But this was not exactly a straightforward situation.
Not only was there the matter of breaking the news to his father and, in ever-increasing circles, everyone else in his country, but there was the even more significant challenge of trying to persuade a woman who clearly hated him that they had to get married.
He would have to be at his most persuasive. He would have to put his natural inclination to get what he wanted, whatever the cost, on hold. In fact, he would have to dispense with that line of attack completely. He had already taken legal advice on what his rights were and, despite his prominence, wealth and royal status, the rights of a mother who had taken on the role of single parent for over three years won hands down in any court of law. Not only had she been the sole provider for Tilly in his absence, but she had tried to find him at the time of her pregnancy and it had been entirely his fault that she had found that an impossible task.
He could, of course, point out the considerable advantages to marrying him—not least a lifestyle of such breathtaking comfort and downright opulence that she would never want for anything in her life again—but he had an uneasy suspicion after what she’d just said to him regarding material possessions that, as persuasive arguments went, she might not be as bowled over by that one as another woman might be.
She had tried to contact him three years ago and yet there had been no financial motivation behind that as she hadn’t known who he was, and it would seem there was no financial impetus behind her contacting him now.
How did that make sense?
‘Can I ask you something?’ he murmured, watching her with veiled eyes. He propped his hands against the counter on either side of her, his dark gaze wedded to her attractively flushed face.
In this moment, he was entirely taken with the strength of his own response to her, bemused by the peculiar hold she still seemed to exert over him. Once upon a time, it had seduced him into staying in Ibiza for far longer than necessary and now...
‘You obviously have a problem with me.’
‘Do you blame me?’ she asked.
‘That’s a question that could keep us going round in circles for ever. You have a problem with me and yet that didn’t stop you from doing what you felt was the right thing to do.’
‘Why would it?’ Georgie said defiantly.
‘Because, and this is just my cynicism winning the argument, a woman with an axe to grind against a guy she thinks unceremoniously dumped her without an explanation could do one of several things...’
Georgie wanted to break free from that devastating gaze but she was spellbound by him, locked into immobility and barely able to breathe.
‘What things?’ she asked, as the drag on her senses grew more powerful by the second.
‘She might decide to have no further contact with him, whatever the circumstances. Alternatively, she might make contact with the aim of using the child as a pawn in a game of payback. More likely, however, a woman might be tempted to see what was in it for her financially, especially when she realises that she’s dealing with a man who has the wherewithal to change the direction of her whole life. Yet you fit none of those categories.’
‘This is so...hard for you, isn’t it?’
‘What do you mean?’
Georgie looked down and blinked rapidly. She folded her arms and stared at her feet, jutting in between his legs.
He pushed himself away from her and on impulse reached for her hand and twined his fingers through hers.
He led her to the sitting room and she followed, and she didn’t resist when he gently sat her down on the sofa and positioned himself next to her.
‘Talk to me,’ he urged as he tried to find some solid ground, however small.
‘We don’t even know one another,’ Georgie said honestly. His fingers were still entwined with hers and she was reluctant to break the physical contact because that physical contact felt good, like a lifebelt in stormy seas. She looked at him, searching for the right words. ‘Okay, so we once had a brief fling. But you weren’t who I thought you were, and in a way I was pretending to be a different person as well.’
‘Explain.’ He frowned.
‘I’d had a very sheltered life, raised deep in the country. I went to the local village school and then to the local secondary school. The most exciting things to happen were the school dances and a trip to the cinema. It was always my dad and I and it was an easy life with none of the temptations, I guess, that I would have had growing up in the city. Going to university was the first time I really took in what life outside a small hamlet in the middle of nowhere felt like.’
‘Frightening?’
‘Exciting.’ She could feel some of the tension oozing out of her. ‘An adventure for a rural girl like me.’ She blushed. ‘I... You asked how it is that I wanted you to know about the pregnancy even after I found out that you’d dumped me without a forwarding address.’
Abe tilted his head to one side and waited.
‘My dad...my dad was the local vicar, Abe.’ She laughed self-consciously. ‘I never considered not doing what I felt was the right thing to do. You can fight against a lot of things, but you can’t fight against your upbringing and, as you can imagine, I was raised with a great many moral codes firmly in place.’ She could feel her cheeks stinging with colour. She suddenly realised he was as guided by his own rigid upbringing as she was and she softened slightly.
‘A vicar—’
