“Why are you so afraid of me?” he asked softly. “You seem to think I’m a murderous villain, merely because I seek to take responsibility for my child and marry you.”
She lifted her chin furiously. “You don’t wish to marry me. You’re insisting on it! You’re no better than Blaise Falkner!”
He grew dangerously still. “And now you insult me?”
“He wanted me to sign papers forcing me to give the baby away, too!”
“That’s not what I—”
“At least with Blaise,” she interrupted, “I knew from the start he was a monster. But I liked you. I slept with you.” She hated the tears that rose in her eyes. She wiped them away furiously. “But beneath your charm, you’re just the same as Blaise. Selfish to the core. You’re determined to force this prenuptial agreement on me. Well, guess what, I’m not going to sign it! You can’t make me marry you. We’re in modern-day Europe, not the Dark Ages!”
“Oh, for...” A low mutter of hard words that she guessed to be Italian curses escaped his sensual lips. He set his jaw. “I don’t have time for this. I’m due in Rome in five days. The prenuptial agreement is waiting in the car. You can read it thoroughly while we’re driving to the airport.”
Her stomach fell. “Airport?”
“En route to our wedding in Las Vegas.”
“I’m not getting on a plane!”
“Why,” he jeered, “because you’re afraid I will kidnap you to some shadowy place not so civilized as Switzerland? You think so little of me. Why did you let me seduce you, let me fill you with my child, if the idea of taking my name and being under my protection and letting me provide for you is so unpalatable? If you truly believe me to be such a villain, why did you give me your body?” he said softly. “Why did you grip my shoulders and cry with joy as I made love to you again and again?”
Scarlett looked up at him, hardly able to breathe. He was so close to her. “I didn’t...”
“It took a week for the nail marks to disappear from my back.”
She flinched, then glared at him, folding her arms. “So you’re good in bed. Big deal. I didn’t have the experience to fight my desire for you then, but I do now. I won’t sell myself to you and I definitely won’t sell my baby.”
His dark eyes narrowed. “So you prefer that our son has no father? That he is raised without my name or my protection or my love, all of which I freely offer you now?”
“Your...love?”
“Of course, you think I would not love my own child?”
Oh. Of course that was what he meant. Biting back her disappointment, angry with herself for feeling it, she said, “You’re not offering me anything for free. If you were, you wouldn’t make me sign those horrible documents.”
“You expect me to marry you without a pre-nup? Leaving you free to take half my fortune?”
Scarlett shook her head stubbornly. “Of course not. You wouldn’t want to take the risk. But neither do I. So, the answer is simple. We will not marry.”
Vin stared at her in the Geneva sunlight. A soft wind rustled the autumn leaves above the grassy slope, between the modern two-story clinic and the sparkling water of the lake. She heard the soft call of a bird, the distant sound of honking and noise from the city.
“Because you’re hoping to marry for love.” He glared at her. “You are just like my mother was, before she died. Ignoring your responsibilities to run toward some romantic fantasy.”
“I’m not! I’m running away from a nightmare. You!”
His lips pressed together. “Perhaps once our child is born, you will run away from him, too.”
“Never!” she gasped.
“How do I know?”
“I love my baby more than anything!”
“So all you want from me is child support—is that it?”
“I don’t want your money.”
“You’d be the first.”
“Money comes with strings, as you know perfectly well. Or you wouldn’t offer it.”
“So how do you expect to support our baby alone?”
“Well...” She tilted her head, thinking. “If you weren’t pursuing me, and I didn’t have to hide from you, I might go back to Gstaad and learn to cook fried chicken.”