“I hate to disagree with you, Kizzie, but I can.” He gathered one of her hands in his. “Actually, I do.”
“Still? Even with the news I'm carryin’ another man's child?”
“I know it's not what either one of us would prefer, but it doesn't change what I already know about you.”
He loved her and Charlie? He wanted them to be a part of his life and family? Still? It couldn't be possible.
The look in his eyes almost weakened her fight, but she placed a palm to his chest, stopping his growing nearness. He wasn't thinking straight. Men didn't give up their lives for women like her. “You can't mean that.” She shook her head, new tears blurring her vision. “You'll lose everything. I can't let you lose everything.”
“Everything?” His smile turned so sweet her breath stalled. “I don't think so, Kizzie. If I must let go of those things to gain something even better, I'd call it a good deal.” He squeezed her hands. “I'd have your lovely self as my bride. And get to be the father to”—he waved from her stomach to Charlie—“these children.”
Her heart pulsed a painful rhythm. He was offering her everything she could have ever dreamed, and she couldn't take it. No good person took advantage of a crazy man, and that's exactly what he was to not even flinch at the news she'd given him. Crazy.
“You … you can't mean to marry me, Noah Lewis. If you do that, you're just gonna confirm what rumors folks will think once they know I'm carrying another child. You're innocent to such charges and plumb crazy to pair your name with a woman twice fallen.” Her eyes widened, her face growing hotter as she spoke. “Then it'll hurt your mama, and there ain't no telling what your brother will do.”
“My mama will be fine. In fact, she's likely been praying for this outcome for a few weeks now.”
What? Victoria wanted her and Noah to marry? Even as she was?
“And my brother's already created enough trouble for himself not to worry about mine.”
Doggone it! If the man didn't keep shooting down her arguments like a regular straight shooter. “Which is all the more reason why youcan'tthink to marry me.” It was the most outlandish, foolhardy thing for a decent, respectable, good-hearted man to contemplate, let alone actually voice. “George's choices are already going to hurt you and your mama enough. Why add this—me—to make things worse? Folks will tear your family down, Noah. I know what it feels like to have them tear you down. I'd never want to be part of causing that for you.”
He gathered her hands into his in complete contradiction to her arguments. “Do you love me, Kizzie?” His soft hazel eyes searched hers, the tenderness nestled within those greens and golds so real it captured every piece of her broken heart.
“Of course I do.” She responded without hesitation. “How could I not, but the truth still—”
“Kizzie.” The faintest smile curled his lips. He looked at their braided hands as if the answer pleased him. Loose hair curled over his forehead as he raised his gaze back to hers. “Then it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks except you and me and God.”
Her heart nearly puddled to the floor, her fight dwindling with each confession, each touch.
“Noah Lewis, you're a whole lot smarter than to want such a tomfool thing.Especiallynow.” Yet she didn't let go of his hands, didn't pull away. Her body already accepted what her mind couldn't believe. Emotions squeezed in her throat, the idea too big for her heart. Too beautiful.
Still? Want her? “What good could marrying me bring you?”
“A little family of my own?” He brought her hands to his lips, a look of sheer delight on his face. Her eyes grew blurrier as he spoke. “Your love, Kizzie?”
Her breath trembled out on a sigh. “But what about your reputation? Your status in this place?”
A humorless laugh burst from him. “I've had all the benefits of wealth and station, but what have they given me? An estrangement from my sister? A heartbroken mother and a tyrannical brother? You brought value of a measureless sort into my life. I don't want a future without you and Charlie in it.”
Her arguments dissolved into smithereens.
“Well, this is quite the interesting story, isn't it?”
Kizzie looked up to see George Lewis standing at the top of the stairs, arms crossed and leaning against the nearby wall. An unfriendly smile curled his lips, and his gaze took its time moving from Noah to Kizzie and back.
George's lips dipped into a sneer. “Unwed mother pregnant once again and my brother playing the Good Samaritan? Or has he lost his virtue to a pretty face?”
“George?” Noah dropped Kizzie's hands and turned.
“Good of you to make an honest woman of such a fallen spectacle, Noah.”
“How did you get up here?” Kizzie asked, stepping forward to the apartment doorway near Noah.
One of George's dark brows rose. “The sweet little thing in the front sent me up when I told her I was looking for my brother and it was an emergency.” He straightened from his position. “You can't mean to marry her, Noah.” He took a step closer, and Noah shifted to place himself between Kizzie and his brother. “Bedding a woman like her is one thing. Legitimizing things is quite another. I will not have you bring someone like her into our family to dampen our status.”
“You're doing that just fine on your own, George. You don't need my help.”
