Especially a woman like her whom he shouldn’t have touched in the first place.
Andreas hadn’t said those final words, but it’d been vastly evident he meant them from his sneer and the tone of his voice.
Then she wondered if her disgruntlement had something to do with the woman she’d seen on Nelios’s arm last night. She pushedthataway.
‘Do you know what it felt like to do the literal walk of shame?’ she asked bitterly. ‘What am I talking about? Of course you don’t. Men like you think you rule the world and everyone in it, don’t you? Well, you don’t own me.’ She enunciated clearly so there would be no ambiguity.
Of course that temporary ebbing of his haughtiness reversed, his strong jaw jutting until he was staring down the blade of his aquiline nose. ‘I don’t wish to own you. But even I recognise that you and my son come as a package deal. Hence my offer. Marry me, and there will be no need for unnecessary acrimony.’ His lips twisted. ‘I’m even open to us parting ways…eventually. With certain conditions in place, of course.’
Ice-cold, a little thrown by that, and caught in warped bemusement, she asked, ‘And what would those be?’
‘That we remain married until Angelos is of age—eighteen years at the minimum. That under no circumstances are you to disappear from his life unless those circumstances are out of your control or with meticulous advance planning that will not leave him emotionally scarred.’ His eyes turned to merciless flint then, the unvarnished evidence of him reliving his own past right there in his eyes. ‘Agree to that and I will concede to a demand or two.’
Her brows lifted. Perhaps she should’ve stopped the words that spilled out but this was…a lot. And no one had said she was barred from reeling or reacting with some sassiness of her own. ‘Justone or twoin return for eighteen years of my life? What a hard bargain you drive. Go on, then, dazzle me with these concessions.’
‘Ten million dollars on our wedding day. A further three million for every year we stay married. Plus any marketing position you want in my empire.’
‘All out of the goodness of your heart?’ she taunted, still attempting to drive him into betraying an emotion. To scratch beneath his icy facade.
He shrugged. ‘Why not? Besides, I don’t want the sleazy media accusing me of taking advantage of you.’
‘Did you care about how you would be perceived when you took away my livelihood?’ she challenged.
‘You mean when I left you several hundred thousand pounds richer?’ he parried.
She tugged her baby closer. ‘Money isn’t everything.’
‘Neither is clinging to an outdated monstrosity that was worth nothing, certainly nowhere near what I paid for it. Tell me honestly—before I solved your problem for you and paid way over the market price, when was the last time you’d seen a decent profit? And don’t trot out the “money isn’t everything” excuse. Bursary or not, you didn’t go through university and come out with two degrees to manage a failing business whose only appeal was that it bore your name. A business which fell apart at the slightest pressure from competition.’
‘Slightest pressure?’ she scoffed. ‘You’re joking, right? You ruthlessly targeted us and didn’t let up until we had no choice but to give in.’
His hand slashed through the air. ‘And you’re well aware of my primary reasons for that. But we’re straying from the subject. You can be my opponent in the custody court or my wife. You decide.’
The final, clanging ultimatum.
She sucked in a slow breath. Despite single mothers having been a thing since the dawn of time, she knew first-hand the judgement that could come from society with such a status.People would wonder what she’d done to end up without the support of a man: whether it was a wild and foolish feminist strike for independence or whether she had loose morals or just plain bad luck. Not that being married was any guarantee or insulation from judgement.
Vayle swallowed, every brave and independent reason she wanted to cling to crumbling away, knowing in her heart she could at the very least consider the outcome for Angelos, ensuring her child wouldn’t carry even a hint of the stigma that shouldn’t exist but still did. That he would at least have his father in his life on whatever basis they could agree on.
Wasn’t that the fundamental reason she’d persisted in trying to let Nelios know he’d fathered a child—to give her child options?
And all this option would take would be to submit to a loveless, emotionless union—that or be locked in a legal battle which outcome she could foretell, having just been through a battle with Nelios only a year ago.
Well, she thought a little hysterically, perhaps not entirely emotionless. Because she felt very many things in this moment, including the almost childish urge to scream that life wasn’t fair. But, to be fair, she’d landed herself in this situation. She’d chosen to sleep with him. To lose herself in wild, unfettered lust.
But, perhaps childishly, she could blame him for being entirely too handsome, too charismatic and too dynamic with those chiselled good looks, capable hands and sinful lips! He was a sorcerer who’d enchanted her and he deserved some of her ire for it.
‘Careful, there, you look as if you’re about to claw my face off. Not quite how I imagined you responding to my proposal,’ he rasped, eyes backlit with a blaze she couldn’t quite interpret. Which made herfeelsome more.
She breathed in and forced her clenched hands to unfurl. ‘How did you imagine it, then? Me, prostrate at your feet in abject gratitude?’
His head tilted and, damn him, his eyes glinted in mocking appreciation. ‘Hmm. Now there’s an idea.’
‘Well, dream on. It’s not going to happen.’ The snap in her voice drew Angelos’s attention. Happily gorged on his meal, he lifted his head, his brown eyes staring raptly before, cracking a milky smile, he turned his attention to Nelios.
Father and son commenced another staring match, which continued even as Nelios lifted his hand and slowly, for the very first time, brushed his fingers over his son’s crown. The breath that shuddered out of him—the briefest insight into his raw possessiveness and determination as he cradled his son’s head—cemented the reluctant belief that, no, Nelios would never harm their baby. That perhaps, far from that, he would strive to move mountains for his flesh and blood.
Should she choose to stand in his way, she might well be obliterated in the process.
