she asked cautiously, “What’re you asking for?”
“Not much. Just that if the paternity test proves that I’m the father—”
“Which it will,” she interrupted.
“If it does,” he said through clenched teeth, “I want you to marry me.”
Of all the things she’d thought he’d say, that wasn’t one of them.
She hadn’t been expecting that.
“YOU WANT...WHAT?” Shay was trying to process what Dante had said and she wasn’t sure that she completely understood him. “Could you repeat that?”
“I said that if the paternity test proves I’m the father I want you to marry me.” There was no smile on his face, no glint in his eye letting her know that he was joking, because he had to be joking, right? Men just didn’t ask women they’d slept with once to marry them, did they?
“That’s what I thought you said, but then I was thinking that there was no way you could be asking me that.” She tried to move past him, because this was a bit crazy. This was not the Dante she remembered, the Dante she knew.
You don’t know Dante, remember?
And she didn’t. Usually she knew the men she slept with a bit better, but when she’d been in Oahu she’d thrown caution to the wind when she’d succumbed to Dante’s kiss.
Even now, standing here in front of him, she had a hard time trying to forget the way his arms had felt around her. The way he’d whispered cara in her ear.
This reaction to him is why you’re pregnant in the first place.
“Well, I’m not asking you,” he said.
“You’re crazy.” She tried to leave.
He stepped in front of her to block her. “I’m not asking you, Shay. I’m telling you. If I’m the father, we will get married.”
What?
“You’re telling me?” She cleared her throat. “Seriously?”
Dante nodded. “Yes. You will marry me.”
Shay tried not to laugh at the absurdity of it. This was not real life.
“And what about the paternity test you’re so adamant I take?”
He glared at her. “I only want marriage if the test proves I’m the father.”
“And if it doesn’t?” Which was absurd. She hadn’t been with anyone since him, and before him there’d been no one else for a long time.
“Won’t it?”
She crossed her arms, glaring at him. Suddenly she was having a hard time finding him charming. Sexy, yes, but charming—heck, no. More annoying than anything.
“You’re the father,” she replied icily.
“Then you will marry me once we receive the results.”
She snorted. “How romantic.”
“Nothing about this is romantic, cara.” The endearment he used on her, his voice still deep and rich. She could hear that whisper in her ears: cara.
“Do you love me?” she asked point-blank, shaking those thoughts from her head.
He cocked his eyebrows. “This has nothing to do with love.”
“So the answer is no,” she said.
“Were you expecting me to say yes? Other than one week together, we don’t know each other.”
“Exactly, so why would I marry you?”
He frowned. “To give our child legitimacy. A stable home. The guarantee that it will have two parents. This is a business arrangement for the sake of the child.”
The premise of giving her child a good home life was very tempting, but she knew how this played out. She’d been that child after all and she wouldn’t put her child through that. Through the resentment, bitterness and heartache. To the point that her father had walked away and didn’t even want to see her again.
No, she didn’t want that for her baby.
She didn’t want her baby to feel that pain. Only he seemed to really want this baby and her father had never wanted her.
Another parent involved, especially a stationary one, means you can pursue assignments anywhere in the world.
“I’m not going to marry you,” she said. “I’m here to work.” She tried to leave the room, but he stepped in front of her, grabbing her by the arm, his dark eyes blazing.
“I don’t think you know what you’re talking about.”
“I think I do,” she snapped, shrugging her arm out of his grip.
“So I’m not to have access to my child?” he demanded.
“I never said that.”
“You won’t marry me. So that means I won’t see this child. You’re only in Italy for twelve weeks. Then what happens? You won’t even be here when our child is born.”
“Dante, I’m not denying you access to your child. I want you to be part of his or her life. We don’t have to get married to raise this child. We don’t even need to live in the same country.”
He opened his mouth to say more when his pager buzzed. He looked down. “Incoming trauma, dannazione. This conversation isn’t over.” He stormed out of the room, his white lab coat billowing out behind him from his long strides. He was a force of nature to be reckoned with.
Shay breathed an inward sigh of relief, because for now she was able to get a breather, but she knew that this was probably far from over.
Dante stuck his head back into the room. “Are you coming, Shay? There is incoming trauma and you’re to be my nurse for the next twelve weeks. I need you by my side.”
By his side.
Only she wasn’t sure she was going to survive the next twelve weeks. By the way things were going she was either going to kill him or fall in love with him.
And succumbing to the passion, the desire, she felt for him was not an option. Neither was falling in love.
She had to guard her heart.
Shay was not her mother and wouldn’t be easily persuaded by loving a man. This was her life and she was going to live by her own wit.
“Of course.”
She shook her head; she had to get back in the game and focus on her work here. This was her job and, when she’d found out that she was pregnant after one night of forbidden passion, she’d sworn that she wasn’t going to let the pregnancy interfere with her job performance. She was a damn good nurse practitioner and simulation trainer. And that wasn’t going to change.
Even though she was starting to blossom and her center of gravity was shifting, she was able to keep up with Dante’s quick pace as they navigated the hallways through the hospital. He finally slowed down when they entered the trauma ward, where there was a flurry of activity. Shay could see water ambulances outside a set of automatic doors, where they were bringing in stretchers of patients.
“What happened?” Dante asked in Italian, that much she understood. The man spoke quickly and then pointed to where Dante was needed.
“Shay, this way,” Dante called, waving his hand and directing her to follow him.
They entered a private treatment bay, where a man lay seriously wounded.
“He’s American. Your presence