“What did she say?”
“She said...um...”
“What?”
Rosalie lifted her chin. “That you were impotent.”
Alex stared at her, his mouth open.
Then he burst into a laugh. He laughed until the girl’s defiant glare changed to bewilderment, then concern. As if she thought he’d suddenly gone mad.
And maybe he had. He thought of the years he’d put up with his wife’s affair. The years he’d told himself she would eventually come to her senses and return to their marriage. How he’d convinced himself he could forgive her and take her back, when she would be chastened by experience, wiser, ready to finally become a decent partner and eventually, a good mother to their children.
Impotent.
It was almost amusing, how childish and vengeful she’d been, in her frustration at not getting her way. His lips quirked as he shook his head.
“I didn’t particularly enjoy having sex with her, but I wasn’t impotent.”
Her cheeks turned red. “No?”
“We weren’t close, and yes, she seemed cold, but I thought that meant she’d be a steady, practical partner for building a business and a family. When she didn’t get pregnant after a few months, I went to a clinic in Switzerland to get tested. The doctors saw no problem.” He paused. “Later I discovered she’d been on the Pill the whole time.”
Rosalie’s eyes widened. “She lied to you?”
“She’d only married me to please her father. As soon as he was dead and she safely had her inheritance, she was desperate to be free.” He paused. “Chiara bribed a technician in California to forge documents and get my sample from the Swiss clinic.”
“Just to get a divorce?”
“To hold me hostage,” he said softly. “She meant to tell me I had a child, then hide him away from me, until I gave her what she wanted. Not just a divorce. She also wanted me to tear up our prenuptial agreement. She wanted to keep all her own money, but also take half of mine. It was the only way her lover said he’d marry her. If she could keep him in Ferraris and cocaine for the rest of his life.”
Rosalie’s eyes went big. “What kind of people marry for reasons like that?”
“Why else would anyone marry, except for financial reasons, or to create a home for children?”
“For—for love,” she stammered. “That’s the only reason. Isn’t it? True love that lasts forever?”
He stared at her. “Do you feel that way about sex?”
Her blush deepened, and she suddenly couldn’t meet his eyes. “Or course,” she mumbled. “Love is the basis of everything. Or it should be.”
“You’re quite a romantic,” he said finally.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
Because it was. Alex drew closer to her in the moonlight. Standing by the rough-hewn parapets overlooking the sea, he heard the rush of the tide, the roar of the wind and the cries of seagulls overhead. He had that strange feeling again, like they were alone together in some strange fantasy world. “I don’t understand. If love is so important to you, why would you agree to have a child for money?”
“Not for money. For love.” Her voice caught. “I thought I could bring another family together, to try to make up for what happened to—” She suddenly shook her head, her eyes shimmering with tears. “Why didn’t your wife just get pregnant herself?” she choked out. “Why drag me into your fight?”
“Chiara didn’t want to be biologically related to the child. Apparently, not even she—” he looked at Rosalie “—could imagine abandoning her own baby.”
She stared at him for a moment, and then he saw the moment his barb hit. Her nostrils flared.
“Well, I’m not abandoning this baby now. Not to you. Not to anyone.” Rosalie hugged her belly over the black shift dress and white apron. “He’s mine.”
Alex decided to test her one last time. “Is there any amount of money I could pa
y you to give up the child? What is your price, Miss Brown? How much would it take for you to give me my son and disappear from our lives?”