Her eyes were wary. Something fired in his gut. Confusion was rife. Nothing with Alessia had ever made sense. Not the way he’d found himself wanting her, nor the way he’d refused to indulge that desire. But knowing she was pregnant with his baby was a game changer. It was no longer about her and him, but about becoming parents to this child – he had to get her to see that. He’d do whatever it took but he wasn’t letting his baby grow up without him.
“I don’t know if you can.” She turned away from him, her hands moving to tuck her shirt in, so that when she sat on the edge of his desk, she was dressed once more. But her lips were still swollen and her eyes fevered, so that he couldn’t look at her without an awareness of what they’d been doing a moment ago.
“Try me.” He crossed his arms over his chest, exuding arrogant confidence even when he knew he was entering into the most important negotiation of his life.
“Well…what exactly would our marriage look like?”
He arched a brow, silently encouraging her to continue.
“Where would we live, for example?”
“Where would you want to live?”
“My life is in Ondechiara. My work, dad…”
“So I’ll move to Ondechiara.” He shrugged, the details of little interest to him.
“That doesn’t work either,” she pointed out with a shake of her head, so her blonde hair shifted around her face. “Your whole life is in Rome. You work long hours, you can’t just pick up and leave.”
“I can commute.”
“To Rome? From Ondechiara?”
He lifted his broad shoulders. “It’s a forty minute flight.”
She rolled her bright blue eyes. “Great. So I’ll have the destruction of the earth on my conscience courtesy of your private jet’s pollution.” She gnawed at her lip, her eyes awash with doubts. “It makes more sense for me to move to Rome,” she said hesitantly, and something like relief spread through him, relaxing him, because she was speaking as though she’d already decided how they were to proceed. “If I agree to this,” she added quickly.
“What about your life?” He prompted quietly. “Your work?”
“I guess I’ll take some time off. I’ll want to anyway, to be with her,” Alessia’s hand curved over her belly and that same flame of pride exploded inside of Max.
There was curiosity as well. He’d heard about Alessia through his brothers – little pieces of meaningless information from time to time. But there were still so many gaps – things he’d wondered about over the years.
“Is it everything you’d hoped it would be?”
She stared at him with obvious confusion.
“Being a doctor.”
“Oh.” Her smile lifted a little. “Yeah.” She reached to her side and absentmindedly picked up one of his pens, running her fingers over the cool metallic edges. “There are good days and bad days but most of the time, I feel like I’ve been given this incredible superpower.” Her smile almost knocked him sideways.
“I’m glad.” His eyes roamed her face thoughtfully. “That’s all the more reason we should stay in Ondechiara.”
“Max,” she sighed heavily. “I don’t know if I’m going to agree to marry you. And even if we did get married, I find it almost impossible to believe we could make it work long enough for this conversation to ever matter. But one thing I do know for sure – my replacement’s already been hired on a contract. I was going to finish up in a couple of weeks anyway. So I could, theoretically, come to Rome at the end of the month without inconveniencing anyone.”
He nodded slowly. “Fine. And until then, we’ll be in Ondechiara.”
“No,” she spoke quietly but with a firm insistence. “Until then, I’ll be in Ondechiara and you’ll be here, each of us working out what we really want.”
Mentally he refuted that.
“I’m not kidding, Max. You literally just found out about this baby. Your first instinct is to go all old-fashioned and gallant and offer to marry me but you might change your mind in a week’s time and God knows I need to think this through some more. I walked into our first wedding completely blind to the enormity of what I was doing. I sure as heck didn’t see all the angles. I’m not going to make that mistake this time.”
“Then let me show you the angles,” he said quietly, unable to feel anything but respect for the maturity of her response. He took a step towards her, but paused when she bristled, her spine straightening, her eyes warning him not to overcrowd her.
“You admit you treated me like a child the first time around?”
He dipped his head in a silent gesture of concession.