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“Give us fifteen minutes,” he murmured to Lucie, the cook.
Snaring the bottle of nonalcoholic champagne he’d chilled from the refrigerator, he took two glasses from the cupboard and joined Diana on the deck.
The fading light cast his wife in a golden glow as he came to stand beside her at the railing. “Is your nausea anything to worry about?”
She turned to face him, her dark lashes fanning down over her cheeks in a wary look that said the fight was not over. “It should settle down in a few weeks.”
“You’ve lost weight. Isn’t that hard on the baby?”
She shook her head. “Lots of women lose weight in the first trimester. I’ll gain it back quickly when the pregnancy accelerates.”
He caught the agitated gleam that flared in her eyes. “You’re nervous.”
“Of course I’m nervous. In nine months, maybe less, I’m going to be bringing a new life into the world. A child that is totally dependent on me for everything, every minute, every hour of the day.”
“Us,” he corrected, setting the bottle and glasses on the table beside him. “We are having this child. You aren’t alone in this, Diana.”
“I love how men say that,” she mocked. “You aren’t the ones carrying the baby. You aren’t the ones suffering the debilitating nausea and you aren’t the ones sleep deprived from getting up in the night.”
“Because we can’t,” he pointed out. “But there is such a thing as a bottle and we can take turns.”
Her gaze skimmed over his perfectly pressed shirt. “I can just see it now. You walking the living room floor at two in the morning with the baby draped over your shoulder as you rehearse your presentation for the next day.”
He lifted a shoulder. “I will.”
“Right. And when you start leaving zeros out of numbers and cost the company millions it’ll still be all good.”
He scowled. “Now you’re being ridiculous. This goes to the issue of control and you hating the fact that you’re losing it.”
She waved her arms around them. “And what is this? What would your slick tongue call this? Persuasion?”
“Reason,” he returned with a sigh. “I thought the afternoon might have put you in a better mood.”
“What? Lounging in the sea and sun is supposed to make me forget you’ve kidnapped me to make me see your way?”
He elected not to answer that, instead picking up the champagne and uncorking it. She flicked a glance at the bottle. “I can’t have any of that. Another joy of being the one carrying this baby. At least if I could drink, I could tolerate you.”
“This is nonalcoholic.”
“What are we celebrating? You forcing me into captivity?”
He lifted his gaze to hers. “We created a baby together that night at my apartment. I thought it was time we acknowledged the fact.”
The husky edge to his voice caught him off guard. He kept his eyes on hers, his words hanging on the air between them like a challenge—a statement he dared her to refute. She stared at him for a long moment as if deciding which way to go. Finally, she inclined her head. “It is...something to celebrate.”
He handed her a glass of the bubbly. “I’m glad we agree on that.”
She touched her glass to his and took a sip. He took a mouthful of his own and pointed his glass at her. “Have you come to a decision?”
“Yes.” A closed, impenetrable expression passed across her face. “I agree it would be better for us to bring this child up together. If we can remain civil with each other. I agree we need to learn to understand each other better in order to do that. But I have ground rules.”
His gaze narrowed. “What kind of ground rules?”
“The only way I will agree to do this is if we do it on a strictly contractual basis. We will be together for the sole reason of raising this child. We will behave amicably toward each other, but there will be no sex.”
A wave of incredulity swept through him. “You expect us to remain married but not have sex?”
“Exactly like that.” Her mouth curved as she echoed his favorite expression.
It took him a moment to find a response to that, it was so...ludicrous. “I think,” he replied slowly, “that you are forgetting it was you as much as me initiating our sexual encounters.”
“Not anymore.” She lifted her delicate, stubborn chin. “I refuse to engage in emotional warfare with you, Coburn. I’ve had a lifetime of it already. If we’re going to raise this child together without creating a war zone, we need neutral ground.”
