An Heir to Bind Them

Chapter TEN


WHEN JAYA WAS called to the front desk because Bina was asking for her there, her first instinct was to send her cousin home. Quentin had sent the girl with her sitter to check up on her, acting like an interfering, if somewhat endearing, overbearing male relative.

But Bina had a genuine connection to Zephyr that helped the girl cope with the loss she was still grieving. Jaya didn’t have the heart to send her away without a visit with her cherished baby cousin. Plus, an uninterrupted conversation with Theo for the first time since she’d seen him again held a lot of appeal.

She texted him that Bina and her nanny were coming up to stay with Zephyr and she’d meet him at the bell desk to go for dinner. Then, in a minor fit of vanity, she visited one of the hotel’s boutiques, using her employee discount to buy a new dress and shoes.

Studying herself in the mirror of the staff washroom, she asked herself what she was trying to prove. Her hair was brushed, her makeup refreshed. The only pair of shoes she could find to go with this dress were much taller than she’d normally wear. They had bling. A line of sequins decorated the heel and a jazzy buckle drew attention to the toes Bina had painted a neon pink when they’d been having girls’ night a week ago.

The dress was more feminine than sexy with its ruffled layers of sheer red and orange and pink and fluttering split cut sleeves, but gave her a moment of sober second thought.

She refused to dress like a frump, though. Her confession this afternoon had been difficult. Part of her wanted to crawl into a cave now that her secret was revealed, but she knew better than to let her past cow her. She wouldn’t deny the fact she was a woman. She wouldn’t pretend to be ugly or asexual. That would only feed her shame and she had nothing to be ashamed of. Being pretty wasn’t a crime. Wanting to please the eye of a man wasn’t a broad invitation to be abused by all of them.

Still, it was an act of bravery to swipe a final layer of gloss onto her lips and take herself to the bell desk. The bellman was engaged and only Theo stood there.

He stared broodingly at the bobbing lights against the dark backdrop of water beyond the windows, his demeanor the quietly compelling man she’d so admired from afar in Bali. Pausing, she allowed herself a few seconds to take in his profile of statue stillness. He projected casual wealth with his gold watch and tailored shirt over crisp pants with their break in the cuff where they landed on his Italian loafers. Since he took these things for granted, he emanated power. And he was so attractive with his fit body and neat haircut and perfectly hewn, freshly shaved jaw.

She had always thought he had it all, had so much he was bored with the world, but she knew him so much better now. He held himself remote as a self-protective thing and that made her see him with new eyes. She realized he must be terribly lonely.

He glanced abstractly toward her, then started with a flash of surprised recognition. Maybe something else. She wasn’t sure what she saw between his raking gaze from her lashes to her fancy shoes. He quickly masked his expression.

“No uniform,” he commented.

No compliment, either.

“I didn’t want to start any rumors if the Makricosta CFO was recognized having dinner with our general manager. I made reservations across the road.”

He nodded without reaction and held the door for her as they walked across to La Fumée Blanche, The White Mist. She’d secretly wanted to try the dinner and dance restaurant forever, but it was a place for couples, not singles or a woman and her preadolescent niece.

They were shown through a dining room surrounding a small dance floor. On a dais, a trio played French jazz, filling the room with the Pink Panther sound of a brush against a cymbal. Their table had fresh roses, plush velvet chairs and a spectacular view of the Med.

It would have been perfect if she didn’t feel like Theo was wearing his CFO hat and picturing her in her Makricosta blouse.

“Wine?” he asked.

“I thought you don’t drink?”

“I thought you might.”

“Sometimes.” She flushed at how awkward this was. Maybe they needed Zephyr between them after all. “If it’s a special occasion, but I don’t need anything tonight.”

This wasn’t special, even though the candle glinted flecks of golden light off the silver and touched sparks in the crystal wine goblets. Even though a pianist tickled keys, accompanying a bassist who stroked sensual notes from her instrument.

Even though she was with the only man who’d ever melted her frigid libido and still managed to kindle heat in her when he seemed completely oblivious to her presence.

He ordered starters and painful silence ensued.

“Bina got to the room all right?” Of course she had or he wouldn’t have left Zephyr. Try harder, Jaya.

“She looks like you,” he said with a lift of his brows. “It was startling. Made me think that’s what our—your daughter could look like, if you had one. People must make that mistake often?”


“All the time.” She swallowed, trying not to latch onto what she thought he’d meant to say. Our.

More silence. This dress, coming out, it was a huge mistake. He wasn’t comfortable so she couldn’t relax.

Theo eyed Jaya’s tense posture. His own prickling tension was at maximum. She couldn’t relax, probably because she felt threatened by his mood.

A pile of ferocious curses piled up in the back of his throat. He was so angry, he could barely think straight. Damn it, why did this exquisite woman keep winding up beyond his reach?

He wished he could take back his confession of his desire. He’d come on strong, had taken a lot of heart from her saying she was still attracted to him, but the rest... Hell, no, nothing between them was simple anymore. What had seemed like an obvious solution, marriage, was now a minefield.

And yet...

Bloody hell, he had to let it go. Maybe if he hadn’t told her before she explained about her past that he was still hot for her. Maybe if he wasn’t currently simmering with insane want, but wow, that dress.

Ah, hell, it wasn’t the dress. He’d seen a thousand scraps of silk and sequins on a thousand beautiful women and this wasn’t the most elaborate or provocative. It was exactly Jaya’s style: pretty and feminine, accented with fine metallic strands, but rather sweet overall.

It wasn’t the dress that smelled so good he felt drugged. He didn’t want to run his hands over sheer fabric and frilly ruffles. He didn’t want to taste stitching.

Her skin called out to him. Her lips.

He forced himself to look away and sip his ice water. Cool his head. Somehow he had to kill off this attraction so he wasn’t scaring or intimidating her.

“I shouldn’t have told you,” she said so softly he wasn’t sure he heard her. When he glanced at her, her delectable mouth was pouted in misery. “It changes how you see me, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” he allowed with brutal honesty, distantly aware that wasn’t the right thing to say, but he struggled with emotions at the best of times and these were some of the worst he’d ever encountered.

Her deep brown eyes widened in a flinch of stark pain, gaze not lifting from the tabletop. Then she struggled to regain her composure, brow working not to wrinkle, mouth trembling until she caught her bottom lip with her teeth.

“For God’s sake, Jaya. I don’t think less of you. I hate myself. I shouldn’t have taken advantage of you the way I did. You deserved better.” His voice came out low and jagged, as if he’d smoked ten packs of cigarettes and was hardly breathing through the thickness clogging his lungs.

“Better than the first real pleasure I’ve known with a man? Better than Zephyr?” she challenged shakily.

He was rarely shocked speechless. When he pinned his lips, it was because he was prudent, not because he couldn’t think of what to say, but her words blanked his mind. Bali had been a mistake, he kept telling himself, but she seemed to be lifting his actions out of reprehensible into something that was almost exalted. He didn’t know how to process that.

“It’s like your back, Theo. I’ll always have scars, but they fade a little more each year. If you make enough good memories, they push the bad ones away.”

He sat back, startled by her insight. He snorted. “I guess that’s my problem,” he admitted as realization dawned. “I’ve never made any good memories. Well, maybe one.” He couldn’t help the significance in the cut of his glance toward her. She was so beguiling. Their night together eclipsed every other memory he had.

Even in the low candlelight, he could tell that her brown skin darkened. Her flustered hands moved into her lap and she ducked her head.

“You know I wouldn’t—” he began, catching himself from reaching for her. She was such a panacea for him. He wanted to eat her up. Drown in her. She was everything good that could ever be for him, but he couldn’t be greedy about it. He had to hang on to his control.

Her reserve was more than natural modesty, he reminded himself. Her sexual inhibitions were well founded and he’d take a thousand beltings before he’d frighten her with his desire. If she had used him that one night, because she was having a brave moment, well, lucky him.

“I’m glad if our night is a good memory for you, but I don’t expect it to happen again. If that’s why you’re reluctant to marry me, we can keep it platonic.” He couldn’t believe those words had left his mouth, but having even a small part of her in his life seemed like better than nothing.

Again her eyes widened like she was enduring a wave of agony. “Because now you know I’m soiled goods and don’t want—”

“What? No!” His hand went onto her arm involuntarily. He had to hiss in a breath as he strove for control and lifted his touch away, but only managed to transfer it to the back of her chair. Leaning in close, he said, “If you think I’m not aching to make more first-class memories with you, then you are even more na?ve than I’ve always feared. The appeal you have for me... It scares me, Jaya. You’d be terrified if you knew how intense my desire is.”

He forced himself to retreat into his own space. A deep gulp of ice water did nothing to clear his head. The glossy window reflected his iron hard expression back to him as he braced himself for her to bolt. He should have kept all that to himself.

She sat in quiet contemplation, then confessed softly, “I don’t know why you’re the only man who makes me feel...well, anything, but you are. That scares me. I feel like I could be at your mercy, not because of your will. It would be lack of my own.”

Excitement pierced him, the arrow so thickly coated in desire he had to close his eyes and concentrate on his breathing. Swearing under his breath, he opened his eyes and let her see the hunger in him, just for a second.

“You’re killing me. You know that,” he accused, voice buried in a chest.

Her lashes flickered and she quivered like one of those plucked strings that were trying to set a calm mood while he was a werewolf fighting to stay inside his human skin.

“I don’t mean to,” she whispered. “I just want to be honest.”

A bleak laugh escaped him. “It would be a helluva better foundation for a marriage than my parents had.”

She cocked her head. “They lied to each other?”

“My mother did, yeah,” he said, distaste curling his lip. “She said Nic was my father’s. When the truth came out, things turned ugly. The only way any of us coped was to pretend. We acted like we didn’t remember Nic, like we didn’t hate our mother, like we weren’t scared of our father.” He clenched his teeth, startled by the ugly truths that poured like fresh blood from a new wound. “Your honesty isn’t comfortable for me. I’m not used to it, but... It’s reassuring.”

She offered a crooked smile.

His heart tipped on its edge, making him bold enough to add, “So whatever you’re thinking about how I might be thinking of you differently, it’s only that I’m trying to offer you reassurance as well. I won’t force you into anything, Jaya. Not marriage, not my bed.”

Her watchful gaze wasn’t easy to bear. He felt like his entire future hung in the balance.

“I believe you,” she murmured, leaning on her elbows. “And I don’t feel coerced. I know that marriage is probably best for Zephyr, but a lifetime is a long time, Theo. I can’t just leap in. I need to know what it would look like first.”


“I have no idea,” he admitted, tensing against the million ways he could fail her without even being aware of it. “What do you want it to look like?”

She sat back to consider that and her gaze snagged on the couple at the next table as they rose and moved onto the dance floor. Her face became younger, cast with the yearning of a woman who loved to move to music.

“Would you dance with me?” she queried.

“Of course.” He stood and held out his hand while calling himself a shameless ass for seizing the excuse to touch her. Maybe it was even a small test to see if she would accept his hands on her. He could live within just about any limit, so long as he knew what it was. He was going crazy not knowing where his lines were with her.

“I meant, you know, are you the kind of man who would dance with his wife?”

“You weren’t asking? Then I am. Will you dance with me, Jaya?” He picked up her hand, oddly pleased with the shy smile she hid with a dip of her chin.

He’d learned early that the guy who was willing to dance got laid. He was proficient at most of the ballroom moves, but she made him hyperaware of himself as he fit them together, especially because he was on guard against being too aggressive. He wasn’t quite as smooth as he’d wish, but he wasn’t standing on her painted toes, either.

She was awkward, her hesitation seeming more from surprise and unfamiliarity with formal dancing than apprehension. After settling her hand on his shoulder and her fingers into his palm, she took a step forward instead of back, then cringed in horror.

He grinned. “It’s fine, just follow my lead.”

She did and because she was naturally graceful and rhythmic, they moved well together—not unlike the way they’d meshed in Bali. It was her same quiet trust that made it possible, heating him to his core as he absorbed it, solidifying his need to take great care with her, stoking his need.

“Question answered?” he managed to say, trying to keep things light.

“You’re sneaky,” she accused. “Maybe you don’t bully or pressure, but you’re not above seduction, are you?”

He stopped dancing and drew in a deep breath, harking back to when he’d done everything he could to lure her by her own desire into his bed. “Jaya—”

“It’s okay, Theo. I don’t know what I’m doing when it comes to men.” She nudged him back into leading. “I’ve never danced like this, never been on a real date. If you don’t make advances nothing will happen because I don’t know how. That’s really why I’m scared to say I’ll marry you. You’re the first man who’s asked.”

Reservations paralyzed him, but when he used the excuse of an approaching pair of dancers to pull her close, his misgivings slipped from his mind. The contact of her abdomen hitting his hips detonated a subdued explosion that drained his thoughts.

Her lips parted as they held the pose for an extended few seconds, eyes locked.

She took a sudden step back, but didn’t release his hand when he relaxed his hold on hers. Chewing her lip, she seemed to debate whether to continue their dance.

“I’m always like this around you,” he admitted under his breath, throwing his ego into the wind. It might be the dumbest thing in the world to think this would reassure her, but if they had agreed on nothing else, they were being honest with each other. Maybe, just maybe, if she knew she could trust him, he could have her in his bed again someday. “Every time I saw you in Bali, I was aroused. Just knowing I would see you would do this to me. I’ve only ever acted on it the once, Jaya, when you wanted me to.”

They still weren’t moving, only holding the half embrace while music and couples swirled around them. He searched for uneasiness in her, but her eyes were clouding with confusion and... Was it desire?

If he cupped her breast right now, he wondered, would he find her nipple pebbled and sensitive, aching for the pull of his mouth?

He swallowed, dying as he balanced on the knife’s edge between hell and ecstasy.

“Would you kiss me, please?” she asked softly. “I’ve been wondering—”

He did, not debating, just grasping at permission to capture her parted lips with his. Deep in the back of his mind he reminded himself, Easy. Go slow.

It was agonizing to hold himself back. She was so exquisite, her mouth the pillowy satin welcome that tortured his dreams. By some feat of inhuman discipline, he kept his hand light when he clasped the side of her neck where she was warm and soft. He raked his mouth across hers in gentle ravishment, drinking in the clove and nutmeg taste of her.

Jaya liked these extra high heels. Her neck didn’t hurt from tilting up to Theo’s kiss. Her arms rose of their own accord to curl behind his neck. She opened to the tip of his tongue with a hitch of her breath and started to arch into him.

His hands hardened on her hips, pressing her into her shoes as he lifted his head.

“I was wondering, too.” His voice sounded like it originated in the bottom of his chest and came out in a purr like a high performance engine. “We’re still incredible together. Make sure you take that into consideration.” He circled his thumbs on her hips.

She ducked her laugh into his collarbone, hand pressed to where his heart slammed in the tense cage of his ribs. Oh, Theo. She had missed him so much. In this second, all she could think was that she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him, feeling like this.

It reminded her of that fearful moment in Bali when she’d closed her eyes and grasped at her own future. There had been consequences to her actions that she hadn’t foreseen. She ought to show a little more sense this time. Marriage was the oldest form of subjugation in history.

But she didn’t believe it would be that way with him. Perhaps she was fooling herself, but she felt more like a mammal with the mate she was meant for. Whether she said yes today or years from now, no man was ever going to have this same effect on her. In her heart she was already tied to Theo. Hesitating to make it official seemed like fighting the inevitable.

On the other hand, was money and sex enough? Could Theo ever give her the things she really craved from a lifetime with a man?

“Our food has arrived,” he said, nudging her back to their table.

Her pulse jittered from his touch as she sat down and tried to take in the scorched scallops atop crunchy potato cakes.

When they were alone she asked, “Where would we live?”

“With me,” he deadpanned. “That’s the point.”

She laughed, but he only scowled as he chewed and swallowed.

“I need to talk to Adara about curtailing the worst of my travel. Whether you marry me or not, I have to be available to Zephyr, but I’ll always have to do some globe-trotting. I don’t particularly care for Paris as a base, but it’s closer to India than New York. Could you stand it?”

“Could you?” she challenged, taking in the tight grip he had on his fork with a tilt of her equilibrium into caution. “I’m actually quite flexible. I’ve started over in new places several times. You live in your helicopter. You’re used to doing what you like. Having a wife and child would turn your life upside down, Theo.”

“I’m aware,” he stated flatly, setting down his utensils to stroke restless hands up and down his thighs. “And I won’t claim that I’d be easy to live with, especially in the beginning, but I keep coming back to what I can offer you in terms of security and protection. Marriage is the simplest way to accomplish that.”


She ought to be flattered, she supposed. There was a type of caring in his bland statement, even if it was the kind one usually showed to, say, an expensive boat or maybe a herd of cattle. On some level he valued her, she deduced. That was nice, but it wasn’t enough to sustain a marriage.

Their conversation drifted to what kind of placement she could have with Makricosta’s, as his wife or not, and they didn’t talk about marriage again until they’d returned to the suite.

First they had to release the matronly Madame Begnoche and Theo had to negotiate a peace treaty with Bina. She was very sad to learn that Theo wanted Zephyr living with him rather than coming to South America with her and Quentin.

“Pyaari beti,” Jaya reminded gently, “You know I was going to stay in France and not come with you and your papa.”

“I know, but, but...” Her voice threatened to crack into sobs.

Theo extracted a business card and wrote on it before he handed it to Bina. “This is my personal mobile. Call anytime you are missing Zephyr. We probably won’t be able to come to you that day, but we’ll try to visit within the week. Or, if your father agrees, I’ll bring you to visit him. We’ll work it out, I promise.”

“Thank you,” she said in a heavy but mollified voice, blinking her damp doe eyes.

When she held up her arms, Theo didn’t get it. Jaya had to touch his shoulder and nod. “She wants to hug you.”

“Oh, um.” Clearing his throat, he went down on one knee so Bina could squeeze his neck with her spindly arms. He patted her back awkwardly and deflated with a heavy exhale after she left to meet Oscar and the limo, Theo’s treat.

“Thank you,” Jaya said to him. “But you can’t keep offering to fly me and my family around the world.”

“Why not?”

Because I haven’t agreed to marry you, she almost said, but she suspected it didn’t matter. He’d do it regardless. “You’re a soft touch when it comes to kids, aren’t you?”

“I don’t know what that means, but having Nic disappear on us was a trauma I don’t want to drop on my own son.”

Oh, right. She swallowed, watching him run a fingertip along his eyebrow. She wondered if he was looking for another argument to persuade her to marry him.

“Theo.” She sat heavily in the middle of the sofa.

His head came up, expression patient.

Her heart grew achy and she had to look at her fingernails. “I don’t want to string you along wondering what you have to do to convince me to marry you. I’m not hesitating because I’m afraid of going to bed with you.”

She bit her lips, keeping her head down while stealing a quick peek upward, noting that she had his attention, one thousand percent. He was virility personified, all his masculine features sharpened, his wide shoulders tense and defined beneath his crisp white shirt.

“Actually, I am a little nervous about that. I’ve had a baby since the last time and it’s not like I’ve had a lot of practice...” She swallowed.

“We’ll be amazing, Jaya. Just like last time.” His voice reverberated deep in his chest.

If she hadn’t been sitting, she would have fallen, he made her so weak. She grasped for the words she needed to say. “I’m not afraid you’d be violent or disrespectful, either. I know I could trust you about most things.”

“But not all things.” Tone cracked with a jag of disbelief, he recoiled in hurt.

She swallowed, knowing this would be difficult.

“You didn’t call me back,” she said in a small voice. “I know you said you wouldn’t, but...” She tried to shrug off how foolish she felt, how bare this fantasy of hers left her. “I thought I was different. I thought you liked me.”

His face transformed in slow degrees, falling from intense focus on her to inward comprehension, into lost hope and finally, self-hatred.

“I don’t expect you to love me,” she rushed to say, even though it tore open something inside her. “But I always wanted to marry for love.” Such a girlish dream, so romantic and silly. That’s the message she’d always received, but she still wanted it. “I need something between us that’s not just practicality and hormones. Those things aren’t a real bond. They’re not something you fight for. But if you had any feelings for me at all...”

He did his thing where he froze. Not shrinking. He didn’t cringe, but he braced himself. Like he refused to show how vulnerable he felt, while at the same time expected great pain. “I don’t understand why you’d want me to.”

Careful, she urged herself. He wasn’t being arrogant or callous. He probably, genuinely didn’t understand. She heard the barest inflection on me in his statement and knew this was more about his low opinion of himself than lack of regard for her.

Licking her lips, choosing her words with care, she said, “Everyone wants to be liked. Don’t you?”

He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter to me either way.” Because he’d been reviled by someone who was supposed to love him. The abraded edges of her heart frayed and stung.

“What about your sister? Surely it matters to you that she loves you?”

His shoulder jerked, almost like he was deflecting a blow. “I’m sure she values my loyalty. I take satisfaction in knowing she can count on me.”

He only took what pride he gave himself, would never ask for a smidgen more even from a woman he’d take a bullet to protect. How utterly abandoned he must have felt to mold himself into someone so inaccessible.

“Well, I want to be liked,” Jaya said with one hand cupped in the palm of the other, trying to project calm control when emotion tore at her throat. “I’d like whatever attraction you feel toward me to be for more than whatever parts of me fit into lingerie. Because I think you’re a very good-looking man, but when I say I’m attracted to you, I mean that I like you, Theo.” Love, a voice inside her contradicted, but it was such a huge admission to be in love that she pressed it back into her subconscious, not quite ready to be that vulnerable.

Still, as she lifted her gaze, she was absolutely defenseless, like he must be able to read that her feelings were so much stronger than she was admitting, but she didn’t want to scare him, only let him see she was sincere.

“Jesus, Jaya,” he whispered in a ragged breath, looking away.

His image swam before her brimming eyes, but she thought she’d seen a flinch of great anguish, like her words had touched a very raw part of him. He rubbed his hand across his jaw.

“For God’s sake, why?” he expelled with disbelief.

Oh, you poor, poor man. She rose and went to him, unable to sit so far from him when he was hurting so much. Cupping his head, she forced his tortured expression to face hers.

“Why do I like you? You’re a good man, Theo. When I told you about my assault, you didn’t ask what I was wearing or whether I did something to encourage it. You never once lost patience with those babies even though they kept us up half the night. You protected your little brother when you were barely old enough to—”

“Shh, don’t.” He pulled her into his chest, crushing her so tight she could barely draw breath. His heart pounded against her breast and she felt his swallow where his damp throat was pressed to her temple. His breaths moved harshly in his nostrils as he tried to regain control, holding her against the rise and fall of his shaken breaths.


She let herself soften into him, hoping her signal of acceptance would penetrate.

His own arms loosened a fraction and she wound her arms around his chest. Their embrace became mutual. Tight and close, man and woman. He cupped the back of her head and rubbed his chin on her hair.

“People hate to see me coming,” he said after a long time. “I criticize how they’re doing things, ask for paperwork they can’t find, make them account for items they think are insignificant. You always smiled at me, no matter what I asked for. I was never an imposition to you. That’s so rare for me.”

He combed his fingers through her hair while she closed her eyes against a sharp sting, feeling dampness gather on her lashes and keeping them hidden in his shirt, certain he’d stop holding her if he knew how moved she was.

“Do I like you?” he continued. “I don’t have friends. I don’t know how that works. I wish I could say I loved you, that I could give you everything you want from a man. Knowing you want love tells me I don’t deserve you.”

She hitched in a breath of protest, but he was continuing, arms tightening a fraction to keep her in place.

“But I’m not selfless enough to give you up. I want you in my life. Not just because my mouth waters when I think of you naked. Hell, you can feel how I’m reacting now, but there are a lot of beautiful women out there. There’s only one you. You are special, Jaya.”

She hugged him hard, biting her lips because they were quivering. “Thank you for saying that.”

“But it’s not enough, is it?” He slid heavy hands to her shoulders and eased her back a step. “You do deserve better.”

Here was the crossroads again. She couldn’t know if marrying him was the right choice unless she made it and looked back on having lived with it, but she couldn’t hurt him by rejecting him. All she could do was remember how perfect they had been once and believe that, with time, they could surpass it.

Without breathing, courage gathered into a tight knot in her middle, she picked up his hand to cradle it against her cheek. “You’re going to have to trust me when I say that I would be honored and privileged to be your wife,” she quavered.

He searched her gaze, a small frown pulling his brows. “Are you saying—”

She nodded, unable to help smiling when he was so plainly taken by surprise. “I would like to marry you, Theo.”

The flash of male triumph that streaked into his fierce visage might have frightened her if there wasn’t a helping of relief beneath it, endearingly softening his ruthless expression. In the next instant, he shuttered himself so thoroughly, she wondered if she had seen any reaction at all.

“Thank you. We’ll get a ring in the morning.”

And the CFO was back, armed with his tasks. Nevertheless, she’d seen behind the curtain and knew there was something there, even if it wasn’t very clearly defined.

“I don’t need a ring,” she dismissed, and reluctantly let her hands drop. She didn’t know how to bring herself out from intense emotional intimacy to distance with the swiftness that he did. A chill made her cross her arms and self-protect.

“I want to do this properly,” he insisted, then grimaced. “I suppose that means we should wait until our wedding night. How long does it take to plan a wedding?”

“Wait for what? Oh.” She ducked her head to hide that she was blushing, partly because she was dense enough not to have got his meaning right away, but also because she was disappointed. “We don’t have to,” she murmured.

“I want you to be sure.” He pushed his hands into his pockets, but she could see he was still aroused. He was trying not to touch her, she realized, and glittering delight bounced through her at her effect on him.

“I am sure.” She lifted her face so he could see she wasn’t teasing, but she didn’t know how to flirt or invite. Arousal was still too new.

“Sure about all of it,” he clarified with a rueful look. “Given our track record, I’d knock you up by midnight. As you said, this is your first proposal. I won’t trap you.”

A small smile touch her lips at the prospect of him forcing a shotgun wedding, but another thought occurred and it was a big one. “Do you want more children?”

His expression blanked in surprise. “I haven’t given it any thought. Hell, last week I didn’t want any. Today...I don’t know. Being a single child sounds lonely for Zephyr, doesn’t it? I mean, Demitri is a complete pain in the ass, but I can’t imagine not having him around.”

“It’s open for discussion, then?” she confirmed. This was a deal-breaker for her.

“Yes,” he said firmly. “But let’s give ourselves a chance to get to know one another again first.” His gaze feathered over her cheek and lit on her mouth.

He knew how to say things that both flattered and intrigued. Despite his sweetly suggestive remark, however, a very somber mood came over him.

Her smile faded. “What’s wrong?”

“Not one thing.” He cupped her face and kissed her with startling tenderness. “You’re very lovely, Jaya. How long until I can call you my wife?”

“I don’t know.” Her heart turned over and already she wondered if she’d done the right thing. “A few months?”

He grimaced.

“Unless you want a small wedding,” she rushed to say. “That could be arranged in a week or two.”

“I want to do this right.” His hands fell to her shoulders and he looked over her head, his expression weighted by heavy thoughts. His hands massaged, but distractedly. Like he’d slipped miles away from her. “You’ll want your family to come.”

“My parents, yes, but it doesn’t have to be a big deal. I’ve never dreamed of being the center of a society wedding. I can’t imagine you have, either.” She nudged his stomach playfully.

“More like suffered nightmares.” His mouth twisted with aversion. “But we have business associates in New York and relatives in Greece who should be invited.”

“Big weddings are expensive.”

“Do not worry about the cost.” He stepped away to state decisively, “We should be able to make a strong statement in six weeks.”

“A statement?” she repeated.

“As opposed to a splash.”

“Okay.” She tried to read his inscrutable expression.

“You should get some sleep. I’ll listen for Zephyr,” he said.

“You’re staying up to work?” The way he shut her out was not the way she thought an engagement should start.

“I need to think. I’m used to having more time with my own thoughts than I’ve had in the last few days.”

“Oh. Of course.” She tried not to take that as a slight. She hadn’t initiated this chain of events. If only he’d kiss her again, so the fragile bond between them would grow another layer, rather than fade. But he didn’t.

“Good night,” she said, confidence dwindling as she went to her room.