douse her senses. ‘That isn’t the only solution.’
‘It is for me.’
She raised her chin. ‘You want to get married after your first experience?’
He flinched, and she realised she’d hurt him. ‘At least with this marriage we’ll both go in knowing the circumstances—and the limitations.’
‘Which are?’
‘It will be a marriage of convenience—one that is best for the child.’
He made it sound so simple, Freya thought. So obvious. ‘And a loveless business arrangement is best for a child?’ she asked, a revealing catch in her voice.
‘Knowing both your parents is best for a child,’ Rafe returned harshly.
‘That doesn’t require marriage—’
‘My child will not grow up a bastard.’ She flinched, and he gave a hollow laugh. ‘I would not wish that on any child. I’m speaking from experience.’
Her mouth dropped open. ‘You—’ Rafe slashed a hand through the air. ‘Marriage is the only option.’
Freya felt a hollow sensation in her chest, as if she had emptied out. She had not expected such a demand so soon, so suddenly. ‘And if I don’t agree?’ ‘Don’t go there, Freya.’
The words were a warning, given with the kind of cold control that reminded her she was speaking to El Tiburón. The shark of the business world who devoured what he wanted and discarded what he didn’t. And right now, Freya thought, he wanted her child.
He didn’t want her. Not the way she wanted to be wanted, anyway. To be cherished, loved. Not that she’d even dared to hope for it, but to sign her entire life away to a man who didn’t love her, didn’t trust her—
A man who was gentle with his child, whose smile made her ache. A man whom she knew, terrifyingly, she could fall in love with if she let herself. And who would never love her.
‘Are you threatening me?’ she asked, her voice still thankfully level and even cool.
‘See it as you like,’ Rafe replied. ‘You are carrying my child. I missed the first three years of my son’s life. If you think I am going to allow—’
‘And if I refuse?’
‘Then I will do everything in my power to ensure I retain custody,’ Rafe said.
The words fell like stones into the silence, creating irrevocable ripples. They were words that could not be unsaid, with implications Freya did not want to envisage.
She swallowed, pushed past the bitterness and bile that crowded her throat. She’d thought Rafe was a good, gentle man, and he was—with Max. With her he was something else entirely. With her he was El Tiburón. Was this what Rosalia had faced? This heartless ambition, this single-minded determination to provide and care for his child? Was this why she had stopped loving him? Why she had left?
‘Why?’ she asked when she finally trusted her voice. ‘Why would you threaten to take my child away from me?’ Her voice trembled, broke. ‘Why would you blackmail me into marriage?’
Surprise and perhaps even regret flashed across Rafe’s face, and then his expression hardened. ‘I simply want what is best for our child,’ he told her flatly. ‘Isn’t that what you want?’
‘I want …’ Freya stopped, for she knew what she wanted wasn’t possible. Had never been possible since she’d last given in to temptation, wrecked three lives and destroyed another. Love. Happiness. A family. None of those were possible for her—except, amazingly, the last. Yet not in a way she had ever envisaged or would have chosen. Still, she acknowledged bleakly, it was the only option. Her only chance at some kind of happiness.
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