Passionately Ever After

“Aren’t you? What do you call running away from Boston the way you did?”

“I didn’t run away.” She straightened her spine and stepped away from his touch. Picking up the fire poker, she prodded at the logs in the grate. “I told you, I needed to get away. I wanted some time to think, to figure out what I should do about the baby.”

Steven froze at her remark. Stunned he took a moment to find his voice. “You can’t mean that you considered…that you even thought for a minute about getting rid of…”

“No!” She whipped her gaze from the fire over to him. “How could you even think such a thing?”

“You’re right. I’m sorry. It’s just that for a minute I thought…” Steven rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t know what I thought. I obviously wasn’t thinking straight.”

“You obviously weren’t thinking at all. If you had, you’d know that I would never do anything to harm my baby.”

“Our baby,” he corrected.

She didn’t comment, simply turned her attention back to the fire. “Anyway, I left Boston because I needed some time by myself so I could figure out how I’m going to handle things.”

“You mean how we’re going to handle things, don’t you?” Steven asked because he fully intended to be a part of her and their baby’s future.

When his question was met with silence, Steven took the poker from Maria’s fingers and set it aside. Then he turned her around so that she was forced to look at him. But one look at her face and he realized she was under even more strain than he’d first thought. Tear streaks stained her pale cheeks and there was a sadness in those big brown eyes that ripped at him. He wanted to take her in his arms, kiss her and tell her not to worry. That he would handle everything. That he would take care of her and their baby.

Yeah right, Conti.

Considering that mile-wide independent streak of hers, he’d be damned lucky to even get the words out before she tore a strip off of him. And then she’d be even more determined to deal with everything on her own. Well, Maria wasn’t the only one with a stubborn streak. He had one, too. And he had no intention of letting her call all the shots. Besides, he reasoned, Maria was under way too much stress—which couldn’t be good for her or for the baby. Somehow he had to convince the lady to marry him if not for their sakes, then for the baby’s sake. “I think it’s pretty obvious what we need to do first.”

“You mean we should get married.”

Ignoring the fact that she’d made the idea sound as about appealing as having a tooth pulled, he said, “That’s right. And I think the sooner we do, the better.”

“I knew that’s what you’d say,” she accused and pulled away from him. “It’s the reason I didn’t tell you about the baby in the first place. Because I knew the moment you found out you’d start pressuring me to marry you.”

“I didn’t realize that you’d find the idea of marrying me to be a fate worse than death,” he countered, his ego smarting.

“You know that’s not what I meant.”

“Then why don’t you explain what you did mean?”

She sat down on the hearth in front of the fireplace and clasped her hands together. After a moment, she looked up at him. “I can’t imagine anything more wonderful than being married to you. And I think the woman who’s your wife will be a lucky lady.”

Feeling somewhat mollified and also relieved, Steven stooped down before her and captured her hands. “I’m the lucky one,” he told her and smiled. “Not only am I getting you for a wife, but a baby, too.”

Maria pulled her fingers free and stood. She moved to the other end of the hearth. “I wasn’t talking about me, Steven.”

“I was,” he informed her. He shoved up to his feet and followed her to the opposite end of the hearth. This time, he moved in, crowded her space. “There’s only one woman I plan on marrying, Maria Barone, and that’s you.”

She shook her head. “We can’t. Think of what it will do to our families, of the problems it will create.”

“We’ll deal with our families. And we’ll handle any problems that come up,” he insisted. “The important thing is that we’ll be together. I love you. I don’t want to sneak around to see you and keep our relationship a secret. I never did.”

“I know.”

“Then you should also know that I want to be able to wake up with you in the morning and go to sleep with you in my arms every night. I want to make a dozen more babies with you. I want to grow old and gray with you, Maria Barone. Marry me,” he pleaded.

“Steven, don’t,” she cried and started to move away.

He blocked her path. Capturing her hands in his own, he looked down into those big doe eyes. “Marry me. Say you’ll be my wife.”

“Oh, Steven,” she sobbed and pulled her hands free. “Why won’t you listen? Why won’t you even try to understand? A marriage between us would never work.”

“How do you know it won’t work unless we try?” he demanded, exasperation making his voice harsher than he intended.

“Because I know. Marriage isn’t the answer.”

“As far as I’m concerned, marriage is the only answer,” he spit out the words.

“Don’t be obtuse.”

How in the devil could someone so small be so stubborn, he wondered. Maybe the cavemen had had the right idea, he fumed. Because right now he was sorely tempted to toss Maria over his shoulder, drag her off somewhere and make love to her until she agreed to marry him. Surprised by the primal feelings she aroused in him, he swiped a hand down his face. Right, Conti. You go ahead and try that stunt and Maria will cut you off at the knees.

“You know very well what I’m talking about. Our families hate each other.”

“That’s their problem. Not ours.”

Maria stared at him as though he’d grown two heads. “Are you going to stand there and tell me that the bitter history between the Barones and Contis doesn’t matter?”

“It doesn’t matter. Not to me and you. The feud between our families has nothing to do with us.”

“How can you say that—especially with everything that’s going on right now?”

“Easily,” Steven said, although he knew it was much more complicated than he cared to admit at the moment. “If our families want to keep the feud going, let them. We don’t have to be a part of it.”

“No? What about the fact that your family suspects my cousin Derrick of kidnapping your sister?” And before he could respond, she continued. “What if they’re right? What if Derrick is the one responsible? Can you honestly say that it doesn’t affect us?”

Steven clenched his hands into fists at his sides. Acid churned in his stomach at the reminder of his sister Bianca’s abduction. Unlike Maria, who had a large brood of siblings, he had only his younger sister. When he’d first received word that both she and Derrick Barone had been kidnapped, he’d alternated between panic and fury. He’d turned over every stone and then some in his effort to locate them. And once private detective Ethan Mallory had zeroed in on Derrick Barone as a suspect in the kidnapping instead of a victim, Steven had vowed to find the bastard and slit his throat if he had harmed a single hair on Bianca’s head. Not even the FBI’s threat to charge him with obstruction had made him ease up on his search to find his sister. But when Ethan, too, had insisted he was getting in the way and hurting the investigation instead of helping, he had finally admitted that he needed to back off. It hadn’t been easy—not when he was going crazy with worry over his missing sister. Finally, he had done as Ethan requested. He’d backed off and let the detective and the FBI do their jobs. Unable to do anything more to help Bianca, he had resumed his search for Maria, which he’d abandoned upon news of the kidnapping. But even locating Maria and being here with her now hadn’t eased his worries about his sister. Nothing would until he knew that Bianca was safe.

“It’s obvious from your expression that you know I’m right.”

“What I know is that if Derrick is the one responsible for Bianca’s kidnapping and he’s harmed her in any way, he’ll have to answer to me.”

“You see?” Maria pointed out, her voice filled with despair. “It’s started already. What possible chance would we have together when there’s so much hate between our families?”

Cursing his own temper, Steven struggled to rein in his emotions and reminded himself that Mallory would find his sister. Right now, Maria and their baby had to be his primary concern. “We can make it work. I know we can.”

“Be realistic, Steven. There are simply too many things against us. A marriage between us would be a disaster.”

“You’re wrong,” he insisted. “We love each other. We can make this work. I know we can.”

Maria shook her head, and the motion sent his temper spiking again.

“I can’t believe you’re willing to throw away what we have all because of some stupid old feud that has nothing to do with us.”