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‘The only choice now is marriage,’ he said.
‘I can’t marry without love,’ she said, as she straightened. ‘And I won’t.’
‘Love!’ The enraged shout came out before he could think better of it. ‘There is no such thing as love. It is romantic nonsense. If that is what you have learned from your fancy education, it is better you stop wasting my brother’s money.’
He had gone too far, said too much, even though every word was true. Her body went rigid, the fierce compassion sparking in her eyes that had stirred him to make so many reckless, foolish decisions from the moment he’d met her.
‘That you think love is nonsense is precisely why I would never choose to marry you.’ She hurled the words at him, the fire and passion reverberating through her slender body, then turned and fled from the room.
He swore viciously in Kholadi, the ugly curses echoing off the marble surfaces like rifle shots.
He forced himself to breathe, waiting for the squeezing pain in his lungs to ease, and stayed rooted to the spot, even though his instinct was to storm after her. Not to let her get away.
He curled his fingers into fists, clenched his teeth so tight he was surprised his jaw didn’t crack, and waited for the storm of destructive, counter-productive emotions to pass. Or pass enough for him to think clearly.
He knew how to conduct a negotiation. But he had blown this one, by letting her see how much he wanted this marriage. He had shown his hand too early and then allowed his frustration, his need to distract him from his goals.
They would be married. That much was non-negotiable. But bullying her and shouting at her was not the answer. It was how his father had always behaved. And it made him less of a man.
He could hear her getting dressed in the bedroom. A part of him, a very large part of him, wanted to stalk in there and stop her from leaving. As he was sure she intended to do—because running away was her default.
But instead of doing so, he stalked to the sink and turned on the tap.
He washed his hands and face, threw cold water on his chest, to contain the anger—and the passion still rioting through his body and evident not just in the pounding pain in his head but the stiff column of flesh stretching his boxers.
When he had finally calmed himself enough to control the fury, the passion and the pain, he walked out of the bathroom.
The bedroom was empty, as he had suspected it might be. A scrawled note lay on the bed, propped on the unkempt sheets where they had devoured each other during the night. He picked it up. As he read the note, some of the writing smudged with what had to be her tears, the fury and frustration twisted his gut again.
I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the baby last night. That was wrong of me. And I apologise.
But the reason I didn’t was that I feared exactly this reaction from you. We cannot be wed. Because love means everything to me and nothing to you. I want this child very much and I love it already. Rest assured it will never be a bastard to me.
Once it is born, we can speak again.
Until then, please don’t contact me.
Kasia
He crushed the note in his fist. He would contact her again, and soon. She could not run far this time, only to the college he already had the power to control with the funding he had offered.
He refused to give up on the necessity of marriage, as he had far too easily before, because much more than just his honour was at stake now.
His child grew inside her. That gave him rights and responsibilities he could not shirk. Rights and responsibilities he would not shirk.
He could not allow his child to be born defenceless, without his name, his wealth and the legacy he had fought so hard to create. But neither would he turn into his father to get what he wanted.
So he must figure out a strategy to force Kasia to see what was right in front of her eyes.
No child deserved to be born without its father’s name, its father’s protection.
Love was not enough. It couldn’t feed you or clothe you, it couldn’t fight your enemies for you or shelter you from a storm.
He could not change her fanciful, foolishly romantic notions, but she was smart and intuitive and she wanted him—as much as he wanted her—so he would find a way to persuade her that marriage was the only option.
If that meant charming her, bribing her, seducing her, blackmailing her or even kidnapping her, dammit. He would do it. He could not fail.
Because the one thing he would never do was abandon his child.
