He gritted his teeth. She still didn’t understand. He could respect that she wanted to keep her independence. Hell, he would support her to keep working if that was what she wished to do. He wasn’t a complete Neanderthal. But he needed her to understand just how serious the risk to her was. Instead she was looking at him like he’d gone off the deep end. He rolled his shoulder, unable to ease the tension. He didn’t talk about what had happened but maybe he should show her—shockher. He pulled out his phone and went into a file he never looked at.
‘This is Dante on his thirteenth birthday,’ he clipped unemotionally and flashed it at her.
Her face whitened. He steeled himself and swiped so another photo filled the screen and turned it back to her.
‘This is him when he was finally found.’
He didn’t need to see the photo. The image was branded in his mind. His already lanky brother had lost several kilos, leaving him almost skeletal by the time he’d been recovered. Starved and hurt, he’d still been wearing Edo’s jacket and that devastated Edo every time he thought about it.
‘Why did they take him?’ Phoebe whispered, stricken. ‘For a ransom?’
He didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Because it hadn’t been Dante they’d wanted at all. It had been Edo. And it had been his fault they’d made the mistake. His fault his younger brother had suffered so much.
‘Is he okay now?’
Edo went hot and cold, unable to answer her. He never should have mentioned it. But then he steeled himself all over again because he needed to get her to agree to his protection. By whatever means necessary.
‘Won’t it be awkward to be back at work in London with everyone knowing you’re expecting my child?’ he muttered.
‘They don’t need to know.’
‘I’ll tell them,’ he said unemotionally. ‘I’ll tell everyone. How safe will you feel, knowing this is what happens to vulnerable members of my family?’
Her jaw dropped. ‘You wouldn’t—’
‘Can you imagine your vulnerability? Maybe now you can understand just a fraction of the fear I feel for you in this instant.’
Her breathing quickened. ‘Edo, this is emotional blackmail.’
‘Yes, and I’m not about to apologise. You’ll stay here where you are safe, where you can be cared for. You have the child. Once we’ve arranged proper security, you’ll both return to London.’
‘But all of that can be done without any need for us tomarry—’
‘There will be no other child for me,’ he exploded. ‘No other heir. You carry the entire burden—’
‘What happened to your brother was terrible, but who’s to say it will ever happen again?’
‘Who’s to say it won’t?’ he shot back. ‘We have to take precautions.’
He didn’t like thinking of the baby. He felt guilty that he couldn’t be the kind of father any child deserved. He couldn’t be supportive. Strong. He wasn’t those things. He’d failed his brother. He’d been irresponsible and distracted and he had no right pretending that he could be anything otherwise. So he wouldn’t. Yet he didn’t want the child to feel he was entirely indifferent.
‘Wouldn’t it be nice for the child to believe it was created in a caring relationship?’ He hopelessly grasped at straws. ‘That it was wanted?’
‘Itiswanted.’ Raw emotion—hurt—flickered on her face before she glanced away from him. ‘Regardless of our relationship at the time of conception.’
Shewanted this baby. But he didn’t—couldn’t—want it in the same way, because he could never care for it in the way he realised she already did. But he didn’t want either of them to suffer. Frightening Phoebe wasn’t ideal. Kidnapping her completely not okay. Maybe appealing to her tender-heartedness towards the infant was the key.
‘Do you want it to think it’s the accidental product of a random sexual encounter or would it be better to believe it was born out of a grand passion between its parents?’ he asked.
For the first time she had no immediate comeback. He froze as he realised this mattered to her. Thisdifferentsense of security.
She looked down at her hands and her hair fell forward, covering her face from him. ‘You would lie to our child?’
‘Is it so much of a lie?’ He brushed back her hair, quelling his rising adrenaline. He’d finally found the right pressure point to exploit. ‘Wasn’t it a desire that couldn’t be denied?’
He still wanted her, and if this morning had been anything to go by, she definitely still wanted him. ‘Wouldn’t it be better for the child to believe its parents couldn’t resist each other?’
Phoebe couldn’t look at him. What he’d just said made her crumble inside. To be wanted like that, madly—deeply—was such a tempting fantasy. It was the one thing she’d ached for all her life because neither of her parents had wanted her. She’d been an inconvenience, not a joy. She’d had to fit around them—not hold them back. All she’d wanted was to be the centre of their world—even justsometimes. She didn’t want her child to dream of that in the way that she had. It had left her with a constant weakness and because of it she’d made bad choices.
