Page 42 of A Diamond for My Forbidden Bride

He stared at me a long moment, emotions I didn’t understand flickering in his black eyes, a muscle leaping in his strong jaw.

Then he carefully put down the bottle of sunscreen and, without a word, turned on his heel and walked out.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Valentin

ACHILD. SHEREALLYwanted a child.

I sat in my office, trying to work yet finding myself staring sightlessly at the computer screen once again.

I hadn’t expected her to be so certain about it, though on reflection maybe I should have. As I’d already discovered, she was driven and ambitious, and Wintergreen was important to her. She’d worked hard to get where she was now and, as she’d told me, it was a family company and she needed a child to pass it on to, as her father had passed it on to her.

All of that was very logical.

The thought of children was...difficult. My genes were tainted through and through, and as for being a father...impossible. I couldn’t be any kind of parent, not when I didn’t know the first thing about being a good father. After all, it wasn’t as if I’d had any good role models.

Still, I shouldn’t have had a problem with her ‘giving’ herself a child, which I assumed meant IVF. Except I did have a problem. The moment she’d mentioned it, something inside me had twisted hard in denial. Almost as if I’d wanted her to havemychild which, naturally, I didn’t.

I shouldn’t have walked out on her, though. I should have agreed and then put the sunscreen away and done what I’d been wanting to do ever since I’d seen her lying naked on the sun-lounger: celebrated our agreement by making her scream with pleasure.

But I hadn’t.

I swivelled my chair round to look out of the window, where a glorious sunset was happening outside. However, I didn’t see the colours. All I could see was her grey eyes, full of heat from my touch and yet equally full of steel.

She’d grown formidable, my Olivia. And we were at an impasse.

The same kind of impasse you had with Domingo.

A strange dread sat in my gut, along with a hot thread of anger.

This wasn’t how I’d thought it would go. I’d thought that eventually, once she’d got over her anger at me for my supposed death, she’d remember what we had and fall into my arms. I’d thought a week, tops.

A week hadn’t passed yet, but nothing was proceeding as I’d planned, and I was now in uncharted territory.

Did you really think it would be that easy?

The dread grew stronger. I didn’t want to compromise, I didn’t want to give in. My will had had to be diamond-hard in order to combat Domingo’s, and I found it was difficult when anyone went against it.

But she’s a diamond too. And one of you has to make the first move.

It was true. I’d seduced the girl, but it was the woman who was in charge. And all the qualities I’d seen in her all those years ago—the courage, strength and stubbornness—had crystallised and hardened into that veneer.

She wasn’t ripping off that veneer for me, though. Every time I thought I was getting close to her, down it would come.

I stared at the sunset flaming in the sky, my thoughts ticking over.

How could I get beneath it? How could I reach the heart of her?

Why do you want to so badly?

Because I loved her, of course. Why else? And I wanted her to love me. But until she lowered her guard that wasn’t going to happen. I wanted her passionandher heart, yet I wasn’t quite sure how to get them.

As I’d already thought, she didn’t trust me. And letting her take the initiative today had only resulted in yet another business proposition. But I didn’t want a business proposition, I realised. I didn’t want her to marry me because I was going to pay her debts and give her a child.

I wanted her to marry me because she loved me, and that hadalwaysbeen my goal.

Which meant I needed to get serious about this.

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