“Then—”
Sudden tears welled in her eyes. “Please, can I wait until tomorrow?”
Emotion tightened his chest. He wrapped his arms around her and tucked her head back under his chin. “If that’s what you want.”
He couldn’t stop the race of his heart, though, as he contemplated what might be.
She pressed her hand to his chest and drew back, blinking up at him with amazement. “You’re excited. You really do want me to be pregnant.”
“So much that I’m afraid you’ll run screaming. And I can’t chase you,” he said wryly.
“You’re the most confounding man.” She dipped her forehead against his jaw with a flummoxed laugh, then kissed his chin. “Okay, then.” She rose and pulled on her light robe. “There are two in the box. If it says negative, I’ll try again in a couple of days.”
He came up on an elbow to watch her dig a purchase from her bag and disappear into the bathroom.
How long was he supposed to wait? He heard the toilet flush and water run. The silence after that was too much for him. He moved into his chair and went to the door, knocked.
“It’s open,” she said faintly.
He pushed in to see her sitting on the edge of the tub. There were tears and a wobbling smile on her face.
All the air was punched out of his lungs. He clumsily bumped his way closer and looked at the faint lines on the stick.
“I’ve never thought of myself as a lucky person, but...” The tears on her lashes were catching the light like glitter. “I feel really, really lucky right now.”
“Me, too. Come here.” He held out his arms and she scooted into his lap.
He didn’t know how to process the awe that gripped him. It was too big. Bigger than anything he’d ever experienced.
“Marry me,” he said.
She bit her trembling lips and nodded shyly.
CHAPTER SIX
Present day
FREJA SWAM THROUGH piles of rustling silk to sit up, fighting to catch her balance as the vehicle made a few quick turns. She grasped the armrest on the door to steady herself and flashed a malevolent look at Giovanni.
“I want a divorce.”
“Lock the doors,” Giovanni said to the driver as his incisive glance landed on her hand where she gripped the door.
The hard click of the door locks sounded and the SUV slowed for a light.
“Put your seat belt on,” Giovanni instructed her.
She conjured her filthiest look. She didn’t want him dead, not in her heart of hearts. She wasn’t that kind of person. But with her eyes she urged, Die.
He released a short-tempered sigh and started to unclick his own belt.
She shot up a staying hand to hold him off and resentfully buckled herself. She refused to look at him. Not when he was over there oozing even more sex appeal than ever with that scruffy beard and his massive shoulders straining the fabric of his black hoodie.
She gave the catch of the door a useless, furious pull and let it thunk back into place.
“I know you’re angry,” Giovanni said in a tight voice, as though it pained him to say it. “You have a right to be.”
“Do I?” Her choke of disbelief nearly spat her tongue onto the floor. What a colossal understatement! “It’s so nice of you to give me permission to have feelings. Do you know what I give you permission to do? Only two guesses since it’s only two words.”
“You’re not that surprised to see me, Freja. You knew I wasn’t dead.”
“Oh, that makes it all better then.” She yanked every last inch of her skirt onto her side of the seat, gathering it all into her lap so not one stray bead or thread touched him.
“I was in a coma—”
“Until today?” She was being sarcastic, but concern clawed through her, forcing her to look at him. His color was good and he seemed as vital and healthy as always.
“For a week,” he allowed. “Someone was trying to kill me. Everett—” he nodded at the man before him in the passenger seat “—had to make a decision about whether to let them believe they’d succeeded. There were other factors that kept me in hiding after that.”
One week. That was the only thing that Freja processed. He’d been unconscious for one week. He must have known she’d been in hospital herself, but hadn’t made an effort to come.
She looked out the window again, refusing to let him see her tears. She swallowed back the agony that ached in her throat, ready to choke to death on it before she let him see how badly he could still hurt her.
“If they’d known I was alive, you would have become a target.” Giovanni was using that awful tone that urged her to be reasonable. “I’ll explain when we get where we’re going.”
“Don’t bother. I don’t care,” she lied, looking at her small reflections in the sunglasses he was wearing. “You might not be dead, but anything I ever felt for you is. You feel the same or you would have turned up sooner.”
“I’m here now.”
“Yes, and I was assured it would be a quick, clean, no-fuss conversation to pick you up,” Everett said with a testy smile over his shoulder. “Why did you run?”
“Gosh, I don’t know. Fear of kidnapping?”
Despite the insulated interior, the sound of a siren penetrated. Before she could crane her neck to see whether it was the police and if they were in pursuit, the SUV ducked into the underground parking garage of a skyscraper. It stopped beside an open elevator flanked by two lean bodyguards.
Everett and the driver got out. The door was still locked beside her. She tried it despite the fact that the driver stood on the other side, ensuring she wouldn’t get very far even if she managed to exit that side.
“I’m taking you to my safe house,” Giovanni said. “We’ll talk there.”
“No, thank you.” She curled her hand around the strap of her seat belt where it crossed her chest.
The back of the SUV opened and Everett removed Giovanni’s wheelchair, then slammed it shut again.
“Look around you, Freja. You are coming with me. I’d rather it was your choice.”
“Are you listening to yourself? You’re not giving me one.”
“I’m not asking you to forgive me, only to trust me that this was necessary. For both of our safety.”
Her vision blurred with instant, furious tears. Helpless anguish. “I can never trust you. Do you realize that? How could you even suggest it?”