LITMIR.BIZ

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fury. “Not my intelligence, my judgment or my strength.”

      “Respected you?” she choked out. “I loved you. But I knew what was about to happen. I couldn’t let you drown with us. You had nothing—”

      “You’re right,” he said coldly. “I had nothing. No money. No influence. You knew I couldn’t pay for lawyers or speak to politicians on your behalf. So you decided I was useless.”

      “No.” She looked pale. “I just meant you had nothing to do with it—”

      “You were my fiancée. I had everything to do with it. I would have tried to protect you, to comfort you. But you never gave me the chance. Because you believed I would fail.”

      Her voice sounded strangled. “Darius—”

      He held up his hand sharply. “But now I have made my fortune. Everything has changed. And yet you still intended to disappear and keep my child secret from me for the rest of your life.” A new, chilling thought occurred to him. “What story did you intend to tell the baby, Letty?”

      “I don’t know,” she whispered.

      “What were you going to raise my child to believe? That he or she had no father? That I hadn’t wanted him?” An old childhood grief he’d thought long buried suddenly shook the ground beneath his feet, like an earthquake threatening to swallow him whole. “That I’d purposefully abandoned him?”

      “I don’t know!” Letty cried. “But you said you’d take the baby from me. I had no choice but to run!”

      Darius stared at the woman he’d known for most of his life. He’d loved her for such a short, sweet time. He’d hated her far longer.

      He himself had been abandoned by everyone who should have loved him as a child. His whole young life he’d never felt like he really belonged anywhere.

      And then there was Letty.

      He’d loved her so wildly, so truly, so recklessly. She had finally destroyed what was left of his heart. That had been Darius’s final lesson.

      He was determined that his child would never learn such a lesson.

      Darius’s jaw tightened. His child would be surrounded by love from the beginning. His son or daughter would have a solid place in the world and never doubt their worth.

      The blindfold of rage and hurt pride lifted from his eyes. He looked at Letty, and suddenly everything became crystal clear. Calm settled over him like rain.

      Their child needed both of them.

      For the last decade, he’d tried to forget about the Letty he’d once known. About her character. About her kind heart.

      He saw now that in Letty’s mind, her hurtful lies a decade before hadn’t shown disrespect, but love. She really had been trying to protect him. As she still was trying to protect her father.

      As she was trying now, in her own misguided way, to protect their child.

      Letty hadn’t betrayed him. She’d loved him, as recently as February, the night they’d conceived their child. Yes, she’d shown bad judgment ten years ago, lying to him, hiding the truth about her father. She’d continued to show bad judgment today, planning to run away with his child. A chill went down his spine to think of what might have happened if her father hadn’t called him today.

      But it wasn’t entirely her fault. Her love blinded her. It made her weak. And after the cold way he’d treated her, and his threats to take the child, he couldn’t blame her for being afraid.

      It didn’t make her a monster. It wasn’t enough of a reason to brutally separate her from their child. Not after he himself had known what it was to have no mother. No father. No real place in the world.

      Their baby would have both parents and a secure, settled home.

      Darius knew he had to rebuild Letty’s trust in him. He had to find a way to strengthen her occasionally faulty judgment with his own. If Darius was wiser, it was because he never allowed love to blind him. He always focused on the bottom line. So what was it here?

      The answer was simple.

      He had to make Letty his wife.

      It was the only way to properly secure their child’s future. It would guarantee the stability of two parents and a permanent home.

      And also, his body suddenly whispered, marrying Letty would permanently secure her in his bed.

      The thought electrified him. That settled it.

      “I misjudged you,” he said.

      Letty glared at him. “Yes!”

      “I treated you badly.”

      “You think?”

      “So let me make up for it now.” Leaning toward her on the sofa, Darius said, “I want you to marry me, Letty.”

      Her jaw dropped. “Marry you!”

      “I’ve realized now I blamed everything on you. It wasn’t your fault...”

      “No.”

      “It was your father’s,” he finished grimly. “He’s ruined your life. I won’t let him ruin our child’s.”

      Her eyes were wide as she put her hands over her large belly. “You’re crazy. My father loves the baby, just as he loves me!”

      “And what about the next time some thug decides to attack him? What if that man decides to hurt your father’s family instead?”

      Letty’s expression became troubled. Swallowing, she whispered, “That wouldn’t happen...”

      “No. It won’t. Because you and the baby will be miles away from Howard Spencer and safe with me.” He rose abruptly to his feet. “You will have to sign a prenuptial agreement...”

      “I won’t, because I’m not going to marry you.”

      She wasn’t joking or playing coy. She actually sounded serious.

      Darius stared down at her in confusion. So many women were dying to marry him, he’d assumed that Letty—jobless, penniless, faced with threats on all sides—would be thrilled at the thought of being his bride. “Of course you want to marry me.”

      “Marry someone I hate? Who hates me back? No, thanks.”

      He couldn’t believe she was trying to fight him when it was the only practical solution. He gritted his teeth. It was that idea of love, once again interfering with all common sense!

      “Have you thought this through?” Folding his arms, he regarded her coolly. “I could take you to court. Have you declared an unfit mother, selfishly placing our child at risk.”

      Letty rose to her feet in turn, matching him toe-to-toe, though he was bigger by a foot in height and at least sixty pounds of muscle. She narrowed her eyes. “You could try.”

      In spite of himself, he almost smiled. Another thing he’d forgotten about her character. She fought harder for others than she ever did for herself.

      “You really think you can handle a custody battle? You think there are waves of lawyers out there, willing to support Howard Spencer’s daughter pro bono, when all they’d get for their trouble is a lot of bad PR?”

      Her cheeks flushed, even as she lifted her chin defiantly. “We’ll see, won’t we?”

      But beneath her bravado, her expression was soft and sad. Her long dark ponytail gleamed in waves down her back, and his eyes strayed to the roundness of her belly and full breasts, voluptuous beyond belief. In this moment, Darius thought she looked like everything desirable in a woman—the perfect image of what any man would dream of in a wife.

      He suddenly imagined how she might look in court. Whatever her father’s sins, if she did find a good attorney,

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