He sighed heavily and sifted his fingers through his hair. ‘My parents were married,’ he informed her quietly, ‘but that’s where the unity stopped—and you should know exactly what I’m talking about. We have a child between us, whether it was planned or not, and I intend to make sure that our child is brought up with both of us present, in a stable atmosphere. Nothing less is going to do.’
‘So you’re saying...’
‘Marriage, Abigail. Like it or not, there’s no other way.’
CHAPTER SIX
‘NO OTHER WAY?’ Abigail parroted, shock writ large all over her face. She had gone through a million and one scenarios of what could happen ever since she had told Leandro about Sam, but a marriage proposal hadn’t featured in any of those scenarios.
‘Correct. As I’ve made clear, I’m not going to subject our son to a back-and-forth situation between us.’
‘Leandro, we can’t get married.’ Her voice had gone up a couple of octaves and was bordering on hysterical. She swallowed and breathed deeply, in and out, slowly and evenly, counting to ten, because approaching this situation with ranting was going to settle her firmly on the back foot before their negotiations had even begun. ‘In an ideal world, a child is a cherished addition to the family unit and is blessed with two loving parents, but it’s not an ideal world. Telling me that that’s what we would be providing for Sam if we got married is just...just a fantasy.’
Leandro flushed darkly. He had offered to make the greatest sacrifice he knew for the sake of their child and he was incensed that she could throw his proposal back in his face without bothering to think things through. Buried beneath his anger was also a certain amount of pique. Countless women would have bitten his hand off for the proposal she was self-righteously tossing aside.
‘Since when is it a fantasy to want the best for a child?’
‘It’s not,’ Abigail told him in a long-suffering voice that really got on his nerves. ‘Marriage is just not necessary in this day and age.’ She jumped up and once again began pacing through the gloriously all-white room. Just looking around her was enough to show her how great the differences were between them. They were chalk and cheese, and it was no wonder his sister had been appalled when she had found out about their relationship. When he had turned his back on her, she had been left in his flash penthouse apartment in New York to pack her things and clear off, and she had had the pleasure of listening to his sister rant about her unsuitability for her brother.
‘Leandro needs someone of his own class,’ Cecilia had stormed, while Abigail had packed her bag in frozen silence, too distressed with Leandro’s disappearance really to pay much attention to what Cecilia had been telling her. ‘You’re no good for him. He can’t get involved with a thief, and it’s just a good thing that I had the wit to get involved and rake up that stuff about you or else heaven only knows what might have happened!’
Nothing would have happened, as it turned out. The fact that Leandro had found it so easy to walk away had said it all. Now, here he was proposing marriage, but she was still the same person who was unsuitable for him, the same person he had found it easy to walk away from.
‘I’m willing to let you see Sam whenever you want to,’ she told him. ‘And I get it that you can give him opportunities that I would never be able to in a million years, so of course if you want to contribute financially then I have no problem with that. But it would be a complete disaster for us to get involved in any other way. I mean, the world is full of kids who grow up perfectly happily when their parents are divorced or separated.’
‘I don’t care about those cheerful kids you tell me thrive when their parents are separated,’ Leandro said calmly.
‘Why won’t you listen to me?’ Abigail burst out. ‘We don’t come from the same world,’ she enunciated in a low, urgent voice. ‘It would never work. Your sister was right about that. I’m from a different class and never the twain shall meet. At least, not unless you want to become infected by me. So, marriage? It wouldn’t last five seconds, and a break-up would be worse for a child than two adults who can communicate in a friendly fashion but aren’t saddled with one another.’
‘Rewind.’ Leandro was frowning. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘It would end in tears, Leandro. You can’t stick two people together who don’t like one another and hope it works out for the sake of a child, especially when that child is the result of an accident.’
‘What did Cecilia say to you?’
‘What?’ Perplexed, Abigail stared at him. It was always dangerous doing that because she found that, once she started looking, she couldn’t stop and it was no different now, even though they were in the middle of a heated argument. Or, at least, she was. Leandro was so assured, so controlled, so stupidly beautiful. It was no wonder she had fallen head over heels in love with him and it was no wonder that even now, when the love bit had crashed and burned, her body still responded to that dark, powerful magnetism in ways that left her feeling addled and all at sea.
‘I admit that there was no need for Cecilia to ride in to my rescue.’ Leandro grimaced because his habit of indulging his sister had never left him, even though now he could see that she was wilful, where once that could have been interpreted as restless and youthfully energetic. ‘But she did it with the best of intentions.’
Abigail couldn’t help herself. She rolled her eyes, gritted her teeth and clenched one fist because for a guy who was so clued in he could be shockingly stupid.
Momentarily distracted, Leandro frowned. ‘She’s protective of me.’ He gritted his teeth. ‘It comes with the territory. I effectively looked after her because our parents were too busy pretending that they didn’t have to grow up.’
‘Cecilia isn’t protective,’ Abigail said in a rush. ‘She’s possessive and it’s not healthy. Okay..’ she was constrained to be fair ‘...she might be protective, and she might have been anxious that you’d get wrapped up with someone who might have been after your money, but that’s not the only reason she was determined to break us up. Cecilia didn’t think that I was good enough for you and she made that perfectly clear once you were out of earshot. “A common little tramp who should go back to the dustbin she crawled out of” was how she put it!’ She sighed and sat down, spreading her fingers flat on her lap and staring down at them. She felt mean talking about his sister when she wasn’t there to defend herself but why shouldn’t Leandro know what she thought? Their class differences were just another thing to take into account, whether he liked it or not.
‘Cecilia and I are not as close as we once were,’ Leandro murmured reflectively. Had he been too generous in forgiving a side to his sister that it had been easier to ignore than acknowledge? He thought back to Cecilia’s enthusiasm when he had taken the bait and started going out with Rosalind, the perfect mate on paper with the right pedigree and all the right credentials.
‘I apologise for having said anything, Leandro,’ Abigail told him stiltedly, ‘but Cecilia had a point. We don’t come from the same background.’
‘We’re getting off topic here.’ He would think about his sister later. He’d taken his eye off the ball with her, and maybe it was time to correct that oversight, but right now there were more important things to focus on.
‘We’re not. I’m just trying to make you see why this marriage proposal of yours doesn’t make sense.’
He looked at her, his brilliant eyes veiled. ‘I am not prepared for you to have another man in your life,’ he said bluntly, ‘who will inevitably have influence over my son.’
Abigail laughed because it seemed ludicrous for him to be thinking about another man in her life. She hadn’t so much as glanced at anyone since Leandro and she drew a blank when she thought about moving on and doing normal stuff like going on dates and getting to know other men.
Who could possibly ever compare to him? Reluctantly, she looked at him and did a quick mental comparison between Leandro and every other single man she had ever spoken to, communicated with or even set eyes on in her entire life.
