by Dani Collins
“I no longer require your services in finding me a bride,” he stated, firmly curtailing any future efforts.
“You’re not going to marry this girl!” she protested with alarm. “I looked up the family when they contacted me. Her cousin, yes. I could live with that if she wasn’t your cousin. But this one? No. They’re plebeians.”
He didn’t mention the possibility that the next Rohan heir was taking root in Rozi’s womb right now. He knew what his mother would say to that—that he had walked into a baited trap.
Had he? He couldn’t get the vision of Rozi’s stark profile out of his mind’s eye. The way her mouth had trembled as she contemplated raising her child away from her family. He’d had an enormous compulsion to hug her in comfort, which had flummoxed him. He enjoyed physical contact in bed, but he wasn’t an affectionate or demonstrative man.
“If and when I decide to marry, Mother, you’ll be the first to know.” He then asked after his aunt and was still tense when he hung up, thinking about Rozi’s distress.
He was caught between trusting what he’d learned years ago—that no one could be trusted—and believing a more gut-level instinct that told him Rozi was exactly what she said she was—a young woman who had succumbed to desire.
That shouldn’t be impossible to believe. He had.
And the desire to succumb again and again consumed him.
That pit of unending hunger drove him more urgently than any other force. Did he want a wife and child? He had always expected he would have at least one of each, but it wasn’t something he’d felt a strong desire to acquire. Did he want the baby that Rozi might carry? He could state firmly, yes. He did. But it was very much a philosophical want.
What he wanted in a more visceral, concrete way was Rozi. And if the price of that was marriage, he found himself ridiculously ready to pay it.
While she seemed genuinely apprehensive that she might have to marry him. Even the most cynical pockets of his mind couldn’t dismiss that her life would change a lot more than his own if they married and started a family. It was sobering to recognize that. Enough that he grew concerned when he left his office and couldn’t find her.
Her things were still in her room, the door open, so she hadn’t gone far.
He went through the rest of the house, glanced out to see the car was in the garage. As often happened in the mountains, the weather had completely changed. Heavy rain had begun falling. If she had decided to walk, she would get soaked. Or lost.
He was about to shrug on a weatherproof jacket and go looking for her when he realized she had been curled into the wicker love seat on the covered veranda.
She rose and came into the house with her sketchbook under her arm, an empty teacup in her hand. The absorbed expression on her delicate features altered as she realized he was standing there, waiting for her.
If she was a con artist, she was beyond excellent at portraying purity of heart, managing a faint blush that was utterly fascinating before she dropped her lashes and self-consciously pressed her lips together.
“It’s getting cold.”
The far side of the canyon had all but disappeared as the storm continued to gather in shrouds of heavy mist against the rocky walls.
“Were you making calls?” He was used to getting the result he wanted with a command and needed—yes, needed—to know she wasn’t leaving on Friday.
“I don’t know what to say to them,” she said with a perplexed shrug.
“Tell them we’re involved and you’re staying to see where it goes.” It wasn’t untrue.
“We’re waiting. Not dating.”
“We’re doing both. My mother has bowed out of an appearance in Venice. We’ll leave in the morning and attend in her place.”
“I can’t leave the country.”
“Commercial airlines may give you grief. You’ll be with me. You’ll be fine.”
“I’m not really the spotlight type, Viktor. And wouldn’t that just start rumors about us?” She shook her head in rejection.
“I’m pleased to start new rumors. My mother has been encouraging speculation about Trudi. I won’t have her associated with our family any longer.” That was nonnegotiable and he’d made sure his mother understood it.
“So call one of your other girlfriends.”
“Why are you pushing back like this? We need to get ahead of the story. If you’re pregnant, we want it to seem deliberate and within the confines of a committed relationship. You are not interchangeable with any other woman.” The truth in that statement rang through him like the peal of a bell, the vibration striking so deeply it was uncomfortable. “It will be nothing more strenuous than smiling graciously while a politician praises the artwork we are repatriating. You like art.” He indicated the sketchbook she held.
She hugged it tighter to her middle as though he had tried to take it.
He lifted a brow, surprised. “Are your designs proprietary? Do you not trust me?” Why did that thought bother him?
She snorted in a way that suggested the jury was definitely still out. “No matter how quickly you might steal my brilliant ideas and knock out your own versions, the developing-world costume manufacturers are way ahead of you. You must have issues with piracy yourself?”
“We do.” But patent infringements affecting his factories were far down his list of priorities at the moment. “Why the defensiveness, then?” He nodded at the book. “Are you sensitive to criticism? I understand many artists are. I’ll be gentle.”
“I’m not that thin-skinned,” she muttered, handing over the book and moving to set aside her empty mug. “I often ask Gizi or my uncle for an opinion on my designs before I start the real work. But most of the drawings in that book aren’t meant for anyone’s eyes but mine. I sketch when I need to think.”
“A type of journaling?” If so, her mind was a garden of mood and introspection. Both soothing and intriguing. A nice place to get lost.
He had almost hoped for math calculations on how she would budget out a paternity settlement. Fuel for mistrust would be easier to take than the way she was upending his view of how the world worked.
He scanned through simple, yet compelling mushrooms and cityscapes. Some sketches were complete, others showed the barest suggestion of an object. Pigeons, a mandala and a bicycle wheel were interspersed between eye-catching broaches and pendants, earrings and bracelets. Nature and need. Hard and soft. Contrasts and complements. Nothing was one simple thing.
The final pages were the uprights in his veranda, an ethereal impression of the mist-obscured lake, and his own profile rendered in a series of spare, austere lines that made something shift inside him.
He had wanted a window into her mind, but somehow she had stripped him bare with a few pencil strokes. The entire book was worth a longer study, but he grew almost as uncomfortable viewing his image as she had seemed before she had allowed him to see it.
He handed the book back to her, not knowing what to say except, “You’re very good.”
“It’s just doodling,” she dismissed. “And it didn’t help. No matter what I say, my mother won’t understand how I could even consider a romantic relationship with someone so far away. I briefly dated a man whose family lived in Boston and she was beside herself that I would move there.”
Boston? That man could go to hell, he thought reflexively, then wondered where such instant antipathy had come from.
“How was your conversation with your mother? How is your aunt?”
“Turned her ankle in the garden. Not nearly as serious as feared. A sprain and a few bruises.”
“It sounds like she’s very active. I think she’s around my grandmother’s age? Grandmamma celebrated her eightieth birthday two years ago.”
“Bella Néni is eighty-one and, yes, very spry. She has some live-in staff, but age hasn’t slowed her down. She’s as self-sufficient as
I am.” He dryly referenced the fact he probably had more staff cooking and cleaning for him than his elderly aunt employed.
“Could I meet her?”
“Why?”
“Because I came to Hungary to learn more about our family history. I’d like to talk to your mother, too, if she’s willing. Especially now that you’ve accused my grandmother of stealing the earrings. That definitely needs clearing up.”
This was leverage, he recognized, but felt churlish using it. At the same time, he was only growing more determined to continue the course he had set.
“Change your travel arrangements and come to Venice. I’ll take you to see Aunt Bella as soon after that as our schedule allows.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
WHAT WAS MOTHER NATURE trying to tell her? Rozi wondered, when she found herself on the veranda of the chalet watching lightning fork around her. Thunder boomed and she hunched a little deeper into the blanket she pinched closed around herself, but stayed where she was.
She was a very idealistic person. She wanted to believe things worked out for the best, that there were depths of goodness in everyone around her. She had to believe that, otherwise she wouldn’t be able to face the cruelty and darkness in this harsh, ruthless world.
She was also fanciful enough to believe the universe was putting all these roadblocks in her way because she was meant to stay here with Viktor, even though he was the furthest thing from the future she had imagined for herself. She had always expected to marry for love. She wanted children, and in her vision, she had a big, tumbling family like the one she came from.
Of course, hers would have one key difference. Her husband would be a man of means, not that she faulted her father. He was idealistic and she loved him all the more for his generous heart, but she wanted a husband who made a point of paying the electric bill on time.
She had not aspired to a husband as rich as Viktor. And his level of means was hardly compensation for what she really, really wanted in her marriage.
Her dream of marrying for love would have to be abandoned if she was pregnant with his child. She was struggling to accept that. In fact, her family’s streak of optimism was strong enough in her that she kept wondering if they were meant to repeat and revise Istvan and Eszti’s story, this time with a happier ending?
Would he come to love her? Eventually?
Fool, the skies blasted in a flash of lightning, then blackened and growled a warning against being so delusional.
Viktor wasn’t a bad man, but he wasn’t one with an open heart. They’d had a night of passion and he’d shown her nothing but suspicion since. She couldn’t marry that.
But what other option did she have if she was pregnant?
What if she wasn’t pregnant and went home and never saw him again?
“You like it out here.”
She jumped at the sound of his voice, dragged from her deep ruminations back to the steady patter of rain that had muffled the sound of the door.
He came to stand beside her and a frisson of awareness, like the ions that attracted lightning, gathered around her.
At least I would have that, she thought. Passion wasn’t love, though. And one-sided passion wouldn’t sustain a marriage. Her small ray of hope disappeared with the dim light as he clicked off the flashlight he held and the world went pitch-black.
“The power went out?” she guessed.
“Yes.” He’d been working in his study and that was likely the only reason he’d abandoned his precious laptop to find her.
Another flash and boom resounded, one on top of the other. It was so loud she squeaked and instinctively hunched closer to him in the dark.
“We’re fine,” he said calmly and drew her in to his side with a heavy arm. “It was over there.”
“I can’t see where you’re pointing.”
“Across the valley.” His voice was a quiet growl, strangely soothing. She felt an impulse to slip her arm around his waist, but she was trapped inside the cocoon of her blanket and his arm around her.
Still, she felt safe enough to ask, “Do you believe in destiny?”
“I do not.” His tone was gentle, but final. “I believe in opportunity. Pay attention when it arises because it may not come around again.”
A gust of spitting rain swept across them, dampening her face while a rumble sounded in the distance.
“I don’t want to think of my child as an opportunity.” Beneath the wrap of the blanket, she shifted her hand to cover her abdomen. “I have always wanted my children to be the result of love. Isn’t that what you would want?”
She needed to know he had the capacity to love, at the very least.
She felt him draw a breath and exhale it, as though readying himself to deliver unpleasant news.
“I thought once that I might marry for love. There was a young woman I had feelings for.”
A slash of pain went through her, searing as a lightning strike, leaving a scorched sensation behind her heart. It was so sharp and surprising, she lost her breath and almost didn’t hear the rest of what he said.
“She died in the car crash that killed my brother. That was how I learned they were involved. Her sister told me at the funeral that she preferred me, but the wiser choice was to marry the heir, so she began seeing Kristof behind my back.”
“He went along with that?” How could his brother do that to him?
“At my mother’s urging, yes.”
Her ears rang at such treachery. She couldn’t imagine anyone being so coldhearted toward anyone, especially their own family. No wonder he didn’t believe in love and loyalty. No wonder he was so distrustful of her motives.
“I’m sorry, Viktor. That’s awful.” She tried to turn toward him, but his arm became iron hard around her, holding her in place, side by side.
She blinked and craned her neck, opened her eyes wide, but it was too dark to see his face. Perhaps that was why he was willing to share something so intimate.
“Why should you apologize?” He was speaking without emotion, but she could feel the undercurrents of betrayal still seething in him. “It has nothing to do with you. I’m simply explaining why I leap to the assumption everyone operates out of self-interest, no matter how highly you might regard them.”
“You’ll never see me as anything but mercenary,” she realized, shrugging from his hold and snuggling the blanket more firmly around her, suddenly feeling the damp chill in the air. “I happen to be the complete opposite, you know. I believe you when you say you’re trying to be honorable. But I’m not so blinded by the bright side that I don’t recognize you have a lot more resources if you decide I’m not suitable as your wife and sue me for custody of our child.”
“I wouldn’t do that.” He sounded insulted by the suggestion.
“And my naive optimism tells me to believe you. Who becomes the fool in that situation, though?”
The storm moved down the valley and lightning danced in the foothills, briefly outlining his silhouette while thunder rolled back toward them.
“Viktor, I appreciate that you want to do the right thing, but children should be wanted. This isn’t something you want. I can tell.” She wasn’t something he wanted.
Another gust of wind threw a spatter of rain across her. The blanket was getting damp enough to be uncomfortable. So was this conversation. She tried to search out the door and he clicked on the flashlight to follow her in.
“It’s true that, until this happened, children were one more assignment I was required to complete, something I would procure through an advantageous marriage.” He moved to the fireplace. Kindling was already in place and it only took a single match to start small flames licking upward. They cast long shadows and a muted glow through the room.
“All part of expanding your empire?” How sad that sounded.
“Yes.” He rose. “But m
y mother will be comfortable the rest of her days no matter what I do. My aunt is also very well-off. That means the decisions I make today are for me and my offspring.”
He stared into the fire, expression unreadable.
“I don’t wish the mother of my progeny to be an arbitrary choice,” he said in a remote voice. “I have no desire—literally—to procreate with someone whose chief reason for being in my bed is because my mother has vetted her as financially and socially suitable. Mother’s tastes do not match my own,” he said, turning his head to reveal the shadows in his deadpan expression.
“Weird,” she said facetiously. “But you still don’t want me.”
“Don’t I?”
That tiny fire wasn’t throwing the amount of heat that suffused her.
“I’m not talking about sex,” she muttered, although she had some doubts on that front, too. He might want her in a clinical sense. He might grow aroused by the fact she was female, but it had nothing to do with her.
He set a bigger chunk of wood on the fire, then brushed his hand on his thigh.
“I’m talking about more than sex. My mother didn’t care for childbearing. Or the rearing, for that matter. That was left to nannies. Since I arrived at adulthood, she and I have had what I would describe as a business relationship. My relationship with my father was much the same. His interest in my grades was more about my potential aptitude for the corporate world than pride in my accomplishments. He was a role model for work ethic and negotiation, not attentive in the least.”
“And your brother?”
A pause, then, “I thought he was my best friend.”
Until he had stolen Viktor’s girlfriend on the way to his own funeral.
Her heart weighed heavier in her chest.
She moved a pair of chairs away from the dining room table and unwrapped the blanket from around herself, draping it across the backs to dry. Then she sat on the sofa.
“I wouldn’t be like your parents,” she said, clasping her hands and willing him to believe her. “My family is very close-knit. I can’t imagine being anything but completely involved in my children’s lives. That’s why I’m so apprehensive about this. Once I’m in, I’m so far in I’ll never get out. That’s petrifying.”
