She shrugged, and he couldn’t help but notice the gentle rise and fall of her breasts. “Relationships are complicated.”
“So is parenthood.”
“Yes, but it’s different. A child depends on you. They come into the world loving you and it’s up to you to honor that, to care for them and love them back. With relationships, with a marriage, you’re dependent on someone else.”
“And you find that objectionable?”
“It requires a measure of trust in human nature that I just don’t have.”
He couldn’t deny the truth of her words. Selena had depended on him, and in his estimation he had failed her.
“So you elected to become a single mother rather than deal with a relationship?”
She frowned, her full lips turning down into a very tempting pout. “I hadn’t thought of it that way. My goal wasn’t to become a single mother. It was to be a mother. I wasn’t giving too much thought to the exclusion of a relationship. I was just pursuing what I wanted.”
“And this complicates things.”
“Very much.”
“Is it so bad for our child to have both parents?”
She turned her face away from him and fixed her gaze on the view outside the window. “I don’t know, Maximo. I don’t think I can deal with everything at once. Can’t we just get through the testing and talk about the rest later?”
He inclined his head. “If you like. But we still have to discuss our options at some point.”
“I know.”
“It isn’t what you had planned, I understand that. None of this is what I had planned, either.”
Alison knew he wasn’t just referring to her pregnancy, but to the death of his wife. Finding a woman he had loved enough to marry, and then losing her—she couldn’t even imagine the void that must be left in Maximo’s life.
She didn’t really want to feel anything for Maximo. Already her awareness of him was off the charts, and it scared her. Adding any kind of emotion to that was asking for trouble.
Romantic love had never really appealed to her, and neither had any kind of intimate relationship. She’d seen the aftereffects of romantic love turned sour in her childhood home, watched her parents fall apart and self-destruct. Her mother had simply folded in on herself, leaving Alison to fend for herself.
When her father had left they’d lost their financial stability. People her mother had considered friends had all but abandoned her. Alison never wanted to find herself in that position, never wanted to place so much of her life in someone else’s hands that losing them could undo everything. Those experiences had taught her that she had to make her own way, find her own security, her own happiness.
Every inch of her life had been in her complete control since her disastrous childhood. She could control how good her grades were, and in high school she’d been obsessive about keeping her 4.0 so that she could get scholarships. In college she’d been single-minded in the pursuit of her degree, so that she could get a job that would allow her to remain independent. And every step in her life since then had been carefully planned and orchestrated, down to when and how she would become a mother.
All of that seemed laughable now that she was on a plane, headed to a foreign country with a shockingly handsome prince who also happened to be the unintended father of her baby.
HER first glimpse of Turan stole her breath. The island was a jewel set in the bright Mediterranean Sea. Gleaming white rock faces beset with stucco houses dotted the pale sanded coastline. The beach faded into lush greenery, and set into the tallest visible mountainside was a stone castle with masculine angles that gleamed gold in the late-afternoon light.
“It’s lovely.” Lovely, and yet untamed. Sort of like its master. For all of Maximo’s urbane sophistication, there was something about him that was raw and almost primitive. It appealed to her on a basic level she’d hardly been aware of before she’d seen him descending the stairs of his elegant mansion.
The entire flight had been thick with tension, at least on her end. Maximo seemed totally unaffected by her presence. Which was more than she could say for herself. It wasn’t as though she didn’t like men or that she had never felt any kind of sexual desire—of course she had. She simply hadn’t acted on it, hadn’t wanted to. The very idea typically made her feel as if she was on the edge of a panic attack. Sexual intimacy, opening herself up to someone like that, exposing herself, and possibly even losing some of her carefully guarded control, was usually about the least appealing thing she could think of. And yet something about Maximo ignited a curiosity that was starting to override her normal sense of self-preservation.
“Thank you,” he said, his voice full of total sincerity. “It is my belief that Turan is one of the most beautiful places on Earth.”
The plane began to descend, taking them low over grassland where cattle grazed free-range. “I wouldn’t have thought you could do much cattle farming on an island.”
“Not much, but we try to make the most of every natural resource we have. Vineyards and olive groves do well. And our grass-fed beef is almost world renowned. Of course, being an island, seafood is also a large part of our exports. But we don’t export as much as we might. My first priority has always been self-sufficiency.”
She made a small sound of approval. “What do your duties encompass? Your father is still the official ruler, right?”
He nodded. “I have been put in charge of managing the economy. In the past five years I’ve managed to increase tourism by fifty percent. With the new luxury casinos and the renovation of some of the historic fishing villages, Turan has become a popular destination for wealthy people looking for a high-profile vacation spot.”
She arched an eyebrow. “So you’re more of a businessman than a prince.”
He gave a low laugh. “Perhaps. Maybe in another life that’s what I would have been. But in this one, I’m happy to fulfill my duty. I do have some business interests on the side, but my main responsibility is still to my country.”
“And duty is the most important thing?”
“It means a lot to me. I was raised to believe that it was duty before self.”
Duty before self. And did that mean she had a duty to her child to ensure that he knew his father? If her father had wanted her and her mother had never given him a chance, how would she have felt? Pain twisted her. She would have given anything for a father who wanted her. For the protection and safety it would have represented. Did she have any right to refuse her own child this amazing gift? Especially one she would have given just about everything to have herself? She didn’t want to face the fact that having Maximo involved in the raising of their child was the right thing to do. What she wanted was for things to turn out according to her plan. But she knew that wasn’t possible now.
The plane touched down on the tarmac and her stomach rose into her throat.
