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The blood drained from her face, a buzzing sound filling her head. “You aren’t suggesting what I think you are.”
His expression was like the Hudson on a glacially cold day. “I’ve told you my preference. A child needs its mother. We are good together, Sofi´a. We were good together. We can make this work.”
Her heart started to race, a frozen feeling descending over her. He would take her child away from her if she didn’t agree to marry him. She knew that look. Knew he was dead serious.
She pulled in a breath, but the sultry, steamy air felt too thick, too heavy to deliver the oxygen she needed. Her head whirled, the strain of the past few weeks, of wondering what she was going to do, the press invading her every quiet moment, Nik’s threats, descending over her like a dark cloud. Inescapable. Unnavigable.
She set a palm to the railing and pulled in another breath, but it was as if the air was being sucked out of her. A layer of perspiration blanketed her brow as the dusky night spun around her. She distantly registered she was going to pass out a second before Nik’s arms closed around her, catching her before she could.
He sat her down in a chair and put her head between her knees. Knelt beside her, his hand on her back, commanding her to breathe. Minutes passed before the dizziness decided which way it was going to go. Finally, her gasping pulls of air slowed to rougher, longer breaths and her head began to clear.
Nik sat her up in the chair, retrieved some water from the dinner table and pressed the glass into her hand. “A sip,” he instructed. She obeyed, hand trembling as she brought the glass to her mouth. When she’d taken a couple of swallows, she handed him back the glass. Nik set it on the table, sat down opposite her and pinned his gaze on her face.
“What was that?”
“Too much,” she muttered shakily. “It’s all too much.” She took another deep breath. “I hardly had any lunch. I get nauseated if I go too long without eating.”
He shook his head. “Unless you’re an A-list Hollywood actress, that was a full-blown panic attack, Sofi´a.”
Her mouth twisted. “Isn’t that what you’ve already established I am?”
A glitter filled his eyes. “You know I have the patience of Jove. I will wait you out all night if I have to.”
“It’s everything,” she said quietly. “Forcing me to come here, the plane ride, threatening to take my child away. It’s too much.”
He shook his head. “I’m not forcing you to stay. I’m telling you my child will remain here. The rest is up to you.”
“You know that’s no choice.”
“Then stay. Marry me.”
She gave him a frustrated look. “You don’t understand what you’re asking.”
He studied her for a long moment. “Then tell me. Make me understand.”
Her gaze dropped away from his. She had never told anyone about her panic attacks. Never told anyone what her father’s death had cost her. Only Katharine and even she didn’t know the depth of it. But if she was going to make Nik see reason, she had to tell him.
She fixed her gaze on him. “My father was going on his first big business trip to London the night he died. He had worked his way up through the ranks of an investment banking firm after my parents emigrated from Chile to New York when I was two. His credentials weren’t recognized the same way there as they had been back home. He had to work his way up the ladder. He’d just gotten his first promotion before the trip. He was so excited. We were so excited.
“I remember him telling me the night he left, before I went to bed, with this big smile on his face, ‘This is just the beginning for us, chiquita. It’s only up from here. We’ll be taking trips to all sorts of exotic places.’”
A lump formed in her throat, tears scalding the backs of her eyes. She blinked them back, intent on getting through the story. “The phone call came at 3:00 a.m. from the airline. They told my mother my father’s plane had gone missing somewhere over the Atlantic. That they weren’t sure where it was or what had happened. My mother sat up all night waiting to hear. When she woke me up for school, I knew something was wrong. She looked like a...ghost.”
She swallowed hard, but she couldn’t hold the tears back. They slipped down her face like silent bandits. Nik took her hand and curled his fingers around hers. “They found the first piece of the fuselage at two o’clock in the afternoon,” she continued. “My father’s body was recovered the next day.”
