‘I am now.’
Peyton gave him a reproving look. ‘Are you telling me that the first time you laid eyes on me you knew I was the girl you wanted to marry?’
‘Many people have long, happy marriages that did not start with love at first sight which any marriage expert will tell you is not a sound basis for marriage.’
‘Maybe not, but it’s a good place to start. What about Daniella? Didn’t you take one look at her and know?’
He frowned. ‘I was twenty-four. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t thinking with anything north of my belt. It was lust… infatuation. Not love.’
His words struck a chord. Maybe it had been lust with Arnie too? Maybe she hadn’t fallen in love after all. Maybe his flashy, blond good looks and his total adoration of her had blinded her to the real man beneath.
‘And it didn’t work out. Neither did you and Arnie. So maybe approaching marriage like this is the best way to go about it. We don’t have to get married straight away, we have time to get to know each other.’
‘My mother would say we should have done that first.’
He gave a wry smile. ‘So would mine.’
Peyton returned his smile despite her heart pounding in her chest as she prepared to ask the next question. ‘Just say I agree to getting married… what happens when you do meet the one and you’re trapped in a marriage with me? Do you expect me to be okay with it? Do you expect me to sit back and watch you break our child’s heart when you leave me for her? Not to mention McKenzie’s heart? Would you fight me for custody?’
‘Il mio Dio!I haven’t thought about any of these things.’
Which was entirely Peyton’s point. ‘You don’t say.’
Valentino’s jaw tightened. ‘There will be no other women.’
‘What about sex?’
‘What about it?’ The question seemed to bewilder him. ‘I thought you liked having sex with me?’
Peyton didn’t think her liking it was really the issue.Thatwas a given. ‘If you think I’m going to risk this pregnancy by having sex during it, then you really are crazy.’
He rubbed his forehead then, clearly nonplussed. He didn’t appear to have thought through that aspect, either. But he just shrugged, clearly unbothered.‘No problemo.’
‘You seriously expect me to believe you can go without sex for that long?’
Arnie had cited lack of intimacy as one of the reasons he was leaving and she’d known their defunct sex life had frustrated him. But she’d been exhausted, being at the hospital all day and worried sick about the twins, watching Daisy grow steadily more ill. She’d been emotionally numb and physically disconnected from her body, and sex had been the last thing on her mind.
And besides, it hadn’t felt right, indulging in her own pleasure with her children fighting for their lives.
Valentino chuckled – not something Peyton had expected in answer to her question. ‘You don’t think,’ he said, his voice dropping an octave as his gaze raked her body like she was wearing clingy Victoria Secret underwear instead of shapeless, sexless clothes, ‘I’m imaginative enough to satisfy you –us– in other ways?’
Peyton swallowed and to her dismay her nipples hardened in blatant response to his statementandogling. Her breasts had been sore and tight and uncomfortable, but they practically flowered beneath his gaze, tingling for his attention.
It seemed her hormone-riddled body was hungry not just for food.
Peyton folded her arms across her chest to ease the ache, his knowing chuckle sliding like silk over her skin as his eyes lifted and their gazes snagged.
‘I don’t want to be excluded from the pregnancy, Peyton. I want to be around to feel the baby move and kick, to see your belly grow. To help out when you’re not feeling well. To get you ice cream and tomato sauce when you wake up with a craving at three o’clock in the morning. I want to get to really know youandMcKenzie because I’m going to be in her life too.’
Peyton wanted to shut her ears to the cosy picture he was painting. A flash of McKenzie and Valentino dancing flitted through her mind, the look of adoration on her daughter’s face as she’d clung to his neck crystal clear.
How could she expose McKenzie to him, like he was asking? Have her love and adore him when, try as she may, she couldn’t believe he was going to stick around.
Especially if something happened to the baby.
Yes, he was telling her he would but he’d spent the last decade of his life constantly moving on from one woman to another. Did he seriously expect her to believe he could reverse what by now must be fairly ingrained behaviour?
‘And what if something happens to the baby?—’
