Chapter 21 #2
“Okay. I’ll accept the challenge. While you teased about your house needing a makeover anyway after it was torched, you’re very emotional about losing some old family items that can’t be replaced.
You adore your fast cars, but they must be old American muscle cars.
Forget the fancy-dancy Italian sports cars.
You prefer simple like I do except for watches.
You have an affinity for expensive watches and own several. How am I doing?”
“Not too bad. Keep going.”
“You’re a loner but lonely and won’t admit that to anyone. You tell everyone your favorite color is blue, but in truth, it’s purple. Vivid purple.”
“Now what makes you think that?”
She gave me one of her ‘are-you-kidding-me’ looks. Then appeared thoughtful. “I just know.”
“Oh, no, you don’t. With a statement like that, I need to know why.”
The way she bit her lower lip was adorable, which sent an electric surge straight to my dick. “Because every time I wear purple, your eyes light up. Why do you think it’s one of my favorite colors to wear?”
I stopped walking, hanging and shaking my head.
“What? You wanted the truth.”
“You bet I did and you’re right. I love purple. Violet. Eggplant. Indigo. Magenta. Even mauve on certain occasions. As long as you’re wearing purple, I’m interested.” Why was admitting all my foibles easy around her? “What else?”
“Let’s see. You adore meat and potatoes, filet as rare as humanly possible. Oh, something else. When people aren’t looking, you swipe pieces of chocolate from the Indulgence Chocolatier.”
“I do not!” When she stopped short again, cocking her head this time, I groaned. “Okay, you got me. I didn’t think anyone noticed.”
“I notice almost everything about you.”
“Hmmm… Then I guess I’m not a good spy.”
Making a turn, she moved closer to the water. “I think you are. You know it too. You do so much for Jaxon and the family. What about kids?”
“You mean Sebastian and Carrington, Alexander’s boys?”
“I mean do you want children?”
“Wow. No one has asked me that before. Only with the right woman and at the right time.”
“What’s the right time?”
I sat down on the sand, wrapping one arm around my bent knee. I didn’t answer until she’d joined me. How strange. I’d been completely against having children before. “When I can have the time to be a dad.”
“You know. In my opinion you need to make the time. When you love someone, whether a child or an animal, that person will become the most important part of your life and you’ll juggle everything else around them. Just my opinion.”
“What about you? Do you want to have children?”
“I’d love to.”
“How many?”
“Four or five.” Placing her shoes beside her, she stared out at the ocean, the waning sunlight creating a beautiful halo around her.
“You’d make a great mother.”
At first, she didn’t say anything. When she did, her voice wavered. “That’s what my grandmother always told me.”
“What do you say?”
She blinked several times. Wait a minute. Was she crying?
“Are you okay?” I asked, trying to pull her closer.
“I’m fine. There’s one little problem. I can’t have children.”
With so few things in life shocking me and this one stunning me into silence, feeling both clueless what to say to her and inept was something I wasn’t used to. “How do you know?”
“Because I went to a doctor a couple weeks ago. I was having some cramps and some spotty bleeding issues. So she ran a few tests. I got the results back the other day.” She sniffed and looked away. “I’m not a real woman.”
She tried to stand, but I refused to allow her, pulling her close. “Ah, Emmeline. You are without a doubt more of a woman than anyone I’ve been with. You can’t measure your worth by whether you can physically have children or not.”
“Yeah, well. Some men would think so, but hey, if Alexander is really interested in selling me off to form the most powerful alliance in the world, then maybe since I can’t have children, the deal will fall through.”
“What are you talking about? Alexander would never even consider an arranged marriage.”
“Are you certain about that?”
“Absolutely.” But in truth, I wasn’t one hundred percent. I couldn’t imagine he’d stoop to something so low, yet his father had considered the arrangement, albeit briefly.
She pulled away so she could look me in the eyes. “I know people have been following me long before the recent incidents. Alexander is picky so maybe one of them decided to move forward on the deal themselves.”
“No, he won’t do that. I know how much your entire family cares about you.”
“Why don’t you ask him?”
“I plan on it.” She was still hesitant around me, as if I was more of a company man than anything else. “The news you received is why you really left town. Isn’t it?”
She rested her head on her bent knees. “Fifty-fifty. I needed space and time to process, which might sound like a copout, but the news was nothing I expected. With my family, you get neither easily if at all. I shouldn’t have left without thinking everything through, but I wasn’t ready to talk to anyone. ”
Why in the world she thought she was going to be married off was a situation I couldn’t process. Under no circumstances could I even imagine that Alexander would think of destroying her life.
Unless he believed he had no other choice. Even then he’d have a plan on the backside.
While I couldn’t know the truth, whatever was said to Emmeline had frightened her.
And I didn’t like it one bit.
In fact, if I discovered there was any truth to the plan, I’d take matters into my own hands, preventing him from taking action or making promises that weren’t his to provide.
What lengths would I go to keep him from disrupting her life?
A thought entered my mind, one that could work but would need to be believed.
Marrying the beautiful woman myself.