LITMIR.BIZ

      Marry him? For real?

      How could she?

      Even if Darius no longer hated her, he certainly didn’t love her. And she was starting to fear she could love him again. Perhaps all too easily.

      What hope could they have of happiness?

      He’d never love her back. All he wished to do was possess her. He offered sex and money, and in return, he’d expect sex and total devotion. For her, those things went together. He wouldn’t have just her body, but her soul.

      So why was she still so tempted?

      She shivered, caught between fear and desire.

      “Are you cold?” he asked huskily, his eyes dark.

      “No, I… I…” Hugging her baby bump, she gasped, “I need some fresh air.”

      He smiled. “Come with me.”

      Still holding her hand, he led her through the moon-bathed penthouse, and she thought dimly how she was getting in the habit of following where he led. But with his hand enveloping hers so protectively, she didn’t want to do anything else.

      She still couldn’t believe what he’d done, announcing their engagement, defending her in front of all those people—and then telling the world he intended to pay billions of dollars of his own money to repay what her father had stolen.

      She’d been dazed. Then she’d danced with him, the same routine he’d helped her learn so long ago, and she’d been back in that spring meadow, practicing the waltz not for the pimply-faced Harvard boy, who was the nephew of her father’s lawyer, but for Darius, always for him, only for him. As they’d danced in the ballroom, she’d felt time melt away.

      Darius was right. She was his. From the very beginning, Darius Kyrillos had been the only man she’d ever wanted. The only man she’d ever loved.

      I don’t love him anymore, she told herself desperately. She wouldn’t let him buy her!

      Darius led her up an elaborate staircase, then pushed open a glass door that led out onto a private rooftop garden.

      Letty gasped at the beauty of the ivy-covered pergola decorated with fairy lights near a lit lap pool gleaming bright blue in the warm September night.

      Above them, distant stars sparkled like diamonds across a dark velvety sky. Past the glass walls of the terrace, the night skyline of Manhattan glittered.

      She kept her distance from the edge, afraid to go too close. But Darius went right to it. He leaned against the short glass wall, totally unfazed and unafraid of plummeting seventy floors to his death. He looked out at the city.

      Letty crept closer, her heart pounding. “This terrace is amazing.”

      “All the flowers remind me of home,” he said simply. She wondered if he meant Greece or Fairholme, but didn’t have the nerve to ask. She slowly turned her head, marveling at the lavish beauty of a rooftop garden that treated all of Manhattan as nothing but a backdrop.

      “You’re king of the mountain now,” she said softly. “Looking down on a valley of skyscrapers.”

      Turning to her, he came forward. Then he abruptly fell to one knee in front of her astonished eyes.

      Reaching into his tuxedo jacket pocket, he pulled out a small black velvet box.

      “Rule it with me, Letty,” he said quietly. “As my wife.”

      Shivering, she put her hand on her heart. “I already said…”

      “You said yes when you thought I’d back out. This is a real proposal. I expect a real answer.” He held up the black velvet box. “Letty Spencer, will you do me the honor of marrying me?”

      He opened the lid. Inside the black velvet box was an enormous pear-shaped diamond set in platinum. It was the hugest, most outrageous ring she’d ever seen.

      But that wasn’t what made her lose her breath.

      It was Darius’s face. His dark, yearning eyes. As he looked at her in the moonlight, she saw the man who’d just bruised her with the intensity of his kisses. Who’d just defied all of Manhattan and paid five billion dollars for her. The man whose child she carried.

      In his eyes, she saw the shadow of the younger man she’d once loved, strong and kind, with such a good heart. The one who’d loved her so fervently. They were the same.

      Letty’s heart skipped a beat.

      It’s an illusion, she told herself desperately. He’s not the same. But as she reached out and brushed her fingers against the diamond engagement ring, it sparkled like the stars. Like the lights of this powerful city.

      Like the smolder in Darius’s dark eyes.

      “It would destroy us,” she said shakily, but what she really meant was it would destroy me.

      Darius slowly rose in front of her, until his tall, powerful body towered over hers. Waves of blue light from the pool reflected against him as the warm wind moved across the water. Putting his hand on her cheek, he lowered his head.

      “Say yes,” he whispered. “Say you’ll be mine.”

      His kiss was tender at first. She felt the rough warmth of his lips, the gentle hold of his arms.

      Then his grip tightened. His embrace became hungry, filled with need. Spirals of heat twisted through her body, and she gripped his shoulders. Until he pulled away.

      “Say it,” he demanded.

      “Yes,” she choked out.

      A flash of triumph crossed his starkly handsome face. “You will?”

      She nodded, tears in her eyes.

      “There will be no going back,” he warned.

      “I know.” She tried to ignore the thrill that crept into her heart. Excitement? Terror?

      Right or wrong, disaster or not, there was nothing to be done. What he’d said was true. She’d always been his. In many ways, this decision had been made for her long ago.

      He slid the diamond ring over the third finger of her left hand. It fit perfectly. She looked down at it, sparkling in the moonlight. “How did you know my ring size?”

      “It’s the same ring.”

      She frowned. “What?”

      “It’s the same I bought for you ten years ago.” His voice was low. “I had it set with a different stone.”

      The thought that he’d kept their original ring all these years made her heart ache. Whatever he might say, didn’t that mean he might still care for her, at least a little?

      Could love, once lost, ever be regained?

      Looking at him with tears in her eyes, she breathed, “Darius…”

      “You’re mine now, Letty,” he whispered, kissing her forehead, her eyelids, her cheeks. “You belong to me. Forever.”

      Then

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