“And that was my fault. I acknowledge that. You tried every way you knew, I understand that now.” The words were too stilted to be rehearsed.
He meant his belated apology and acknowledgment that Emma had done all that she could.
“Good.”
“And then you spoke with Tiana and she scared you with her demands and threats. You should never have been subjected to that,” Konstantin said like he was intent on getting it all out at once.
“On that we agree completely, but how is this supposed to convince me that if you knew I was pregnant, you would have walked away from that contract?”
“Because Mikhail is my son.” He said it so simply, like that explained everything.
“So, shared DNA trumps family and business commitments?”
“That shared DNA means Mikhail is my family, and in my world, he’s the most important member of that family.”
“Your child is more important to you than your brothers, even the one that is King, or your father?” she asked, pushing for clarification, not sure she believed Konstantin about that claim.
However, if she was going to put her life in his hands, as it were, by agreeing to live in his space, she needed to know that Mickey came first and her own role as Mickey’s mother would never be diminished.
“Yes.”
Emma looked at Konstantin, trying to see into his soul for the truth. But she wasn’t that gifted. “You did put everything on hold for him now,” she acknowledged.
“I cannot stay here forever,” Konstantin said, almost apologetically. “But I will make his transition into the world you think of as so foreign as easy as possible.”
She frowned, but nodded. Konstantin’s world was foreign to her and to Mickey. In so many ways.
“I think I want a contract with you,” she mused, coming on a solution she would not have considered to be a benefit a week ago. “A shared custody agreement that guarantees my role as full-time mother to Mickey no matter what the future holds. And I want final say on all major decisions regarding him for at least the next year.”
She needed to see Konstantin being the father he promised to be before she handed over any legal rights over Mickey.
Konstantin’s brows drew together, his expression clearly unhappy. “You want a contract between us?”
“Yes.”
“But our relationship is not business.”
“Right now, it’s not personal either.” She should not have said right now. It implied she would be open to a personal relationship later.
And Emma just didn’t know if she was. Even if she agreed to marry Konstantin, she wasn’t sure how personal she was willing to be with him. Emma had never once considered a marriage of convenience as a possibility in her life. She’d grown up dreaming of marrying her soul mate, like her parents were to each other.
But then, she’d never really considered what it would mean if her son’s father, who was a prince, showed up in their life either.
It had never occurred to her that they might just run into each other. She’d thought that when Mickey was older she’d have to help him get in touch with his father.
This situation? Had never even been on Emma’s radar.
So, she hadn’t planned for it.
“You are the mother of my son. You are the only woman I have ever lived with. How much more personal can it get?”
“That was years ago. We don’t live together anymore.”
Konstantin looked around them significantly.
“Not like that. We aren’t sleeping together.”
“Not yet.”