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‘Merida...’ he said again, and watched her green eyes open and a slight moment of disorientation flick over her features as she looked up at him and first frowned and then smiled.
‘For a moment I thought you were an air steward with breakfast.’
He didn’t smile.
‘And that I’d been upgraded to first class.’
‘You have been.’
Merida sat up, and he saw that she’d gone to bed wearing the hotel robe.
‘How did you sleep?’ Ethan asked.
‘Far better than I expected to,’ Merida admitted. ‘You?’
‘I didn’t,’ Ethan replied, and she saw then that he was wearing the same suit he’d had on last night and had dark violet smudges beneath his eyes.
He called Room Service and ordered strong coffee. Merida asked for tea.
‘Do you want to get dressed?’ Ethan suggested. ‘Before we start?’
Merida gave a small nod of her head.
‘Fifteen minutes, then. I’ll see you out there.’
‘You make it sound like a business meeting.’
He gave a mirthless laugh and headed out of the bedroom. He didn’t tell her that was exactly what this was.
Merida climbed out of bed and went through her case—although, given her expanding waist, she wasn’t exactly spoiled for choice. She washed her face and settled for a pale shift dress, and then, hearing breakfast arrive, she tied back her hair and headed out.
He held a chair for her at the gleaming walnut table, and she nibbled on a pastry as he went to his briefcase.
Given that it felt like a business meeting, Merida decided that she would kick things off. She’d been doing a lot of thinking last night as she had lain looking out at the moon drifting across the sky.
Alot.
‘I’m not asking for financial support...’
For some reason that served to make him smile, she saw. Not a friendly smile, though, more a private smile—as if she had delivered the punchline to some private joke.
But Merida pushed on. ‘I want to work.’
‘As an actress?’
‘Yes,’ Merida said. ‘Well, once the baby’s old enough, of course.’
‘And who’s going to look after the baby while you work?’
Merida swallowed. ‘I won’t be the first mother to work.’
‘You’d be the first Devereux wife who did,’ Ethan said, and then shook his head. ‘The only solution is marriage.’
‘Ethan...’ She shook her head in turn. ‘It’s the twenty-first century. We don’t have to get married.’
‘I don’t care what century it is,’ he responded. ‘I’d like my child to have my surname. And I’d like my baby to be born here. Now, we both know this isn’t a love-match...’
He just said it as fact, unaware of the sting his words delivered, and he continued speaking, oblivious to the tears in her eyes.
