point?” Darius said coldly.
He heard the other man take a deep breath.
“Take good care of my daughter,” he said quietly. “Both Letty and my grandchild. I know you will. That’s the only reason I’m letting them go.”
The line abruptly cut off.
“What did he say?” Letty’s miserable face came into view.
“He said...” Darius stared down in amazement at the phone in his hand.
He ground his teeth. Damn the old man. Taking the high road. He must be playing the long game. Trusting that Letty would wear him down after their wedding and make him relent. Make him forgive.
But Darius would never forgive. He’d die before he let that man worm his way back into their lives.
“Tell me what he said,” Letty pleaded.
He turned to her with an ironic smile. “He gave our marriage his blessing.”
Her shoulders slumped.
“That’s what he said to me, too,” she whispered.
So his theory was correct. Clever bastard, he thought grudgingly. He really knew how to pull his daughter’s heartstrings.
But Howard Spencer had finally met someone he couldn’t manipulate. The old man would end his days alone, in that tiny run-down apartment, with no one to love him. Just as he deserved.
While they—they would live happily ever after.
Darius looked at Letty tenderly.
After their marriage, after she was legally his forever, she would come to despise her father as Darius did. At the very least, she would forget and let him go.
She would love only Darius, be loyal only to him.
He wouldn’t love her back, of course. The childish illusion that love could be anything but pain had been burned out of him permanently. But love was still magic to Letty, and he realized now it was the only way to bind her and make her happy in their marriage. For the sake of their children, he had to make her love him.
This was just the beginning.
“You did the right thing,” Darius murmured. Pulling her into his arms, he kissed the top of her head, relishing the feel of her body against his, the crush of her full breasts and her belly rounded with his child. “You’ll never regret it.”
“I regret it already.”
Leaning forward, he kissed the tears off her cheeks. He kissed her forehead, then her eyelids. He felt her shudder and pulled her fully into his arms. He whispered, “Let me comfort you.”
He lowered his mouth to hers, gripping her smaller body to his own, and kissed her passionately. A sigh came from her throat as she wrapped her arms around him. He opened the belt of her robe and ran his hands down her naked body. Then with a large sweep of his arm, he knocked all the dishes to the floor with a noisy clatter.
Lifting his future bride up onto the countertop, Darius did what he’d wanted to do for the last hour. He made love to her until she wept. Tears of joy, he told himself. Just tears of joy.
* * *
Letty had never been the sort of girl to dream about weddings. At least not since she was eighteen, when her one attempt at elopement had ended so badly.
But she’d vaguely thought, if she ever did get married, she’d have a simple wedding dress, a cake, a bouquet. And her father would give her away.
This wedding had none of that.
Two days after Darius’s proposal, they got married in what felt like the worst wedding ever.
Her own fault, Letty thought numbly, as she stood in front of a judge, mumbling vows to honor and cherish. She had no one to blame but herself.
Well, and Darius.
After her phone call with her father, Letty had been too heartsick to care about planning a wedding ceremony. Even Darius ruthlessly taking possession of her body on the kitchen counter hadn’t cheered her up. Her heart felt empty and sad.
Darius had tried to tempt her with outrageous ideas for a destination wedding. “If you don’t want a big society wedding, there’s no reason to wait. The sky’s the limit! Do you want a beach wedding in Hawaii? A winter wedding in South America? If you want, I’ll rent out the Sydney Opera House. Just say the word!”
She’d looked at him miserably. “What I want is for my father to be there. Without love, what difference does the wedding make?”
The temperature in the room had dropped thirty degrees. “Fine,” he said coldly. “If that’s how you feel, we might as well just get married at City Hall.”
“Fine,” she’d said in the same tone.
So they’d gone to the Office of the City Clerk near Chinatown this afternoon, where they’d now been killing time for three hours, surrounded by happy couples all waiting for their turn.
Letty felt exhausted to the bone. She hadn’t slept at all the night before. Neither she nor Darius had even bothered to dress up for the ceremony. She wore a simple blouse and maternity pants. Darius wore a dark shirt, dark jeans and a dark glower.
Nor had it helped that the two friends they’d brought to be their witnesses had hated each other on sight. The constant childish bickering between Belle Langtry and Santiago Velazquez, who’d introduced himself as Ángel, had been the final nail in the coffin of Worst Wedding Ever.
It could have been so different, Letty thought sadly. If her father had been there, if she and Darius had been in love, nothing else would have mattered.
But there was no love anywhere on this wedding day.
As she and Darius had sat waiting, listening to their best man and maid of honor squabble, she couldn’t stop tears from falling. Darius’s glower only made them fall faster.
Their number was the very last to be called in the late afternoon. The four of them had gone up to the desk. As the officiant swiftly and matter-of-factly spoke the words that would bind her to Darius forever, Letty couldn’t stop thinking about how she was betraying her father. The man who’d taught her to roller-skate down Fairholme’s long marble hallways, who’d taught her chess on rainy days. The man who’d told her again and again how much he loved her.
“I screwed everything up,” Howard had told her sadly when he got out of prison. “But I swear I’ll make it up to you, Letty. I’ll get you back the life you lost...”
He’d never once criticized her for getting pregnant out of wedlock. He’d just been delighted about a future grandchild. Even when she’d phoned him before the wedding, and told him she was marrying Darius, she’d felt his joy. Though it had been abruptly cut off when she’d tearfully told him the rest of the deal.
Then he’d said quietly, “Do it, sweetheart. Marry him. It’s what you’ve always wanted. Knowing you’re happy,
