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His dismay expanded. “I thought we’d have the afternoon to celebrate making our engagement official.”
“Something came up earlier that I need to take care of.”
Considering that he’d arrived at the palace almost twenty minutes late because of his own meeting schedule, Christian forced down his irritation.
“What time should I come by tonight?”
She pressed her lips together and didn’t meet his eyes. “About that. Why don’t we wait a little while before we tell Marc.”
“Why don’t I take you back to your shop, and we can discuss that on the way there.”
“Christian—”
“You owe me an explanation for your sudden turnaround.”
She ducked her head and nodded. “I know.”
Without drawing attention to themselves, they slipped out of the room and headed to the side entrance nearest the family quarters where Christian had left his car.
After assisting Noelle into the passenger seat, he slipped behind the wheel and started the powerful engine. Wasting no time on preliminaries, he stomped on the gas and, as the car shot forward, demanded, “What’s going on?”
“Gabriel and Olivia are going to be parents. This changes everything.”
It did, and he hated them for it. “It changes nothing. I’m still Marc’s father. I deserve to be in his life.”
“Of course you do, but now we don’t need to rush into anything.” Both her words and her tone betrayed her relief.
Christian ground his teeth together, using only half his attention to negotiate past slower-moving vehicles. “I didn’t realize we were rushing.”
“Didn’t you? We were planning for a Christmas wedding.” She was spinning her engagement ring around and around. “You wanted to make Marc your legal heir as soon as possible so that your family would continue to enjoy political stability.”
“I want to be a family with you and Marc,” he corrected.
“And we still can, but it’s nothing that has to happen right away.”
The problem with her argument was that each day Christian grew more impatient to live under the same roof as her and Marc. His bachelor lifestyle no longer interested him.
“My brother has already demonstrated that he only knows how to produce girls,” Christian argued. “What makes you think this time will be different?”
“In a month or so they’ll be able to tell the sex of the babies. In the meantime...” Noelle slipped the ring from her finger and held it out to Christian.
“You’re breaking off our engagement already.” A statement, not a question.
His heartbeat slowed to a near standstill. This couldn’t be happening to him.
“It isn’t a real engagement.” Clearly her perception of their relationship differed from his. “I mean, we aren’t in love or anything, so it’s just an arrangement.”
She wasn’t wrong. He’d used legitimizing their son as an excuse for marriage. As always, taking what appeared to be the easiest path had led him into a bramble hedge. Now he was stuck with the consequences.
“I care about you. I don’t want to lose you.”
She smiled. “And I care about you, but as you often used to remind me, you aren’t cut out for marriage. You were marrying me out of duty. Now you don’t have to.”
“Keep the ring.” He tightened his grip on the steering wheel. “We’ll postpone announcing our engagement for a month.”
Noelle closed her fist around the diamond and set both hands in her lap. “I don’t feel right keeping it.”
“It’s yours. I bought it for you.” He didn’t want the damned thing back. “We’ll proceed as we’ve been for a few weeks longer. You’re right that we rushed. Circumstances pushed us too fast. Now we have all the time in the world.”
When she didn’t respond, he glanced over at her. His stomach twisted at her obvious discomfort.
“What?” he prompted.
“See, the thing is...” She hesitated, and stared out the passenger window for so long he thought she might have forgotten he was beside her. “I called you earlier today to tell you about something that just came up.”
He did not like the sound of this. “What sort of something?”
“A business opportunity. I have a meeting with an investor next week. He’s interested in backing a line of ready-to-wear bridal gowns.”
“That’s fantastic.”
