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As if refusing to acknowledge his declaration, she looked at her hands.
‘I’m not sure that I can just pack up my life and move in with you.’
‘Really? I get the impression that you are more than capable of anything you put your mind to, Maria.’
Her gaze flew to his and her expressive face registered surprise, and something else...something warmer, serving only to heat his blood from within. He ruthlessly pushed that aside. It was absolutely vital that he got her agreement in this. He’d meant what he said. He would protect his child, and by extension her too. But he wouldn’t lie to her. She had asked him of his expectations and it was important that he state his intentions now.
‘My home is on the edges of Lake Lucerne, in the heart of this country. It is...certainly big enough for us, and our child.’ He knew his words were modest. The large sprawling estate was an architectural marvel and he forced himself to stifle the discomfort at the idea of opening it up to another person, to Maria. But he would. He’d have to. The idea of Maria and his child being anywhere other than with him? Simply untenable.
‘You will have access to anything you could want. Truly. But I need you to understand one thing, Maria.’ Her eyes grew watchful, assessing, as if she realised that this was the most important thing of all. ‘Do not build hopes and fantasies about me. I promise you now, that I will love, care for and provide every single earthly want for our child. But that is the extent of what I will offer.’
* * *
He was saying that he wouldn’t, couldn’t, love her. He was refusing her the one thing she’d only just realised she’d ever wanted. A wave of sorrow crashed over her and she thought, How funny. An engagement is supposed to be a happy thing.
She forced herself to focus on what he was offering her. Her child would want for nothing. Her child would grow up with the kind of security she had once taken for granted, until it had been lost. Never would her child experience the shocking devastation she had. Because she would protect their child. She, who had been protected all her life, would become protector
and that thought fired her determination more than any other.
‘One condition.’
‘Anything.’ His response, quick and sure.
‘It will be a small wedding. No guests.’ She didn’t want that day to be a public spectacle. Didn’t want her family there, her stepmother turning it into a farce. She could already imagine the lascivious glint in Valeria’s gaze, the image of her mother in her father’s eyes, and the disappointment in her brother’s.
‘Just us and two witnesses?’
‘Yes.’
‘It will be so.’
He reached for her hand across the table, the heat of his fingers searing as they wrapped around her cool skin. A handshake, as if nothing more than a contract had been agreed to.
Tears threatened the backs of her eyelids, but she willed them away. Others might be full of joy and brimming with happiness, but she wasn’t one of those soon-to-be brides. No. She was a soon-to-be mother and would do whatever it took to care for, protect and love her child in the way that she had not felt herself.
* * *
Matthieu might have wanted a quick wedding, but even he, with all his might and money, could not force Swiss bureaucracy to bend to his will. Once their marriage application had passed through the churning machine of legalities and regulations they had still needed to wait ten long days before the ceremony could take place. And Matthieu had used that time well. He might not have known much about Maria before, but, having collected the many required details for the application, he did now.
He was going to be a father.
He almost resented Maria the time she’d had to mentally prepare for impending parenthood. She’d had about a month on him before informing him, but he had been forced to absorb it all in a matter of an hour or two that night. But since then?
The vehemence of the connection he felt to his unborn child shocked him. The determination to protect, to claim, the yearning to meet this heir of his was utterly astounding. So long he had lived, ruthlessly avoiding any sense of commitment or connection to another... He had thought it would chafe, that he would wrangle against it defiantly. But he had been wrong.
As if in a single moment, the compass points of his life had changed, now pointing solely to his child and Maria. And as he looked at himself in the mirror, dark blue suit and a shirt of such pale blue it was almost white, for the first time in more years than he could count he wondered what his father would think. Matthieu searched his own features for traces of the father who had loved him so much he had searched a flame-ridden building to drag Matthieu out, unthinking and unheeding of the danger and damage to himself. Before he had gone back in for his wife.
A blade-sharp pain twisted in his chest before he closed the door on his thoughts.
‘Ah, Matthieu.’
He turned to find Malcolm standing in the doorway of his office suite. The older man was nodding in approval. ‘They would be so proud of you.’
Matthieu gritted his teeth against the sentiment. He doubted very much that his parents would be proud of his knocking up an innocent and forcing her into a marriage she had no desire for.
‘Where is David?’ he enquired of Malcolm’s husband. The two had finally married once the bill allowing for same-sex marriage had passed in California. After almost eleven years of being together, Malcolm had felt that they didn’t really need a piece of paper to certify their relationship, but the battle for legal recognition had been hard fought and hard won, and David and Malcolm had married for the world they wanted as much as the love they already had.
Goosebumps rose over Matthieu’s skin, soothed only slightly by the soft cotton of his shirt. He didn’t have to wonder if Maria had wanted that kind of love in her life. He knew she had, and for the first time since demanding that she wore his ring, he realised the cost to her, despite having paraded all that she would gain before her.
