She took a breath, ploughing on. ‘I’ll be a single mother, and that will be fine. I’ll probably work part time. I don’t need a salary to live on. I have income enough of my own—a trust fund that was set up by my father when I was born. So you see—’
A hand slashed down through the air, silencing her.
‘No. That will not be happening.’ Nic’s eyes were like sapphires, blue and hard. ‘What will happen is that we shall marry.’
Fran stared, stopped in her tracks. ‘You can’t be serious...’ The words fell from her, hollow and disbelieving.
‘And you cannot think that I would say otherwise!’ He shifted his stance, taking a breath. Emotion was churning in him—emotion he could make no sense of.
She was still staring at him as if he were mad. As if he’d said the last thing she had expected him to say.
With an effort, she spoke. ‘Nic, you made it clear you wanted nothing more to do with me. And now you speak of marriage?’
‘Of course I do! Did you think I wouldn’t?’
She shook her head. Dazed and confused and so much more. Abruptly, her legs weak, she sat down.
Nic went on standing, looking down at her. ‘We’ll marry and that is all there is to it. We’ll have to sort out where we’ll be living—if necessary I can move my base to the West Coast, if you intend to keep working, but if not then Rome would be best for me, if that suits you. We’ll need to buy somewhere—a house or apartment suitable for us both, of course—but that won’t be a problem, so—’
She held up a hand, consternation in her face. ‘Nic, stop! Stop! You’re making assumptions, taking it for granted that I—That we—’
His face hardened. ‘Nothing else is possible,’ he said tightly.
Emotion seared in him. Because no child of mine will be born a bastard, as I was, even if it me
ans I have to marry a woman I would never want to. A woman who represents everything I detest.
He could hear the words in his head, hear himself incise them into his brain.
She was speaking again, and he made himself listen through the emotions searing through him.
‘Nic, give me time.’
He slashed a hand through the air. ‘We don’t have time. You need to accept that we must marry as soon as possible.’ His eyes flashed darkly. ‘Make whatever arrangements you require.’
Whatever those were, he did not want anything other than a quick, private wedding, to get them legally married. His face set. At some point he would have to meet the precious Marchese and his Marchesa—her parents. His expression hardened. Not to mention all her aristocratic English relatives as well—like that gilded ragazzo...the young lordling knocking back champagne at Viscari’s damned party. How many more of them were there? Dozens, probably. All those aristos were related to each other, so Italy would be crawling with them as well.
Her voice cut off his vicious thoughts. She was standing up again. Facing him off.
‘Nic, listen to me. Listen.’
Fran’s voice was like a knife, cutting through him.
‘I am not going to marry you. There is no need for it.’
He stared at her. ‘There is every need,’ he ground out.
For one long, endless moment they stared at each other, the tension between them palpable. Then, out of nowhere, he felt his emotions change.
She carries my child. It grows within her. Invisible—but there. Binding me to her. And her to me. Beyond all that separates us.
He felt another wave of that emotion he could not explain except by thinking of the child, his child, growing within her, silently and invisibly.
He took her shoulders suddenly and felt her flinch, as if she had not expected it. Through the fine wool of her sweater she was warm beneath his touch. He caught the scent she was wearing and it lingered in his senses. Everything about her had always lingered in his senses.
His eyes held hers, lifted to his with confusion in them...uncertainty. Well, he would be certain for both of them.
‘Fran...’ It was the first time he’d said her name since their time together, all those long months ago—months during which he’d wanted to put her behind him, into the past where she needed to be.