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“I know that.”
“You don’t know everything.” Sometimes he could be so exasperating.
“Nor do you, it would seem.” He took a sip of the champagne they had ordered with their celebratory lunch.
Before she could ask what he meant, their gazes caught.
“You did not need to ask for any of those things.”
“Right. Like you were planning on proposing,” she said, mentioning the first requirement on her list.
“You are so sure I was not?”
“Dimitri didn’t.”
“I am not Dimitri.”
“Thank goodness. I didn’t want to marry him.”
“But you do want to marry me?”
“I’ll take the fifth.”
“That’s an American Constitutional provision, not a Greek one.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I do.”
“And you seriously expect me to believe you were going to agree to a small wedding?” The man was Greek, and it would have been his grandfather in total cahoots with her mother over a wedding that would never be now.
“I want to save you further censure in the public eye, not cause it. And I know you were not looking forward to all the hoopla our families had planned. You are far too introverted for that.”
“So we are agreed on a civil ceremony?”
“I did not say that.”
“I do not want a blessed ceremony.”
She’d managed to shock him with that one. “Why not?”
“To say vows before God means making promises we don’t mean and cannot break.”
“This marriage is for life.”
“You say that now, but you might fall in love…I might want out someday. I don’t want us to promise love when we don’t mean it.” By we she meant him, but she wasn’t going to say so and lay her heart bare.
He was silent for several seconds, and she wished she’d been more specific on stipulation five. His eyes narrowed in thought and he said, “Leave it to me.”
She took that as acquiescence, just glad he hadn’t dug further into her reasoning. “So, you really are okay with all my requirements?”
He sighed. “I can see we will not have peace until we have discussed each one. One, yes, I will propose—but when will be at my discretion. Two, I have no problem with you having a career. I cannot imagine you not using the education you fought so hard to attain. But I would prefer you take a job with my company rather than your father’s,” he said, ticking each point off on his fingers as he went.
“Agreed.” Her father’s willingness to sell her life for his company would take a long time getting past. She didn’t particularly want to work for him any longer.
“Three, no children for five years. You realize I will be jealous of my brother’s fortune until you agree to share that joy with me, but I will not push.”
She nodded, a lump forming in her throat so she could not speak. She’d put that stipulation in so that if they did divorce down the road no children would be affected. And she didn’t want to work full-time once she had a baby. However, she had a feeling she would be craving a child with him long before her stipulated time restraint was over.
