‘This is a pointless argument, Cara.’ His gaze slipped to her stomach again, and she could see the anxiety about her condition flicker across his face before his gaze met hers.
What was it about the pregnancy that disturbed him so much?
‘The fact is you are pregnant, you are having this child.’ She saw his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed and realised how hard it was for him to say the next word. ‘My child. I do not want you to be harmed.’
Her heart swelled painfully in her chest. ‘I won’t be harmed, Maxim,’ she said, struggling not to make too much of his determination to care for her, when no other man ever had. ‘I’m pregnant, not sick.’
‘Pregnancy is dangerous. My own mother...’
He stopped, his eyes becoming shuttered, the naked emotions she’d seen flash across his face ruthlessly controlled. But it was already too late. She’d seen the agony when he’d mentioned his mother.
‘What happened to your mother, Maxim?’
&
nbsp; He shifted back, withdrawing even further. ‘It is of no importance,’ he said.
But she could see it was of considerable importance. Was this why he was so determined to marry her, to provide for her? Was his mother the reason why he was so concerned about the pregnancy?
‘Did she... Did she have a difficult pregnancy?’ she asked softly. ‘Is that why mine scares you?’ she probed gently, covering her bump with her hand.
He thrust his fingers through his hair. But she’d seen the shocking answer to her question, the shudder of remembered trauma in his eyes before he could mask it. ‘I was a big baby,’ he said. ‘She was a small woman. And he refused to pay for the care she needed.’ He looked away, his voice brittle with anguish. ‘And I was not the only child he failed to prevent. She had two miscarriages before he finally discarded her.’
‘Maxim, I’m so sorry,’ Cara whispered, touching his arm, feeling the muscles tense. Had he witnessed these miscarriages? He must have, the shadow of trauma in his eyes was unmistakable. ‘I wish I’d known him for what he really was,’ she said forcefully, realising how foolish she had been to ever stand up for her old employer. ‘I never would have agreed to marry him.’ How could she have been so blind to Pierre de la Mare’s faults?
‘You are not to blame,’ he said, and she could see he didn’t blame her. ‘My father spent a lifetime manipulating women. He was very good at it.’ He blinked, the flush of colour on his cheeks making her realise how hard it was for him to talk about his parents’ relationship. ‘My mother never stopped loving him, despite the way he treated her.’ He huffed out an unsteady breath, the confusion in his eyes so poignant she felt her heart butt her tonsils. ‘But none of that is important now. What is important is that you do not suffer, the way she did. I cannot let that happen, or I will be no better than him.’
She nodded, tears welling in her eyes—he’d said yesterday that he wasn’t his father; she hadn’t realised how much he’d meant by that. ‘I... I understand.’
‘I would not have chosen to become a father, Cara,’ he said, gruff pain in his voice, devoid of accusation but so full of regret it made her heart hurt. ‘But I did not take the precautions I could have to ensure this did not happen, and now you must face the consequences of my actions.’ He made the baby sound like a terrible burden. And obviously to him it was, she thought miserably. ‘I also know what it is not to have a father’s protection, a father’s name and wealth. So I cannot allow my own child to grow up without these things.’
Cara nodded again.
But a good father could provide so much more than that. When her own mother had died, she’d looked to her father to provide not just financial but also emotional security. And he’d failed. He’d discarded her and rejected her—because she was too much trouble and he had never really loved her. The same way Pierre de la Mare had discarded and rejected Maxim.
‘Would you...? Would you be able to offer this baby more than that, Maxim?’ she asked, scared to hope, but more scared not to ask.
‘What do you mean?’ he said, looking genuinely perplexed by the question, and her heart stumbled in her chest.
‘Do you think you could offer the child more than just your name and your protection?’
He frowned, as if he hadn’t expected the question. ‘I doubt that is a possibility. As I said, I never planned to become a father, Cara, precisely because I do not think I would be good at it.’
The words were said gently, firmly, but even so the spurt of hope refused to die. He hadn’t categorically ruled the possibility out.
Both their fathers had been incapable of love. But she refused to believe it had to be like that. She already loved their child so much. And while the kind of marriage Maxim was talking about—a time-limited marriage, simply for the purposes of protecting her and giving his child his name—wasn’t enough, the fact that he was so desperate to offer her and their child security was a start.
Maxim had been rejected the same way she had. She knew exactly how much that hurt. How it could make you doubt yourself, make you lose confidence in your ability to love. She’d discovered in the last five months—from the first moment when the blue line had appeared on the test kit to that flutter of movement a week ago—a vast well of love she’d never realised she was capable of.
The baby wasn’t real to Maxim, the way it was to her.
But from their interaction that first night, when he had tended her and the next morning, when he had tried to persuade her to become his mistress, she knew he wasn’t an insensitive man. Even blinded by his need for revenge against Pierre, he’d tried to do the right thing by her.
She also knew that he’d witnessed enough of his parents’ relationship to be deeply cynical about love. But surely that didn’t mean he couldn’t one day be a good father.
‘Is that why you were so determined to destroy La Maison?’ she asked, as what he had said about his mother and the trauma of the miscarriages he must have witnessed shed new light on his actions that night, and the morning after. ‘Is that why you exposed me to the press? Because of what happened to your mother—and you—in that house?’ she finished softly. The memory of how he had betrayed her still hurt, but maybe that betrayal had never been about her, maybe it had always been about his past—a way to avenge his mother as well as himself, against the man who had used his mother so callously, and then discarded them both.
‘What? No.’ He swore softly, looking shocked. ‘It was just an error. Some intern at the advocat’s office forgot to delete the attached affidavit before sending out a press statement that I was challenging the will. Believe me when I say I would never have revealed details of our sex life to the press deliberately. And I am not so insane as to blame my mother’s suffering on a house.’