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Or for her to look at him again.
He frowned at his own bizarre sentimentality, but brushed it away when she began to speak—her attention directed at the fire.
“I don’t understand why you would wish to marry someone you think so little of,” she said, sounding…subdued.
Pascal made a small opera out of a shrug and a sigh to match. “Whatever I might think of you personally, not to mention the questionable choices you’ve made, you’re obviously an excellent mother to my child. He is as you said he was. Healthy, happy.”
And if she didn’t already know that of course he’d gone and looked at the boy again without her permission, well. Her denial was not his problem. He had kept his distance. And not because he was interested in obeying her dictates—or anyone else’s—but because he had no interest in scaring off his own son.
He would wait for his introduction. Then he would do exactly as he pleased.
Cecilia waited as if she expected him to keep talking, then let out a sound that he couldn’t quite define when he didn’t. “That doesn’t explain why you would want to marry me.”
He remembered that moment at the side of the field when it had all gotten to him. When he had found himself swamped with a kind of longing he had since dismissed. Because he was Pascal Furlani, not some soft, emotional creature. He had been reacting to the shock, that was all.
It had been a long, long time since anyone had managed to surprise him.
But he had been given a great many days to accustom himself to this new development in his life. He had a son. That was what mattered. And a son deserved a family. So Pascal could marry his son’s mother or he could marry someone else—he didn’t much care which, but he was going to make Dante a family.
One way or another, he was going to spend his son’s first Christmas with a father like the family man his board of directors did not believe he could be.
“I am a deeply unromantic man,” he told Cecilia. He waited as she turned slightly so she could look at him again. “My mother spent a great deal of time carrying on about her great love affair. It shadowed the whole of our lives. And as the result of that affair, I can assure you, love had nothing to do with it.”
He could see her take that in and consider it.
“So the marriage you’re proposing is in name only.”
Pascal saw the faint flare of something like hope in her gaze, too.
Maybe that was why he laughed.
Or maybe he was a bastard in more than simple, biological fact.
“I don’t need you to be in love with me, if that’s what you mean,” he said, again enjoying himself more than he should. “And I’m not capable of love myself. I require a wife in any case. I’ve been searching for one for some time. The trouble was, I did not wish there to be a hint of scandal attached to her.”
“I’m the most scandalous woman in this village,” Cecilia said. Clearly hoping that would disqualify her from consideration. “I’m obviously not the right choice for a man of your…stature.”
Thatstaturewas not the word she’d meant to use was obvious enough that Pascal almost thought her intended word glimmered in the air between them, like the heat from the fire.
“Your only scandal is me.” And when he saw her gaze take on a calculating gleam, he laughed again. “Do not bother to tell me otherwise. According to all sources in and out of the abbey, I was your only mistake. Which makes you perfect for my purposes.”
“I feel certain that I want nothing to do with what you call perfection.”
“You have a choice,cara,” he said, drawling a little as he said it. “Never let it be said I am not magnanimous.”
She looked like she wanted to strangle him, which should probably not have made him hard in instant, enthusiastic response.
“Yes,” she seethed at him. “Magnanimousis precisely the word I would have chosen to describe you.”
“Should you choose to marry me, you will be doing me a favor,” Pascal continued, almost happily. “You will help me to create a charming picture of domesticity to undercut my board of directors’ machinations. You’ve already met a pair of them. They are always scheming against me, and the fact that I’m a single, seemingly unfettered man does not endear me to them. I can’t say that I will ever forgive what you have done here, but my gratitude will be no small thing, I trust.”
He could have told her that he also wanted Dante to have the family he’d never had. But he didn’t.
“Your gratitude,” she repeated, her voice flat. “Or, excuse me, yourpotentialgratitude is what I am to look forward to.”
“Or you can look forward to a weekend a month. Supervised, of course. Noncustodial parents do have a reputation for disappearing with their children, don’t they?”
“And what if I don’t believe you?” she asked after another long moment. He could see she was fighting to keep her composure. “What if I think you’re just trying to intimidate me?”
