The Consequences of That Night (At His Service #6)(33)

Nothing prepared him for what came next.

“I’m sorry, Cesare,” she said quietly. “My answer is no.”

He was so shocked, his hand tightened on the jewelry box, closing it with a snap. He’d assumed she would say yes. Instantly and gratefully.

He heard gasps behind him and whirled to face the restaurant staff hanging about the kitchen doorway.

“Leave us,” he growled, and they ran back into the kitchen. He turned to face Emma, his jaw taut. “Might I ask—why?”

She swallowed. He saw her face was pale. This was hard on her, too, he realized. “I told you. I won’t be a burden.”

“Burden. You keep using that word. What does it mean?”

His dangerous tone would have frightened most. But standing her ground, she lifted her chin.

“You know what it means.”

“No, I don’t. I know you’ve lied to me for months, that you stole my son away without a word. But instead of trying to take him away from you, instead of seeking revenge, I’m trying to do the right thing—a new experience for me, I might add—while you keep whining words like love and burden.”

Her shoulders drooped as, biting her lip, she looked down. For a long moment, she didn’t answer, and he looked at her in the darkness of the restaurant. She looked so beautiful in the flickering candlelight, with all of the lights of Paris at her feet.

Cesare’s throat tightened.

He thought of the night he’d found her in the dark kitchen, after her stepmother’s funeral. He’d taken one look at her tearstained face, at the anguish in eyes which had never shown emotion before, and his own long-buried grief had risen in his own soul, exploding through his defenses. He’d thought he was offering her solace, but the truth was that he’d been seeking it himself. Against his will, in that moment, Emma had made him feel again....

Now he heard her take a deep breath.

“Whatever you think now, this desire to commit won’t last. You don’t want the burden of a wife and child. We both know it. You don’t know what marriage means.”

“We both know I do,” he said quietly.

Her eyes were anguished as tears sparkled—unheeded, unfought—down her cheeks like diamonds. “But you don’t love me,” she whispered again.

“And you don’t love me,” he said evenly. “Do you?”

Wordlessly she shook her head. He exhaled. “This marriage has nothing to do with romance.”

She gave a half-hysterical laugh, swooping her arm to indicate the roses, the view of Paris, the twenty-carat diamond ring. “What do you call that?”

He gave her a crooked half grin. “I call it...strategic negotiation.”

Emma gave another laugh, then her smile fell. “A marriage without love?”

“Without complications,” he pointed out. “We will both love our son. But between us—the marriage will be in name only.”

“In name only?” He’d shocked her with this. He saw it in her face. “So you wouldn’t expect us to...”

He shook his head. “Sex complicates things.” Not to mention made it hard to keep the walls around his heart intact. At least where she was concerned. He hesitated. “Better that we keep this relationship...”

“Professional?”

“Cordial, I was going to say.”

She took a deep breath.

“Why would I agree to give up any chance at love?”

“For something you want more than love,” he said quietly. “For a family. For Sam.”

“Sam...”

“I will love him. I’ll be there with him every step of the way. Every single day. Isn’t that better than trying to shuttle him between two separate lives, where he never knows where he belongs?”

Raw yearning filled her soft green eyes. Blinking fast, she turned away, to the dark, sparkling view of Paris. “I’ve worried about what would happen to Sam, if anything ever happened to me...” Looking up at him, she swallowed. “I’ve been in remission a long time, but there are no guarantees. If the cancer ever came back...” She looked up at him. “I’ve been selfish,” she whispered. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe even a flawed father is better than none.”

“I will be the best father I can be.”

“Would you?” she said in a small voice. Her beautiful face was tortured, her pink lips trembling, long dark lashes sweeping against pale cheeks. “Or, if I were crazy enough to accept, would you panic within a month and run off with some lingerie model?”

Coming toward her, he took both her hands in his own. “I swear to you, on my life,” he said softly. “Everything your father was for you—I will be for him.”

He felt her hands tremble in his.

“I won’t let you break his heart,” she whispered.

“I don’t lie, and I don’t make promises. You know that.”

Her voice was barely audible. “Yes.”

“I don’t make promises because I consider myself bound by them.” Gently he placed the black jewelry box with the silver Harry Winston logo into her palm. “I’m making you a promise now.”

Her anguished eyes lifted to his. “Please...”

“You are the mother of my child. Be my wife.” Brushing back long tendrils of black hair from her shoulder, he lowered his head to her ear. He took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of her. She smelled like vanilla and sunlight, like wildflowers and clean linen and everything good he’d once had but had lost so long ago. He felt a shudder of desire, but pushed it aside. He wouldn’t let sex complicate this relationship. He couldn’t. Pulling back, he said softly, “Be my wife, Emma.”