was trying to be gentle, to be reasonable. “Be realistic.”
“I am. You’re having my baby. The way I see it, that means you and me are getting married.”
“No, Tate. We’re not.”
“Oh, yeah, we are.”
Calm, she thought. Stay calm. Be reasonable. “I want you to just think this over a little. Think about how poorly suited we are to each other, how marriage could never work for us. Tate, I’m an independent woman from the wrong side of town and you’re a domineering rich man raised to think you own the world.”
He looked at her from under the heavy ridge of his brow, his lip curled in a sneer. “So now you’re insulting me…”
Molly sighed deeply and shook her head. She leaned back in her chair. “No. I promise you. I’m not trying to insult you. I’m just trying to make you see.”
“What’s there to see? You’re pregnant and it’s my kid and we need to get married immediately.”
“Tate. We’re a match made by the devil himself. You used to know that.”
“Everything’s different now. There’s a baby on the way.”
“No. No, really, nothing is different. Nothing has changed. You’re still you and I’m still me and for us to get married would be a disaster. The baby would only suffer for it if we did.”
Tate stood. He didn’t look encouraging. He looked…about to start shouting. “I know what’s right, and damn it, right is what I intend to do.”
Molly stared up at him in despair. So much for my month or two, scandal-free, she thought. “Oh, Tate…”
“Molly,” he said way too loudly, “you are going to marry me.”
“No, I am not,” she replied, her voice soft and low and steady as a rock. She stood. They confronted each other across her desk. “And I want you to leave now.”
“You’re not keeping this a secret,” he said. “Don’t think that you will. This isn’t going to be like it was when we started in together, something only you and me will know about. And you can’t end this the way you did when you dumped me, moaning about how you’re tired of sneaking around and lying to the people who trust you. You are having my baby and by God, I’ll shout it to the rooftops.”
It was a challenge. What could she do but accept it? She felt a deep sadness then—for him. For herself. For the innocent baby who would have them for parents. Were there ever two people in the world so poorly suited to the state of matrimony? She didn’t think so. And why couldn’t he see that? Why did he have to be the kind of man who got something in his head and wouldn’t let go of it?
“No way I can hide it in the end, Tate,” she told him flatly. “So you go ahead. You shout it as loud as you want to. It won’t change a thing. I’m not marrying you.”
“Oh, but you will.”
“Oh, no, I won’t.”
Calmly, he went over and opened the door. Out in the shop, it was quiet—very, very quiet. Molly could just picture them all out there—Donetta and Emmie and the rest of them—straining their ears in hopes of hearing just a few words of what was going on in Molly’s office.
Tate made sure they got an earful. “Molly,” he said, aiming the words out the door and speaking loudly enough to be heard all the way out past the shop’s front door and onto Center Street, “you are having my baby and by God, if it’s the last thing I do, I will see to it that you marry me.”
He turned and looked at Molly, square chin up, hard jaw set. She said nothing. Really, Tate had pretty much said it all.
Out in the salon, it was so quiet, if she hadn’t known better, Molly would have guessed that everyone had left.
Tate said, his voice soft now, but thick with suppressed anger, “Satisfied?”
“Get out of my shop,” she replied, her tone every bit as soft and full of fury as his. “And do me a big favor. Never come back.”
With a final curt nod, Tate turned and went out—and not through the back door either, which was two feet from her office door and would have been the quickest way.
Oh, no. Not Tate Bravo. He marched right through the shop and out the front door. She heard the bell tinkle when he pulled the door open. “Afternoon, ladies,” he said.
The bell jingled cheerily again as the door shut behind him.
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