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‘I mean it,’ Leo asserted with fierce emphasis. ‘I’ve run out of patience. I want to marry you and I want that child you’re carrying. So, think very carefully about what you decide to do next.’
‘But that’s complete blackmail!’ Grace shot back at him, trembling like a leaf in shock and barely able to credit what he was telling her.
‘I never pretended to be a knight on a white horse, Grace. You and that baby are mine and the sooner you acknowledge that, the happier we will all be.’
‘I don’t belong to anyone. I belong to myself,’ Grace argued through gritted teeth, battling a terrifying sense of panic as hard as she could because Leo had just trashed the faith she hadn’t known she still cherished in him.
Leo stalked closer, well over six feet of powerfully built and determined masculinity. ‘That was before you met me, meli mou. Everything’s changed now. We’ll get married on Friday.’
‘Fri-Friday is only three days away,’ Grace stammered, utterly thrown by Leo’s controlling behaviour.
‘I know and I can’t wait to sign on that official dotted line,’ Leo grated impatiently. ‘Then I’ll know where you are and how you are.’
‘You’re out of your mind,’ Grace breathed in a daze. ‘We can’t just get married. You were engaged to Marina!’
‘Marina’s the past, you’re the present,’ Leo cut in with ruthless bite. ‘And at this moment I’m only interested in the future and it starts here, now with your answer...’
Grace pinned tremulous lips together in the terrible stretching silence. Her heart seemed to be hammering in her eardrums. He was threatening her aunt and uncle’s comfortable life and she couldn’t just stand by and do nothing after all they had done for her, she thought wretchedly. They had brought her up, supported her at school, kept her safe. All right, it had been far from perfect but they were still the only family she had and she didn’t want them to suffer in any way by association with her. Leo held all the cards: her uncle’s employment, Della’s legal firm’s dependency on the business Leo sent their way. Della had worked long and hard for a partnership and if she had been rude to Leo—well, she was pretty rude to a lot of people, never having been the type to tolerate fools. Grace’s mind and her thoughts were in turmoil.
‘You could explain now about Marina,’ she proffered tersely.
‘No, that ship’s already sailed,’ Leo slammed back at her coolly. ‘Are you marrying me on Friday or not?’
Grace wanted to say not, to puncture his carapace of arrogant strength and challenge him, but her character was grounded very firmly in compassion and the risk of her relatives having to pay a high price for her mistake in getting pregnant by the wrong man was not one she could ignore. She snatched in a wavering breath and damned him with her pale green defiant gaze. ‘I’ll give you an answer in the morning.’
‘Why drag this out?’
‘Because it’s a very big decision,’ Grace countered quietly. ‘I’ll tell you what I’ve decided tomorrow.’
Impatience assailed Leo and he gritted his strong white teeth. Her eyes were luminous pools of pale green but he noticed the dark circles etched below them and her general pallor. ‘You look very tired.’
Grace coloured in receipt of that unflattering comment. ‘I’m going back downstairs to go straight to bed.’
‘Have you eaten?’ he shot at her as she reached the door.
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘I’ll meet you here for breakfast at eight in the morning,’ Leo decreed.
How could she marry a man who had been planning to marry another woman for three long years? How could she surrender to blackmail? Would Leo really damage her aunt’s and uncle’s livelihoods and careers? Or was he bluffing? And if bluffing was a possibility was she prepared to light the fuse and wait and see what actually happened if she said no?
Grace lay in bed mulling over those weighty questions. Although she had completely dismissed the idea, Leo had mentioned marriage the very first day he’d discovered she was pregnant, she recalled ruefully. It seemed that marrying the mother of his child was important to him, so important he had immediately recognised it as a necessity. Not that that excused him in any way for employing threats when persuasion had failed, she reasoned.
