Page 49 of A Convenient Ring to Claim Her

“I’ve made a decision.” He moved to top up his glass. “I’m not going to make children, either.”

“What—? That’s a pretty big decision, especially for a man in your position. And there’s no danger for you, physically. Unless you’re concerned something of your father would be replicated in your child? You and Yasmine both turned out to be kind, upstanding human beings. I think his behavior was more nurture than nature. Don’t feel like you have to nip off your branch. I don’t think it’s diseased.”

“I’m not suggesting that. Yasmine can have all the kids she wants and they can inherit an appropriate share of the company. That’s fair and right. But I told her she shouldn’t let my family benefit from the fact that my father never suffered the consequences of his actions. I meant it. If my aunt wants so badly to see her brother’s bloodline continue, she can ask Yasmine very nicely if she’s willing to do so, but I won’t produce children for the sole purpose of ensuring his DNA maintains possession of all he acquired. That’s wrong.”

“You could have children because you want them,” she pointed out. “And they just happen to inherit all this. You feel one way now, but you don’t know how you’ll feel in the future.”

“Excuse me, Quinn,” he said with heavy irony. “But are you trying to say I’m not capable of knowing my own mind and making my own decisions around reproduction?”

She bit her lip, chastised, but amused. “You know I hate it when you throw my own words back at me.”

“That’s why I do it.” He took another generous swallow from his frosted glass. “It’s not as impulsive as it sounds. The pressure from my aunt has always bothered me, probably because you’ve drilled into me what an archaic system progeniture is. My own father didn’t want to be a father. He accidentally got my mother pregnant and married her because his mother said she might be carrying his potential heir.Potential. If I’d been a girl, there would have been a quiet divorce and she would have been raised in Canada with a lot less baggage to carry around and none of the responsibility I shoulder. Then, because I was his heir, my father used that fact to push my mother out of my life. She wasn’t deemed good enough to ‘prepare’ me for this life. Can you imagine what sort of sociopath I would be if I hadn’t had her and Eden? So no. I refuse to make children knowing they would have to bear the weight of these same expectations.”

She watched him pace a few steps, not knowing what to say.

“Having said that...” He paused and looked straight at her. “If you wanted to foster or adopt, I’d be open to it. I think you’d make an incredible mother. I don’t know what kind of father I’d make, though. Better than my own, I would hope.” His brow furrowed in contemplation.

Her heart melted into a puddle inside her chest. She opened her mouth, but still couldn’t find words. Her eyes were blurring.

A week ago, he had proposed and she had thrown up a wall of defensiveness, terrified at the prospect. Now she knew herself deeply in love with him. If she hadn’t been, this little speech of his would have done it.

“Micah, why did you offer me those rings?”

She didn’t expect him to say he loved her, but maybe she hoped he would. Maybe that’s why she was holding her breath.

His expression grew somber. He sat down and set aside his glass, letting his hands hang loosely between his knees as he leaned forward with his elbows on his thighs.

“We’re good together, Quinn. You know we are.” He held her gaze with magnetic force. “I want to be together, every day. Otherwise, I’ll be worried you’re being run down by some other idiot who isn’t paying attention. Is there some other man you’re anxious to be with? Because I’m the one you keep coming back to. I want to make it official. That’s all.”

No words of love, then, but according to him, love was just something that looked pretty on a greeting card anyway.

She wanted to tell him that love was actually something that licked inside you like flames. It was a hungry fire that she knew would only smolder and make her feel acrid if she didn’t see him every day to keep it bright and warm.

She couldn’t say the words, though. She didn’t want to see his pitiful look at her deluding herself that it existed.

She left her seat and let her knees touch the floor between his feet.

As he blinked in surprise, she cupped the side of his face. “Micah, will you marry me?”

His nostrils pinched as he drew in a sharp breath. His cheekbones seemed to stand out tautly. A dozen emotions flickered across his face, each gone faster than she was able to interpret, but the hot satisfaction at the end lingered. The tenderness that shone from his eyes bathed her in the sweetest, softest, warmest light.

“That scream you just heard was my sister starting to plan our wedding. C’mere.” He gathered her into his lap and kissed her.

They spent two weeks on his yacht where Quinn diligently did her exercises and rehabilitated her arm with some lazy swimming. When they detoured through Bellagio on their way to Lucille’s birthday in Canada, Quinn was pronounced by Dr. Fabrizio “better than new.”

Micah breathed a sigh of relief, but he then had his mother’s dinner to endure.

It began with an ecstatic Eden running out to embrace both of them, over the moon about their engagement.

Yasmine had been invited and waited on the porch with Remy and his mother. Lucille was equally teary and welcoming. Yasmine beamed widely and hugged them both.

Remy was far more circumspect. He nodded at Micah and greeted Quinn with what looked like genuine warmth. They all trailed inside where the women were soon chattering bridal showers, engagement parties and wedding plans.

“Just a wedding,” Quinn insisted. She explained that she had decided to put her PhD on hold. “There’s an interesting opportunity at the Canadian embassy in Berlin that I’ve put in for. Even if I don’t get that one, now that I see what might be available if I look, I’d rather work for a few years, then go back for my doctorate.”

“Before the babies start coming,” Lucille said brightly.

Micah stepped in before Quinn had to respond to that.

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