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“I would have cleared my schedule for the day, believe me.”
“Oh, how magnanimous of you!” Her laugh was harsh. She spun away to lift a half pint of milk from the fridge and splashed a bit into each mug, watching as the white clouded through the brown, a frown on her brow. “I didn’t expect you to be glad to see me, but at least a little warmth and welcome…”
“So you were hurt and decided to punish me by keeping our child a secret?” He prompted coolly. “I presume I am the father?”
“Yes,” she confirmed unnecessarily, and then almost wished she hadn’t when he turned whiter than a sheet beneath his deep tan.
“What?” She prompted. “You knew that, surely?”
“Yes,” he agreed, rubbing his palm over his square, stubbled jaw for a moment, his eyes glinting when they locked to hers. “And yet, there was a part of me…”
“That hoped you weren’t?” Bella expelled her breath angrily. “Well, if you’re looking to be left off the hook, I’m happy to do that. You can go away again, right now, and pretend none of this happened.”
He lifted a brow, watching her without speaking.
“I’m serious,” she said, pushing his teacup towards him and lifting her own, cradling it in hands that were still cold from the snow. “Don’t feel like you owe me any favours.”
“And what about what I owe my child?” He drawled, moving to the bench but not touching his cup. He placed his hands down on the timber top, and even though several inches separated them, Bella felt him clouding her space, his proximity sending her nerves haywire, making it hard to concentrate, much less stand up straight.
“What do you mean?” She was cautious then, hoping her expression didn’t give anything away.
“My child is growing in your belly. I’m going to be a father.” The words were suspiciously graveled and Bella’s heart ticked painfully in her chest at the very idea that he might be emotionally impacted by this development on any level. “And I have no intention of being an absent father.” He fixed her with a look of determination, a look that might well have caused his business adversaries to tremble and which was scarcely less intimidating to Bella.
“I’m glad,” she said honestly, simply, sipping her tea and taking strength from its familiar warmth and flavor. “I adored my father,” now her voice was crackled and softened by bittersweet memories. “My memories of my childhood are of this incredible, sunny, fun man. I wouldn’t be who I am without having had my dad in my life.” And spontaneously, she reached over and put her hand over Vitalo’s, her eyes latching to his. There was so much she didn’t say, so much that hurt too much to remember – her father’s diagnosis, and the things he’d said when the morphine had robbed him of his usual guardedness. Confessions she still struggled to make sense of, admissions she found easier to chalk up to incoherence rather than to believe there was any factual basis to them. “I want this baby to know the love and adoration of both a mother and father.”
Vitalo stood very still, his expression one she couldn’t fathom, but the longer he looked at her, the more the air around them seemed to thicken, and what had started as a gesture of compassion morphed into something else. Her hand on his tingled and her skin lifted with goose bumps, all over.
“I am glad to hear you say so,” he drawled finally, the words soft and gentle, spiced with his exotic accent, curling around her, flicking her nerve endings until her stomach was laced with butterflies. “I had thought you might be going to be difficult.”
“Difficult?” She blinked at him, and went to move her hand away, but he flicked his over and captured her fingers, lacing them together.
“About our marriage.”
The words made no sense. Bella stared at him, wondering if, despite his impeccable grasp on the language, he’d misunderstood somehow.
“Sorry,” she said, after several beats had past. “What?”
“Our marriage.” His eyes were like black pieces of coal in his incredibly handsome face, and she found she couldn’t look at him a moment longer – not without drowning or something.
“Pregnancy and marriage are two separate issues,” she pointed out stiffly. “And one certainly isn’t justification for the other.”
“Of course it is.” He dropped her hand but before she could rejoice in the small reprieve from physical contact, and the sanity it might offer, he’d rounded the bench and come to stand in front of her, his hands braced on either side of her, trapping her with his much bigger, broader body. “You just said so yourself.”
“What did I say?”
“That you’re the person you are because of your father.”
“Yeah, but,” he was so close. She swept her ey
es shut, hoping to blot him out. “You can still be a part of his or her life without marrying me.” She thought of her one failed marriage and everything inside of her railed against the idea of yet another marriage-of-convenience.
She’d learned her lesson.
“And force our child to grow up between our two homes?”
At that, Bella’s eyes flew wide. “What are you talking about?”
“Naturally, we would share custody.”
