Her family still lived there even though they no longer acknowledged her. Maybe that could change. She could not imagine anyone being able to reject Mickey.
“You’re willing to move?” he asked, surprise lacing his tone.
She did roll her eyes then. “You thought marriage was the solution to our situation. I assume that would have required me and Mickey to move.”
“Well, yes, but...” His voice trailed off, the Prince seemingly without words.
“Will it be hard?” she asked. “Yes,” she answered herself. “If you want the truth, it’s going to be awful. I’m not just proud of the life I have built for me and Mickey, but I love it here. I fit in The City Different better than I have ever fit anywhere else.”
“You will fit in our life in Seattle and Mirrus. I will make sure of it.”
“I think that is something I have to make sure of, but thank you.”
She sighed. “Look, I’m not so naive as to think you’re going to change your base of operations just to be closer to your son, even if right now you’re all gung-ho about the fatherhood thing.” Konstantin was not that guy. “If I have the option, I want Mickey to have both of us in his life on a consistent basis.”
Or as consistent as a prince could be in the life of his son. As yet, Emma didn’t know what that was going to look like, but she did know that Mickey’s dream of family had the best chance of coming true if she lived in the same city as his father.
That was the truth that had kept sleep so far from her the night before.
“You’re a very special woman.”
“No. I’m just a mom who wants what’s best for her child.” Emma didn’t think that made her special, just committed.
“Mickey having both his parents is very important to you isn’t it?”
“Do you really need me to answer that?”
“Enough for you to marry his father and give him a complete and stable home life?” Konstantin asked leadingly.
“He can have stability without us marrying.”
“I can legally acknowledge him as my son, but the world is not as forward-thinking as we all might wish. There will be many who will not give him his due unless I am married to his mother.”
“This isn’t the Dark Ages.” But she knew Konstantin was right.
“No, but we do not live in a perfect Utopia of understanding either.”
She took a fortifying sip of her peppermint tea and wished it was a peppermint mocha, loaded with caffeine. “You don’t want to marry me.”
“That is one thing about which you are absolutely wrong.”
“But why?” He had never loved her.
Permanent had never been in the cards for them, no matter what fantasies she’d woven around their relationship in the past.
“You are the mother of my child.”
“I never thought you were such a throwback.”
“Didn’t you?”
Okay, maybe when he’d jettisoned his mistress to marry the woman chosen by his family, Emma had thought a Neanderthal playboy might be a step up from Konstantin, but this? Marriage? “You don’t think I’m wife material.”
“You have given birth to my child and raised him to the best of your ability, sacrificing in ways many women would not. You are eminently suitable to be my wife.”
She shook her head. “You might even believe that right now, but spend a couple of hours talking to your family and your attitude is going to change fast enough.”
“Not true. I told my brother I planned to marry you and he’s all for it.”