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But, more importantly, she looked well. As though she was recovering more from the operation with every single hour that passed.
It was odd how terrified he’d been this past week. Strange how he hadn’t noticed this...this emotion which had been building up inside him ever since Saskia had told him that she was pregnant until he’d had to face the fear that she could be about to lose the baby.
That had been the moment he’d realised that he was attached. That he wanted the child—and Saskia—in his life.
Selfish, maybe, since he could never be the kind of man, or husband, she clearly wanted. And this afternoon’s conversation should have been a warning. The thing to make him reconsider this ludicrous idea of marriage.
There was no avoiding the fact that Saskia wanted the impossible. She wanted a magical love affair, to be madly in love—and that was the one thing he couldn’t offer her.
He didn’t even believe in it.
He’d spent the past few hours stalking the castello in a grim mood. He had never intended the argument between them to get so heated. He shouldn’t have let her get under his skin the way she had. But that was what Saskia had been doing ever since their first encounter at the charity ball all those months ago.
Feisty, and funny, and sexy. He’d been hooked from the start.
Even if he hadn’t overheard her telling that silly nurse that she was pregnant, he would have found an excuse to slip back into her life. Him. The man who was famous for never getting too close to anyone.
Now he would be tied to Saskia, and the baby she was carrying, for the rest of their lives—and it didn’t fill him with horror in any way, even though he knew it should.
But that still didn’t mean he was able to spout all the poetry and words of love that she seemed to have decided went hand-in-glove with marriage.
He couldn’t make those grand romantic gestures which meant nothin
g unless you treated the other person with consideration and respect every single day.
No, he couldn’t give her the fancy words, but he could offer her loyalty. Commitment. Honour. He would care for their child, and for her, for the rest of his life. He knew from experience that that was far more precious than an intense, passionate fire which would eventually fade and die.
It was only a shame that Saskia didn’t see it the same way. Yet. But Malachi was confident that, in time, she would come to appreciate the value in it.
‘You look beautiful,’ he murmured, holding out his arm as she reached the bottom few steps, and he wondered if he’d ever be able to let go.
Her head snapped up. She eyed him suspiciously, as if looking for a trap, but he simply led her to the dining room, where the table was laid out just for them.
It was time.
* * *
It was only when Saskia saw the ring box that she realised this dinner was a proposal. Malachi was going to ask her the question she’d spent months telling herself she didn’t dream of him asking.
Dimly, she was aware that he was saying the words, but it was as though she was on her own operating table, succumbing to the effects of an anaesthetic: aware of what was going on, but not really present in it any longer.
He was asking her to marry him. And, although almost every fibre of her hungered to say yes, the logical part of her brain knew she had to demur.
What choice did she really have?
Her body actually shook with the effort of holding itself together. Like the harmonic tremors you felt in the ground before a volcano erupted. Only Saskia wasn’t about to flare up. Instead she was terrified of breaking down. Especially in front of Malachi.
When he finally finished speaking she forced herself to look up from the ring and into his gaze, and suddenly it was all worse.
So much worse.
She tried to suck a breath into her constricted chest. She’d been here once before, when she’d been ready to accept his proposal—such as it was—only for him to turn around and rescind it.
And it had hurt far more than it had had any right to.
More than her parents’ betrayal. More than Andy’s betrayal.
Her feeling of rejection had terrified her. Because if he could hurt her that much in a matter of months, what would it be like to marry the man and submit to the illusion that they were more than just co-parents to a baby conceived on a one-night stand?
