A Ruthless Proposition

by Natasha Anders

  They both glanced around the tiny apartment and laughed at the thought of living any kind of “life of leisure” in the place.

  “How long do we still have before we leave this pleasure palace?” He got up and stretched lazily before sauntering over to give her a casual hug and hand her a sliver of paper towel, the last bit on the roll.

  “We’re out of paper towels,” he noted, and she giggled messily as she blew her nose.

  “Well, we’re not replacing this roll. Our life of lavish spending has come to an end, my friend. We can no longer afford luxuries like paper towels.”

  He laughed and sat down at the table opposite her.

  “Jeez, girl, I’m getting sick of seeing you cry. Cheer up, will you?” She bravely presented him with her best smile. “Better. But not by much. Now when do we move out?”

  “I’ll be speaking with the landlord tomorrow. So probably thirty more days before we have to vacate the premises.”

  “A lot can happen in thirty days,” he observed.

  “Not that much.” She traced a crease on the plastic tablecloth with her finger. “Do you want to come with me to my ultrasound appointment tomorrow?”

  “I’d love to.”

  “Well, well, well, two’s company but three is most definitely a party,” Cal observed the following morning as they climbed out of her car. Cleo was happy with the prime parking spot they’d found directly outside Dr. Klein’s office and was grinning like an idiot when she glanced up to see what Cal was talking about. The smile immediately dropped from her face when she saw what he was referring to.

  “What the hell?” she whispered beneath her breath. “Why is he here? How is he here?”

  “Take a deep breath, Cleo,” Cal advised softly. “You’re never at your sharpest when you’re pissed off.”

  “What the hell are you doing here?” She marched up to Dante and put her face right up to his. “How did you know where to find me?”

  “You sent your OB/GYN’s details to Grayson, and with that information in hand it was easy finding out the time of your appointment,” he revealed insouciantly. Her jaw dropped at that blatant invasion of her privacy. Those details should never have been used to spy on her! “I thought I’d come along and see what I’m paying for.”

  “I didn’t ask you to pay for it,” she reminded.

  “Look, I know I was an arrogant asshole before,” he said evenly.

  “Was?” she asked, her eyebrows rising. He merely gave her one of those long, level looks that made her feel completely chastised. She hated that. “Dante, I don’t see what else we need to discuss. We had an agreement. Two, in fact. Remember? I signed yours and you signed mine. That makes us even.”

  “I’ve recently come to appreciate that our previous agreement might not be exactly what I want.”

  No, he was not doing this to her right now. Cleo tried not to panic as she kept her voice firm and her words succinct.

  “Well, it’s what I want,” she said curtly. “Discussion closed.”

  “Do you have to be so damned stubborn and difficult all the time?” he seethed.

  “Yes. Look where being easy got me. Knocked up and alone!”

  “You don’t have to be alone. I have decided that I would not mind sharing this experience with you.”

  “Tough! We don’t get convenient do-overs in life, Dante. This has been settled before, and just because you suddenly developed a latent paternal instinct doesn’t mean I have to accept that. You have absolutely no right to insert yourself in here like you have some kind of stake in all of this. Stop stalking me and get the hell out of my life.”

  “You know what?” he growled, taking hold of her arm firmly. “No.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. I said no. You’ve been calling the shots from the beginning. You sprang this on me, and I barely had time to think about what it all meant before there were papers being shoved at me to sign. Sure, it all sounded great at the time—just sign on the dotted line and for a small fee you and kid disappear as if neither of you had ever existed. No fuss, no mess.”

  “Legal documents being shoved at you without warning? That sounds remarkably familiar,” she said pointedly. “It’s no fun when the shoe’s on the other foot, is it?”

  “So what’s this, some kind of warped revenge? Punishment because I had the nerve to treat you like every other woman in my life? Because you’re so special, right? Not like all the other—”

  She held up a hand to stop him, and it worked, because his mouth clamped shut.

  “Let me stop you right there, Dante. I don’t have to hear any more of this. Stop trying to make yourself sound like some kind of victim. I presented you with the ideal solution to a problem I knew you didn’t want.” She backed away and folded her arms belligerently across her chest. Her eyes were challenging him to deny her words.

  “No, you presented me with a fait accompli. And why would I argue? I could continue to live my life as if none of this ever happened. But I can’t. This baby exists and I can’t ignore that.”

  His words were so eerily similar to the thoughts that had prompted her to have the baby that they made her pause and then panic. Her stomach plummeted to her feet and then back up into her throat until it took everything she had not to vomit on his stupidly expensive shoes.

  “You can’t have him,” she whispered. “He’s mine.”

  “He’s mine too.”

  “No, you signed those papers. He’s not yours; he’ll never be yours.” Her hand dropped to her abdomen defensively, and his eyes darkened at the movement.

  “I don’t want to take him from you, I just . . . I want to be there. I want to see him. I want to know him, and I want him to know me.”

  “What changed? How could everything just change overnight?” Her voice rose almost hysterically, and she felt Cal’s arm curl around her shoulder protectively.

  “Maybe you’d better get going, bud,” Cal warned.

  “This has nothing to do with you, Mr. Faris. It’s between Cleo and me.”

  “I want to know what’s changed!” she screeched, demanding to be heard and uncaring of the bystanders who paused on the street to glance at the unfolding tableau. If Dante Damaso insisted on doing this in public, then he would damn well get a scene.

  “I have!” he snapped. “I’ve changed. I can’t stop thinking about this baby. In my head she’s a dark-haired, green-eyed little princess in a pink tutu and white leggings, and she’s been toddling in and out of my dreams since Monday.”

  That made her pause and look at him. Really look.

  His tie was crooked, she noted absently, one white cuff stuck out slightly longer than the other, one of his shirt buttons wasn’t fastened, his hair looked like he’d repeatedly run his fingers through it all morning, and he’d cut himself shaving that morning. Dante Damaso looked . . . undone. He looked like a man who no longer had a handle on his life.

  “In my mind he has dark hair, your golden eyes, as well as your mouth and jaw, and he’s wearing the world’s smallest little sheriff’s uniform. He can’t walk yet, but he’s grinning a big, droolly, toothless grin.”

  They were both silent for a moment, and her shoulders dropped.

  “What do you want from me?”

  “I don’t know,” he admitted, which was quite a confession for the usually self-assured Dante Damaso to make. “I don’t think I’d be a great dad. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ll be lousy at it.”

  It so closely resembled her own fears about the type of mother she’d be that she was staggered by the lack of self-confidence from a man who always seemed to know exactly what to do.

  “But I was hoping to be . . . someone she knows?”

  “This is such a huge change of heart, Dante, and it isn’t at all what I want.”

  “I know that. I’m just asking that you allow me to properly take care of her, and that I get to see her sometimes.”

  “What does ‘properly take care of her’ entail?”<
br />
  “Trust fund, private schools, decent living conditions.”

  “No. You’re trying to dictate my life and the way I raise my child.”

  He just stared at her and kept his face frustratingly blank.

  “Does this have to be done right now?” Cal asked pointedly, and they both looked at him in surprise, having completely forgotten his presence. He rolled his eyes. “It’s starting to rain. And you, miss, have an appointment that you’re going to be late for.”

  “Oh, crap,” she muttered, before tossing a sideways glance at Dante, who stared back at her with an uncharacteristically hangdog expression.

  “Dante, you can’t show up here, tell me you’ve had a change of heart, and expect me to just be okay with that,” she said. “I don’t want you at my ultrasound. I don’t think I want to share something so . . . intimate with you.”

  “You’re having my kid, lady,” he reminded, and Cal snorted. “It doesn’t get much more intimate than that.”

  “Cal’s going in with me,” she maintained.

  “I don’t have to.” Cal shrugged. He kept his eyes on his nails and ignored the murderous glare Cleo threw at him. “I’m squeamish. Blood makes me nauseous.”

  “Blood?” Now Dante looked a tad green, and Cleo wanted to scream in frustration.

  “There’s no blood involved. Cal, you’re coming with me.” She pointed an assertive finger at Dante. “You can wait for us, I’ll . . . I’ll see if they can make you a copy of the DVD or something.”

  “You’d do that?”

  “Maybe.”

  What the hell am I doing here? Dante sat hunched in a small, uncomfortable plastic chair, surrounded by women in various stages of pregnancy. They were all openly staring at him, probably wondering why he was lurking about in an OB/GYN’s reception room without a pregnant woman nearby. He didn’t understand the thought process that had brought him here this morning. All he knew was that at random times over the past forty-eight hours, that tiny, toddling ballerina with the charming smile and sparkling green eyes had crept into his thoughts and had made him wonder, fantasize, and aspire to be more.

  But he wasn’t sure how much more he could, or wanted to, be. He and Cleo were strangers now forever bonded by circumstance. He couldn’t pretend that there was anything more than that between them. What he knew about the woman could fill a thimble, and he really had no wish to get to know her, but he had discovered a weird desire within himself to know that baby. As a result, he would have to find a way to work out an amicable arrangement with Cleo.

  He had closed more difficult deals than this in the past. Every problem had a solution, and he was confident he would find the solution for this problem too. He just had to find a way to convince Cleo that his way was the best course of action.

  If only he knew what the hell his way was.

  “He drives me crazy,” Cleo complained to Cal as she lay down on the examination table as per the ultrasound technician’s instructions.

  “Don’t think about him now,” Cal said. “You’re about to see your baby for the first time. Where’s your sense of awe and occasion?”

  Her eyes misted over at Cal’s words, and she felt guilty for her initial reluctance to have him join her for this. He sometimes said and did the perfect thing at the perfect time. She should be excited, she should be awed, she’d been waiting for this moment since she’d decided to keep her baby, and Dante Damaso was not going to ruin it for her.

  She reached for Cal’s hand, offering him a watery smile as the technician applied the cold gel to her abdomen and stomach. She sucked in a breath at the unpleasant sensation.

  “This is the transducer,” the technician, Julia, explained as she held up the wand. “I’ll run it over your tummy to capture the images. I’ll measure the fetus’s size today so that we can more accurately estimate the due date. We’ll check Baby’s heartbeat, make sure everything’s in order and . . . do you want to know the sex?”

  “No,” Cleo said, decisively. “I want to be surprised.”

  “No problem.” Julia smiled.

  “Don’t push down too hard with that thing, okay?” Cleo warned, and the other woman chuckled. “My bladder’s about to burst.” She wasn’t feeling very comfortable at all, thanks to all the water she’d had to drink over the last hour in preparation for the test.

  “You have no idea how often I get that warning,” Julia replied. “Are you ready?”

  “Yes.” Cleo nodded and watched as she lowered the wand. “Wait.”

  Julia’s hand stopped its descent just an inch away from her belly, and Cleo sighed. She was such a sucker.

  “Cal,” she whispered. “Maybe we should . . .”

  “You want me to fetch him?” Cal asked.

  “Would it be okay if we got someone else in here?” she asked Julia, whose eyebrows rose before she shrugged and nodded. “Cal, tell him he doesn’t get to speak. He gets to stand quietly at the door while I pretend he’s not there.”

  “Mature,” Cal muttered.

  “Shut up,” she responded without heat. It didn’t feel right to leave Dante sitting out there, even though she still didn’t want him involved in her pregnancy. She was so confused and really just acting on a gut instinct right now. After all, her own reaction upon learning of her pregnancy had also been disbelief followed by a complete and utter rejection of the very idea of a baby, but she’d changed her mind and nobody had judged her for it. Was it really so inconceivable that perhaps Dante also, after getting over the initial shock, now had similar feelings?

  He had signed papers basically renouncing his right to this child, but would it be fair to enforce that document? It wasn’t just Dante she had to consider. She had to do the mature thing and think about her baby as well. Surely having Dante around would do more good than harm?

  The door opened and Cal came in with Dante trailing meekly behind him. Cleo heard Julia’s breath catch slightly at the sight of him and felt a little sorry for her. Dante Damaso’s overwhelming physical presence was hard to take without advance warning. Just standing there, trying desperately to look timid and unassuming, he exuded sexual magnetism and supreme self-confidence. Seriously, it was like someone had set a leopard in among the house cats, and it turned Julia into a giggly girl.

  “Okay,” Julia squeaked, self-consciously pushing a strand of hair behind her ear. “Are we ready now?”

  “Yeah, go ahead.”

  “Right.” Julia was all business again, despite the flush highlighting her cheekbones. “Let’s see what we can see.”

  She shifted the wand about, pausing in some places, skirting over others, and Cleo, Cal, and Dante all stared at the monitor in fascination as the grainy image began to form right in front of their eyes.

  “Ah, there we go, beautiful . . . Look at that little heart beating away.” She pointed to a blurry, twitching smudge on the screen and smiled, taking a couple of notes before looking back up. “There’s the forehead. And down here’s where the nose is forming. Look at that little jaw and mouth.”

  It looked like nothing human to Cleo, and much as she squinted and twisted her head this way and that, the picture made no sense to her.

  “Looks like an alien.” Cal shrugged, unimpressed.

  “Are those arms and legs?” He Who Should Have Remained Silent asked.

  “Yes.” Julia pointed to a couple of white blobs on the monitor, and suddenly the image took shape and made sense to Cleo. She gasped and her hands flew to her mouth as she really saw her baby for the first time.

  “Oh my God.” The shaky exhalation came from Dante, who was staring at the monitor as an expression that could only be described as absolute wonder lit up his handsome features. His eyes drifted to Cleo’s and held them. He seemed to be telling her something, and in the midst of all the joy and awe, a distinct chill settled in Cleo’s chest. He looked determined. As if seeing the baby’s image had served to strengthen an unknown resolve. And for the first time, Cleo knew that if Dante decid
ed he wanted this child, no force in heaven or hell would stop him. All her precautions and cleverly worded legal documents meant nothing to a man with his resources.

  She felt like a complete fool for allowing him back into her life again.

  “She’s moving,” Dante was saying, his voice trembling slightly. “Jesus, look at her wriggle. I never imagined her moving around in there.”

  “Hey, look at the ribs! Are those ribs?” Cal asked, sounding a little more enthused now that he could see more.

  “Cristo,” Dante swore shakily. “It’s so much clearer than I’d imagined.”

  He had moved a lot closer and was standing right next to the bed, his eyes glued to the monitor and his face rapt.

  “Can you determine the gender from this scan?” Really, for someone who should have stood silently in the corner, he was starting to take over the appointment a little, and the only reason Cleo didn’t warn him to back off was because she was interested in the answer.

  “Sometimes we can tell at this age,” Julia said. “But with this one it’s a little hard to tell for certain.”

  “And everything’s okay?” he asked, his attention still riveted to the monitor. He barely bothered to glance at Julia while asking the questions.

  “Perfectly fine, from what I can tell. That right there is a beautiful, healthy, thirteen-and-a-half-week-old fetus.”

  “Thirteen and a half? Not fourteen?” he asked, and Julia nodded.

  Which meant that the baby had likely been conceived on their last or next-to-last night in Japan. He glanced up at Cleo, who caught his eye and shrugged.

  “So maybe she hasn’t been practicing her frowns yet. But she has all of next week to work on those.” His lips tilted upward at her words.

  “I’m thinking if it’s a girl, you may want to consider naming her Daisy,” he said, his eyes sparking with mischief, and she went fiery red as she recalled those damned Daisy Duck boy shorts he’d been so taken with that last night.