Page 31 of Italian Baby Shock

It wasn’t an order. It was a request, so Lark did, settling herself in the chair. She expected him to go around the desk and sit in the chair behind it, but he didn’t.

Instead, he came over to the desk and leaned back against it, folding his arms and looking down at her. He was very close, the warmth of his body and his scent making her mouth go dry.

She really had to get it together. He was going to start making proclamations and demands, she was sure, and she couldn’t let him. Because once he started doing that, she’d be left carrying along in his wake, and she couldn’t afford that. Not when she had demands of her own.

‘I know what you want,’ she said determinedly, before he could speak. ‘You want to take Maya to live with you in Italy. At your palazzo presumably. And you want to bring her up as a Donati.’

Cesare opened his mouth, but she held up a hand. ‘Let me finish please.’

He shut it.

‘I can’t fight you on this,’ she went on. ‘I don’t have the resources, the connections or the power, and to be honest, it’s better for Maya if I don’t fight you. I know what it’s like whenparents are fighting each other and it’s always the children that get caught in the middle.’

A strange expression crossed his face at that, but he didn’t speak.

‘I also know that Maya will have much better opportunities if she lives with you. She’ll have room to run and play, she’ll be safe. She’ll have a home of her own rather than a rented flat and a mother struggling to make ends meet.’

Cesare opened his mouth again, but Lark shook a finger at him. ‘I haven’t finished.’

He shut it, but this time there was a glint of amusement in his eyes. She didn’t trust it, but there wasn’t anything else to do but go on. ‘So, I’ll agree that you should take her back to Italy to live, on one condition.’ She stared at him fiercely. ‘There will be no negotiation on this and I won’t accept anything less. And if you want to honour the promise you made to me that you wouldn’t take her away from me, you’ll agree to this.’

He still looked amused, damn him, but all he did was make ago ongesture.

Lark took a breath. ‘I will be coming too. Now, I don’t care what you think of that or of how you’ll find accommodation for me, but that’ll be your problem. I will be coming with Maya because I’m her mother and she needs me. I won’t accept separate accommodation from her and I will absolutely not be paying you any money for rent or board or—’

‘Lark,’ Cesare interrupted finally, his mouth curving. ‘Will you allow me a word?’

‘If you’re going to tell me that you’re not—’

‘Lark,’ he repeated, more gently this time. ‘I agree.’

All the justifications and reasons she’d prepared about why he had to accept her offer flew abruptly out of her head. She gaped at him. ‘You what?’

‘I agree,’ he said again. ‘You’re right. I do want to take her to Italy and bring her up as a Donati at the palazzo. And you’re also right that she needs you at her side. A fight is the last thing I want between us, and I’ve already been planning to bring you with me to Rome. You will live at the Donati palazzo too and of course I won’t demand any money from you.’

She’d been expecting to fight, to have to dig in her heels, and for a moment Lark couldn’t think of a word to say.

‘You...you won’t?’ she said at last.

‘No.’ He shifted against the desk and this time the glitter in his eyes wasn’t only amusement, but something else. Something hotter. ‘However, I do have a demand of my own.’

A thread of what felt suspiciously like anticipation coiled inside her, as if she was excited by the thought of whatever he was going to demand of her.

You like fighting him as much as he likes fighting you.

Of course, she did. The freedom she had with him to be angry was something she’d never had before, and yes, she liked it. Very much.

She caught her breath, trying to ignore the delicious shiver that crept over her skin. ‘Oh? And what’s that?’

Cesare smiled. ‘I want you to marry me.’

Shock wound through her. That was...not what she’d expected him to ask. ‘You want me to marry you?’ she repeated stupidly.

‘Sí.’More amusement glittered in Cesare’s blue gaze, yet there was also the steel in it. This was something he would not be moved on. ‘You’re Maya’s mother and I’m her father, and I think the whole thing would work best if we were married.’

‘But...you can’twantto marry me.’

‘Not in the traditional sense, no,’ he agreed, and why that should catch at her like a thorn, she had no idea. ‘But in a legal sense I think it’s absolutely necessary. Maya would have myname and so would you, which would give you resources and protection in case anything should happen to me.’

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