“I would do so, and gladly, but you forget that this life you carry belongs to me.”
“It’s a baby, Damian. You don’t own a baby. I suppose that’s hard for someone like you to comprehend, but a child’s not a—a commodity. You can’t own it, even if your name is Damian Skouras.”
They glared at each other, and then he muttered something in Greek and stalked away from her.
Dammit, she was right! He was behaving like an ass. That self-righteous crap a minute ago, about a woman who slept with strangers not being a fit mother, was ridiculous. He was as responsible for what had happened as she was.
And now she was carrying a child. His child. A deep warmth suffused his blood. He had always thought raising Nick would be the closest he’d come to fatherhood. Now, Fate and a woman who’d haunted his dreams had joined forces to show him another way.
Slowly, he turned and looked at Laurel.
“I want my child,” he said softly.
Laurel went cold. “What do you mean, you want your child?”
“I mean exactly what I said. This child is mine, and I will not forfeit my claim to it.”
His claim? She felt her legs turn to jelly. This kind of thing cropped up in the papers and on TV news shows, reports of fathers who demanded, and won, custody. Not many, it was true, but this was Damian Skouras, who had all the power and wealth in the world. He could take her baby from her with a snap of his fingers.
Be calm, she told herself, be calm, and don’t let him see how frightened you are.
“Do you understand, Laurel?”
“Yes. I understand.” She made her way toward him, her gaze locked on his face, assessing what to offer and what to hold back, wondering how you played poker with a man who owned all the chips. “Look, Damian, let’s not discuss this now, when we’re both upset.”
“There is nothing to discuss. I’m telling you how it will be. I will be a father to my child.”
“Well, I’m not—I’m not opposed to you having a role in this. In fact, Dr. Glass man and I talked a little bit about—about the value of a father, in a child’s life. I’m sure we can work out some sort of agreement.”
“Visiting rights?”
“Yes.”
His smile was even more frightening the second time. “How generous of you, Laurel.”
“I’m sure we can work out an arrangement that will suit us both.”
“Did I ever tell you that my father played no part in my life?”
“Look, I don’t know what the situation was between your parents, but—”
“I might as well have been a bastard.”
“Damian—”
“I have no great confidence in marriage, I assure you, but when children are involved, I have even less in divorce.”
“Well, this wouldn’t be the same situation at all,” she said, trying not to sound as desperate as she felt. “I mean, since we wouldn’t be married, there’d be no divorce to worry ab—”
“My child deserves better. He—or she—is entitled to two parents, and to stability.”
“I think so, too,” she said quickly. “That’s why I’d be willing to—to permit you a role.”
“To permit me?” he said, so softly that she knew her choice of words had been an error.
“I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. I won’t keep you from my—from our—child. I swear it.”
“You swear,” he said, his tone mocking hers. “How touching. Am I to take comfort in the word of a woman who didn’t even intend to tell me she was pregnant?”
“Dammit, what do you want? Just tell me!”
“I am telling you. I will not abandon my child, nor be a father in name only, and I have no intention of putting my faith in agreements reached by greedy lawyers.”
“That’s fine.” She gave him a dazzling smile. “No lawyers, then. No judges. We’ll sit down, like two civilized people, and work out an arrangement that will suit us both.” She cried out sharply as his hands bit into her flesh. “Damian, you’re hurting me!”
“Do you take me for a fool?” He leaned toward her, so that his face was only inches from hers. “I can imagine the sort of arrangement you would wish.”
“You’re wrong. I just agreed, didn’t I, that a father has a place in a child’s life?”
“Ten minutes ago, you were telling me you never wanted to see my face again.”
“Yes, but that was before I understood how deeply you feel about this.”
“You mean, it was before you were trapped into telling me you were pregnant.” He laughed. “You’re a bad liar, Laurel.”
“Damn you, Damian! What do you want from me?”
There was a long, heavy silence. Then his arms wound around her and his hands slipped into her hair.
“Don’t,” she said, but already his mouth was dropping to hers, taking it in a kiss that threatened to steal her sanity. When, finally, he drew back, Laurel was trembling. With hatred, with rage—and with the shattering knowledge that, even now, his kiss could still make her want him.
“I have always believed,” he said softly, “that a man should have children only within the sanctity of marriage. But that is a paradox, because I believe that marriage is a farce. Nonetheless, I see no choice here.” His hand lifted, as if to touch her hair, then fell to his side. “We will marry within the week.”
“We will...?” She felt the blood drain from her face. “Marry? Did you say, marry?”
“We will marry, and we will have our child, and we will raise him—or her—together.”
“You’re crazy! Me, marry you? Never! Do you hear me? Not in a million years would—”
“You’ve accused me of being arrogant, and egocentric. Well, I assure you, I can be those things, and more.” A muscle beside his mouth tightened, and his eyes bored into hers. “I am Damian Skouras. I command resources you’ll never dream of. Oppose me, and all you’ll gain is ugly notoriety for yourself, your family and our child.”
Laurel began to tremble. She stared back at him and then she wrenched free. Angry tears blurred her eyes and she wiped them away with a slash of her hand.
“I hate you, Damian! I’ll always hate you!”
He laughed softly, reached for his jacket and slung it over one shoulder.
“That’s quite all right, dearest Laurel. From what I know of matrimony, that’s the natural state of things.”
Damian opened the door and walked out.
CHAPTER EIGHT
FIVE DAYS LATER, they stood as far apart as they could manage in the anteroom to a judge’s chambers in a town just north of the city.
Judge Weiss was a friend of a friend, Damian had said. He’d begun to explain the connection, but Laurel had stopped him halfway through.
“It doesn’t matter,” she’d said stiffly.
And it didn’t. For all she gave a damn, the man who was about to marry them could be an insurance salesman who was a justice of the peace in his spare time.
The only thing she wanted now was to get the thing over with.
She hadn’t asked anyone to attend the ceremony. She hadn’t told Susie or George or even Annie that she was getting married. Her sister had seemed preoccupied lately and anyway, what was there to tell? Surely not the truth, that she’d made the oldest, saddest female blunder in the world and that now she was paying the classic price for it by marrying a man she didn’t love.
She’d decided it would be better to break the news when this was all over. She’d make it sound as if she and Damian had followed through on a romantic, spur-of-the-moment impulse. Susie might see through it but Annie, good hearted soul that she was, would probably be thrilled.
She glanced over at Damian. He was standing with his back to her, staring out the window. He’d been doing that for the past ten minutes, as if the traffic passing by on the road outside was so fascinating that he couldn’t tear his gaze from it.
She understood it, because she had been staring at a bad oil painting of a man in judici
al robes with mutton-chop whiskers for the same reason. It was a way of focusing on something other than the reality of what was about to happen.
Laurel took a deep breath. There was still time. Maybe she could convince him that his plan was crazy, that it was no good for him or her or even for their baby.
“Mr. Skouras? Miss Bennett?”
Laurel and Damian both looked around. The door to the judge’s office had opened. A small, gray-haired woman smiled pleasantly at them.
“Judge Weiss is ready for you now,” she said.
Laurel’s hands tightened on her purse. It was like being told the dentist was ready for you. Your heart rate speeded up, your skin got clammy, you had to tell yourself to smile back and act as if that was exactly the wonderful news you’d been waiting for.
Except this wasn’t the dentist’s office, and she wasn’t going to have a tooth drilled. She was going to hand her life over to Damian Skouras.
“Laurel.”
She looked up. Damian was coming toward her, his expression grim.
“The judge is ready.”
“I heard.” She swallowed hard against a sudden rise of nausea, not from the pregnancy—that had ended, strangely enough, the day Damian had learned of her condition. This churning in her gut had to do with the step she was about to take.
I can’t. God, I can’t.
“Damian.” She took a deep breath. “Damian, listen. I think we ought to talk.”
His hand closed around hers, tightening in warning, and he smiled pleasantly at the clerk.
“Thank you. Please tell the judge we’ll be along in a minute.”
As soon as the door swung shut, Damian turned back to Laurel, his eyes cold.
“We have discussed this. There is nothing more to be said.”
“We’ve discussed nothing! You’ve issued edicts and I’ve bowed my head in obedience. Well, now I’m telling you that it isn’t going to work. I don’t think—”
“I haven’t asked you to think.”
Color flew into her cheeks. “If you’d been thinking, we wouldn’t be in this mess!”
It was an unfair attack, and she knew it. She was as responsible for what had happened as Damian, but why should she play fair when he didn’t? Still, he didn’t deny the accusation.
“Yes.” A muscle tightened in his jaw. “You are correct. We are in, as you say, a mess, and since it is one of my own making, the solution is mine, as well. There is no other course to take.”
“No other course that meets with your approval, you mean.” She tried to shake off his hand, but he wouldn’t let her. “If you’d be reasonable—”
“Meaning that I should permit you to do as you see fit?”
“Yes. No. Will you stop twisting everything I say? If you’d just think for a minute... We have nothing in common. We hardly know each other. We don’t even like each other, and yet—and yet, you expect me to—to marry you, to become your wife.”
“I expect exactly that.”
Laurel yanked her hand from his. “Damn you,” she whispered. She was trembling with rage, at Damian, at herself, at a situation that had gotten out of control and had brought this nightmare down on her head. “Damn you, Damian! You have an answer for everything and it’s the same each time. You know best, you know what’s right, you know how things have to be—”
Behind them, the door swung open.
“Mr. Skouras? The judge has a busy schedule this morning. If you and Miss Bennett wouldn’t mind...?”
Miss Bennett minds, very much, Laurel thought...but Damian’s hand had already closed around hers.
“Of course,” he said, with a soft-as-butter smile that had nothing to do with the steely pressure of his fingers. “Darling? Are you ready?”
His smile was soft, too, but the warning in his eyes left no room for doubt. Make no mistake, he was telling her, do as I say or suffer the consequences.
Laurel gathered what remained of her self-composure, lifted her chin and nodded.
“As ready as I can be,” she said coolly, and let him lead her into the judge’s office.
It was a large, masculine room, furnished in heavy mahogany. The walls were paneled with some equally dark wood and hung with framed clippings and photos of politicos ranging from John F. Kennedy to Bill Clinton. Someone, perhaps the clerk, had tucked a bouquet of flowers into a coffee mug and placed it on the mantel above the fireplace, but the flowers weren’t fresh and their drooping heads and faded colors only added a mournful touch to the room. An ancient air conditioner wheezed in the bottom half of a smeared window as it tried to breathe freshness into air redolent with the smell of old cigars.
“Mr. Skouras,” the judge said, rising from behind his desk and smiling, “and Miss Bennett. What a fine day for a wedding.”
It was, Laurel supposed. Outside, the sun was shining brightly; puffy white clouds sailed across a pale blue sky.
But weddings weren’t supposed to be held in stuffy rooms like this one. A woman dreamed of being married in a place filled with light; she dreamed of flowers and friends around her, and of coming to her groom with a heart filled with joy and love.
If only this were real. If only Damian truly wanted her, and loved her...
A sound of distress burst from Laurel’s throat. She took a quick step back. Instantly Damian’s arm slid around her waist.
“Laurel?” he said softly.
She looked up at him, her eyes dark and glistening with unshed tears, and he felt as if a fist had clamped around his heart.
She didn’t want this. He knew that, but it didn’t matter. He’d told himself that a dozen times over. The child. That was the only thing that mattered. They had to many, for the sake of the child. It was the right thing to do.
Now, looking down into the eyes of his bride, seeing the sorrow shimmering in their depths, Damian felt a twinge of uncertainty.
Was Laurel right? Was this a mistake?
She had offered to share the raising of their child with him, and he had scoffed. And with good cause. It didn’t take a genius to see that what she really wanted was to get him out of her life forever. Still, a clever attorney could have made that an impossibility and he had a team of the best. A child should be raised by two parents; his belief in that would never change. But what good could come of being raised by a mother and father who lived in a state of armed truce?
Why, then, was he forcing this marriage?
Why was he taking as his wife a woman who hated him so much that she was on the verge of weeping? Damian’s throat tightened. This wasn’t the way it should be. A man wanted his bride to look up at him and smile; he wanted to see joy shining in her eyes as they were joined together.
If only, just for a little while, Laurel could look as if she wanted him. As if she remembered how it had been, that night...
“...always beautiful but you, my dear Miss Bennett, are a treat for an old man’s eyes. And Mr. Skouras.” The judge, a big man with a belly and a voice to match, clasped Damian’s hand and shook it heartily. “I know you by reputation, of course. It is a pleasure to meet you, and to of ficiate at your wedding.”
Damian cleared his throat. “Thank you for fitting us into your schedule, Your Honor. I know how difficult it must have been, but everything was so last minute...”
Judge Weiss laughed. “Elopements generally are, my boy.” He smiled, rubbed his hands together and reached for a small, battered black book. “Well, shall we begin?”
“No!” Laurel’s cry was as sharp as broken glass. The judge’s smile faded as he looked at her.
“I beg your pardon? Is there a problem, Miss Bennett?”
“There is no problem,” Damian said smoothly. “We made our decision so quickly...my fiancée is simply having a last-minute attack of nerves, Your Honor.” Damian slid his arm around Laurel’s waist. She looked up at him and he smiled. It was an affectionate smile, just as the way he was holding her seemed affectionate, but she knew better. “I suppose,” he said, flashing
the judge a just-between-us-boys grin that made the older man chuckle, “I suppose that no bride is calm on her wedding day.”
“Damian,” Laurel said, “it isn’t too late—”
“Hush,” he whispered, and before she could stop him, he tilted her chin up and kissed her.
It was a quick, gentle kiss, nothing more than the lightest brush of his mouth against hers, and she wondered, later, if that had been her undoing. Perhaps if he’d kissed her harder, if he’d tried, with silken tongue and teasing teeth, to remind her of the passion that had once consumed them, everything would have ended in that instant.
But he didn’t. He kissed her the way a man kisses a woman he truly loves, with a sweet tenderness that numbed her senses.
“Everything will be fine, kalí mou,” he murmured. He lifted her hand to his lips, pressed a kiss to the palm and sealed her fingers over it. “Trust me.”
The judge cleared his throat. “Well,” he said briskly, “are we ready now?”
“Ready,” Damian said, and so it began.
The words were not as flowery, but neither were they very different from the ones that had been spoken in the little Connecticut church, barely more than four weeks before. The sentiments were surely the same; the judge had told Damian, over the phone, that he prided himself on offering a little ceremony of his own creation to each couple he wed.
He spoke of friendship, and of love. Of the importance of not taking vows lightly. Of commitment, and respect.
And, at last, he intoned the words Laurel had been dreading.
“Do you, Laurel Bennett, take Damian Skouras to be your lawfully wedded husband?”
A lump seemed to have lodged in her throat. She tried to swallow past it. The judge, and Damian, were looking at her.
“I’m sorry,” she said, stalling for time, “I didn’t—I didn’t hear...”
The judge smiled. “I asked if you were prepared to take Damian Skouras as your lawfully wedded husband.”
“Miss Bennett?”
Laurel shut her eyes. She thought of her baby, and of the power Damian held...and then, though it was stupid and pointless, because she didn’t love him, didn’t even like him, she thought of the way he’d kissed her only moments ago...
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