Pride … and a hot tide of arousal. He’d never actually thought of pregnant women as sexy before, but he could very easily imagine running his hands over Alison’s bare, full stomach, feeling his child move beneath his hands.

“The baby’s due in October,” she said.

He’d heard of pregnant women glowing, but he’d never seen it before. Until now. Alison’s whole face was lit up, a sweet, secret smile curving her lips slightly. The absolute joy he could see shining from her eyes was staggering. And it reminded him again why marrying her, providing his child with both parents, was the absolute best choice. She would be a good mother; he was absolutely certain of that. Were he not, there was no way he would have considered marrying her. If he wasn’t sure of that he would have simply sought sole custody of their child, and he would have done it without compunction.

“You are excited about it,” he said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

“Of course I am.”

Their eyes locked and held, and the tightening in his stomach intensified, radiating outward, desire gnawing at him with an urgency that was impossible to ignore.

“We’ll have to have the wedding soon. Before you start to show,” he said, his voice harsher than he’d intended.

She chewed her lip, her eyes betraying insecurity, fear, for the first time since he’d met her. Anger he’d seen, sadness, too, but never this bleak hopelessness. It made his chest ache as fiercely as the rest of his body.

“As I said, there are provisos to my agreement.”