The alternative was suddenly unthinkable.
She shook her head. “This is about honor, isn’t it? You feel you have to do the honorable thing.”
He had to smile. “I’ve made love to many women but I didn’t feel I had to marry any of them.”
Her eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Then it’s because I’m pregnant.”
“I’d ask you to marry me whether you were pregnant or not.” That was the truth. Pregnant or not, he needed to protect her at all costs.
Always.
She sat up against the pillows, pulling the sheet up under her chin, her eyes confused. “I don’t understand.”
He started to speak but then thought better of it. He may have feelings for this woman but he wasn’t yet ready to lay them on the line. He’d always played his cards close to his chest and he would do the same here.
“Simple. It’s time I got married.”
“And the woman you consider a fortune hunter is the chosen one? How nice.”
He ignored her sarcasm as he swung his legs over the side of the bed. “I’m getting older. And you’re the first woman I can imagine waking up with for the next twenty years.”
“So it’s not a lifetime guarantee?” she quipped.
He acknowledged her wit with a thin smile as he looked back at her. “I was speaking figuratively.”
She shot him a speculative glance. “You would want children?” she said, as if testing him.
His smile vanished into thin air as the memory of his mother dying in childbirth all those years ago came to mind. His jaw clenched and his heart slammed against his ribs. He’d sworn never to have children. Sworn never to risk a woman’s life for the sake of procreation.
But now that pledge had been taken out of his hands. Danielle was going to have her baby whether he feared for her life or not. So he would make sure she got the best medical care. These days it would be highly unlikely for a woman to die in childbirth, he reassured himself.
“Of course I want more children,” he said brusquely. “With you.”
Her hand went to her stomach, as if in protection. “And what about this baby?”
That previous sense of protectiveness rose up inside him. “I would bring the child up as my own.”
Her bare shoulders tensed. “But would you love my baby as your own?”
“Yes.” And he would. Every child should be valued and protected and, this child, being Danielle’s child, would be more than special.
Her shoulders relaxed a little, but she continued to stare at him as if she couldn’t quite believe this was happening.
Then a look of panic crossed her face and she threw back the covers, attempting to push herself off the bed. “No. I’m sorry. I can’t marry you. I don’t want to marry anyone.”
Her previous marriage must have still reminded her of unpleasant things. And that reminded him of Monica. His stomach clenched tightly as he stood up and strode around the bed to help her.
He tried a change in tactic. “Think of it this way. If you married me, you would never have to worry about money again. I can give you everything you need.”
She flinched, then ignoring his outstretched hand, she pushed to her feet and went to pick up her robe from the floor. Saving her the trouble, he scooped the robe up and held it open for her, taking pleasure in her naked figure as she quickly slid into it.
“Once I sign an agreement, right?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. “You’re as calculating as my husband.”
Displeasure furrowed his brow. “Don’t you mean your late husband?”
She began to speak then stopped.
For some reason, the culmination of her comments about Robert Ford hit him in the gut. “What did he do to you, Danielle?”
Her eyes flashed with remembered pain. Then she said, “Nothing.”
“Tell me. I’d like to know.”
She held his gaze for a moment, then as if believing his sincerity, she took a shaky breath. “He smothered me, Flynn. Smothered me until I couldn’t make a move without him. Until I couldn’t breathe. He was very much like his mother in that respect.”
His jaw knotted, not liking the picture she painted. Now more than ever he was glad he’d proposed marriage. He had to get Danielle away from her mother-in-law. “Perhaps he wanted to spoil you?” he suggested, not for a moment believing that was true. Not after having met Robert Ford.
“Spoil me?” she scoffed. “By making sure I never got a moment to myself? By criticizing everything I did? By sucking the life out of me?” She shook her halo of blond hair. “No, the only one who was spoiled was Robert, only I didn’t see that when I first married him.”
Flynn began to burn for her. “I wouldn’t do that to you.”
She shuddered, the look in her eyes clutching at his heart. “You’re doing it already. Flynn, I only went to bed with you. I didn’t expect a proposal of marriage.”
He forced himself to relax. He would show her that things would be different with him. He would prove it to her, if she let him. “I’m not asking you to cut off an arm, Danielle.”
Her lips twisted. “At least that would be quicker than the slow torture of being smothered to death.”
Dammit, her husband had made the mistakes, not him. He wasn’t about to pay for the faults of another man, especially a dead one.
“You won’t get a better offer,” he pointed out.
She shot him a cold look. “I don’t want a better offer. I don’t want any offer at all.” She headed for the bathroom door, then stopped and glanced over her shoulder. “And, Flynn, this isn’t the beginning of an affair. This is the end of it.”
He watched her go, heard the click of the lock behind her, but not for a minute did he agree that this was the end for them. He hadn’t got where he was by giving up on something he wanted badly. And right now he not only wanted to protect Danielle and her baby, but all at once he wanted Danielle in his life, as crazy as it sounded.
And he always got what he wanted.
Seven
D anielle leaned her hands on the bathroom sink for support and swallowed away the lump in her throat. Marriage!
How could Flynn do this to her? How could he take something so beautiful like their lovemaking last night and spoil it with a proposal of marriage? He had to be the last person she’d expect to want to marry her. The last person who’d want to tie himself down. After all, he was a virile man who was sure to have a string of women more willing and able.