Page 26 of Prognosis Baby Daddy

CHAPTER FIVE

KATYA blinked. Herhand stilled on her stomach. ‘What did you say?’

Ben couldn’t blame her for her shocked expression. He was kind of shocked himself. The whole morning had been one mind-bending revelation after the other. He certainly hadn’t come away this morning expecting to ask Katya to marry him. But his old-fashioned values, beliefs ingrained into him by his mother and his upbringing, overrode everything.

They were having a baby — it deserved to be legitimate. Even though his faith in marriage and family had been destroyed a decade ago. Even though Katya wanted nothing to do with the baby. The baby hadn’t asked to exist and it deserved no less than any other child. It deserved the right beginning.

‘I said, we should get married.’

Katya was lost for words. Had he gone completely mad? What the hell did marrying him have to do with the baby? The thought was as horrifying as it was tantalising.

‘You?’ she spluttered. ‘Bendetto Medici, the playboy count? Get married?’

He shrugged. ‘You’re pregnant. The baby’s mine. It may be old-fashioned but it’s the right thing to do.’

Katya blinked again. Old-fashioned? Try archaic! ‘In the Dark Ages, maybe.’

‘I’m a traditionalist.’ He shrugged again.

Bitter laughter bubbled in Katya’s chest and it was out before she could check it. It sounded harsh in the confines of the cabin. ‘This from the man who famously spent one of his leave periods from MedSurg dating every swimwear model he could locate?’

Ben could have been deaf and blind and still wouldn’t have missed her mocking tone. Her harsh judgment of him rankled. He was far removed from the man he used to be. ‘Dismissing me again, Katya?’

She stood up and pushed herself away from the lounge, putting some distance between herself and the dark, dangerous glitter of his eyes. She paced over to the window and looked out. This was crazy. Crazy! The Med shimmered and stretched out before her and she turned back lest her now settled stomach decided to change its mind.

‘No.’

She’d decided long ago, after witnessing her mother’s emotional destruction every time a relationship ended, that she’d be far better off without a man. She’d learned the hard way that true commitment and love were elusive and rare and she’d sworn to never settle for less.

Never marry for less.

Certainly not someone who felt it was his duty and responsibility. All or nothing. It had to be all or nothing. And she wouldn’t compromise, not even for the baby.

Ben wasn’t surprised. But he wasn’t deterred either. ‘Yes.’

Katya shook her head emphatically. He looked so sexy, pinning her to the deck with his brown-eyed stare. She shivered. She was pregnant and had just thrown up her entire stomach contents but when he looked at her, her toes curled. ‘No.’

The more she resisted, the more determined he became. ‘So, let me see,’ he said quietly, observing her hand-on-tummy stance, ‘you expect to have our baby then leave it with me with no legally binding contract? Nothing to say that the baby is mine? Do you want our baby to have my name, Katya?’

Katya let his words sink in. For all her planning, she hadn’t got that far. Did she? Did she want their baby to have its father’s name or hers? What was the point of Ben raising the baby, of her baby growing up in Italy with its father with all the financial security she could dream of, if the child had her name?

Whether she liked it or not, she was carrying a Medici in her belly. Wasn’t it this baby’s birthright to claim its father’s name?

‘We don’t have to marry to give this baby your name.’

‘No, but it makes everything a hell of a lot easier. It legitimises this baby’s birth better than any other legal process. Both in the eyes of the people and the law. I don’t want there to ever be any questions about this baby’s paternity. It has rights to my title and the Medici fortune. Everything has to be above board and a marriage is the simplest, easiest way to achieve this.’

Ben finished, congratulating himself on such clear thinking. He wasn’t actually sure of the legalities concerning illegitimate children and the line of succession but, considering how rattled he was, he was surprised he’d been so comprehensive. Suddenly, though, every word he spoke was important.

Part of him, the one percent that wasn’t horrified, the one percent traditionalist, was already completely committed to this baby. Katya Petrova was pregnant with his child.

His child.The Medici heir.

And whether it was the male in him or the Italian in him, that meant something. When he had been young and foolish and in love with Bianca he had imagined himself with many children. Had anticipated it, eagerly. Then life had happened and his dream had been destroyed but now, whether he liked it or not, his dream was becoming a belated reality. And he had to face his responsibilities.

Katya blinked. She knew the words he had spoken were the truth. She wanted her child to be legitimate too. She didn’t want there to ever be any doubt or whispers. She thought about the whispers she had grown up with. The neighbours who had disapproved of her mother’s lifestyle. Five children with no fathers.

The gossip. The judgmental stares.

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