raise their child while she set about climbing the corporate ladder. Why have a baby, then? An accessory no doubt, the ultimate symbol of all she had achieved without the help of a man. Distaste coiled in his stomach, mingling with the desire that lingered there.
“Don’t imagine for one moment that you will be raising this child without me. We’ll have paternity testing done and if it is in fact my baby, you may yet find yourself with a husband, regardless of your original plans.”
He didn’t want to get married again. He hadn’t even been inclined to get involved in a casual relationship since Selena’s death, but that didn’t change the facts of the situation. If this was his child, there was no way he would be an absentee father. He wanted his son or daughter in Turan with him, not half a world away in the United States.
The thought of having his child looked upon as a royal bastard, illegitimate and unable to claim the inheritance that should belong to him or her by right, was not something that settled well with him. And there was only one way to remedy that.
The look of absolute shock on her face might have been comical if there were anything even remotely funny about the situation. “Did you just propose to me?”
“Not exactly.”
“I don’t know you. You don’t know me.”
“We’re having a baby,” he said simply.
“I fail to see what that has to do with marriage,” she said, that luscious mouth pursed into a tight pout.
“It’s a common reason for people to marry,” he said drily. “Arguably the most common.”
“I fully intended on being a single parent. I wasn’t waiting around for a white knight to sweep me off of my feet and offer matrimony. This wasn’t plan B while I waited around for Mr. Right. The baby was my only plan.”
“And I’m sure the League of Women applauds your progressive viewpoint, Ms. Whitman, but you are no longer the only person involved here. I am, as well. In fact, you chose to involve me.”
“Only because I need to know if you’re a carrier for CF.”
“Couldn’t you have had the baby tested?”
“I want to know before the baby is born if there’s a chance he or she might have the disease. It’s something that would require a lot of emotional preparation. There’s testing that can be done in utero, but they typically don’t perform the test unless both parents are found to be carriers. I could have waited and said I didn’t know the father and gotten prenatal testing done but there’s a slight miscarriage risk and I just couldn’t take the chance, not when I could just come and talk to you.”
“Or perhaps all of your feminist posturing is simply that. Posturing. You said you have a friend at the clinic, and I’m a powerful, wealthy man. It is not outside the realm of belief that you did not receive my sample by accident. How is it that my sample has been sitting there for two years and it suddenly got mixed up with the donor sperm?”
Maximo had seen people go to extreme lengths to get a hand on his money, to use his influence. Had this woman cooked up a scheme in order to net herself money and power? People had done worse for far less than he had to offer, for less than the mother of his child would stand to gain.
“I don’t know why the mistake happened, I only know that it did,” she said, her pretty white teeth gritted. “But don’t flatter yourself by thinking I would go to such trouble to tie myself to you just to get money. In fact, don’t flatter yourself by assuming I have any idea who you are.”
He barked out a laugh. “It’s hardly flattery to assume that a woman who is presumably well-informed and well educated would know who I was. Unless of course you’re neither of those things.”
Her eyes shimmered with golden fire, her finely arched brows lowered and drawn together. “Now you’re measuring my intellect by whether or not I’m aware of who you are? That’s quite an ego you have there, Mr. Rossi.”
“I’d hate to confirm your take on my ego, Ms. Whitman, but my official title is Prince Maximo Rossi, and I’m next in line for the throne of Turan. If the child you’re carrying is mine, then he or she is my heir, the future ruler of my country.”
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