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“I’m not sure I can eat too much, but the coffee seems okay right now.”
“That’s good. I had Jose get me a bunch of books on pregnancy but haven’t had a chance to read them yet,” he said.
He wanted to know what was going to be happening to her so he could anticipate her needs. Make everything easier for her.
They shared the breakfast he made and then he set the tray to the side and lay next to her on the bed. “Do you have to work today?”
“No. Do you?”
“No. I’m supposed to lie low,” he said. And make everything with Emily right in the eyes of the world. But that part was still better left unspoken for now.
“Good. What do you want to do?”
“Well...”
He pulled her into his arms and then rolled over, bracing his body on top of hers. He put his hand on her stomach and dropped a quick kiss there before looking up at her. He worked his free hand into the pocket of his pants and pulled out the ring box.
“I’m hoping that you’ll agree to marry me, Red.”
He put the ring box on her stomach and then opened it up so she could see the thin band with the pear-shaped diamond. He’d chosen the band lined with aquamarine because that stone reminded him of her eyes. He shifted to his side, knelt next to her and stared down into her heart-shaped face. “I hope you’ll say yes.”
She stared up at him for a long moment and he had the feeling she wasn’t going to say yes. What had he done wrong? He’d made the big romantic gesture; he’d purchased a ring that reminded him of her.
He was being a good guy. Doing everything by the book of romance. He’d seen his sister reading fairy tales and Cosmo so he knew that he had to come across as modern and thoughtful but also deliver on all Emily’s secret dreams.
It was a big ask of a man who was used to women falling for him. Especially after the time he’d spent on Alma with Dita and her ilk fawning over him.
“What did I do wrong?”
“Nothing,” she said. “I like the ring and the breakfast, but I like my mermaid, too.”
He processed that.
The mermaid had been a stroke of genius. Well, really it had been the gesture of a man who missed his woman.
“Doesn’t matter if you wear the ring, you’re mine.”
“I’m yours?”
“We both know it. There isn’t a wannabe debutante in all the world who can compare to you, Red.”
She gave him a haughty look and then ruined it by laughing. “I know it.”
“What about you?”
“Huh?”
“Is there anyone else in your life?”
“Would I be with you if there was?” she asked. “I like you way more than I should, Rafael. Your life is literally worlds away from here but I can’t help letting you into my house and my bed. I’m just trying to keep us both from making a mistake.”
Maybe he could convince her to say yes. This was the opening he needed. “It’s not a mistake. Trust me. Together, we can take on anything.”
“For now. But what happens when the newness of being lovers wears off and we have a baby who doesn’t sleep through the night? And you have to run a kingdom?”
He saw where she was coming from. And realized the fears she had stemmed from the fact that she didn’t know him. Didn’t realize how unstoppable he was once he made his mind up.
“I said I’d give you time to get to know me, and once you do, you will know that isn’t going to be an issue,” he said.
* * *
Frankly this shocked her. Rafe didn’t strike her as all that traditional. And she knew that he was still trying to figure out the next few months of his life. She wasn’t going to be his lifesaver. His safety valve. And that’s what this felt like.
“No.” The little girl who never had a mom and a dad desperately wanted her to say yes. But she’d learned long ago that the things she wanted most were the ones that made her make the dumbest decisions. And marriage wasn’t something to be entered into lightly. Rafe was going to be king. He should have a wife who was in it for the long haul.
He was going to have to do a lot of work to make the monarchy stick in Alma. Alma. She wasn’t even sure where it was. Maybe she should have looked that up on the internet instead of ogling pictures of Rafe as he toured the island nation. But she hadn’t.
“No?” he asked. “Red, think this through.”
“I can’t marry you,” she said. She could, but it wasn’t under these circumstances. If he’d asked her the first time she’d shown up on his doorstep pregnant she might have said yes. But too much had happened since then and she couldn’t trust his motives.
