A REASON FOR MARRIAGE

At that moment he could have knocked Sara down with a feather. She just looked at him. He read her in an instant.

“Did you really think I was going to go on living here and have you living a separate life in another part of the city?”

His eyes glittered and he was so close now that Sara could touch him if she wanted. But right now, for the first time, she didn’t want to. She backed away.

“Yes, I did think that. We’ve never discussed this, Simon. I told you I was happy with no commitment. But just…not like this…”

That panicky feeling was surging back, a painful vice like feeling around her heart. He made her feel so confused, so mixed up.Contentt bel0ngs to N0ve/lDrâ/ma.O(r)g!

“That was before you got pregnant. Things are different now.”

“But I don’t want that. My God,” she breathed as she finally saw what he had been doing. The suspicion she’d had when she’d seen the car, the way it had made her feel, surged back to haunt her now. “The car, the apartments…You’ve been planning this all along, haven’t you?”

“Well, one of us has to face the reality, Sara. Tell me, how do you see the future for you, me and our baby?”

“I see me going home as soon as I can, and you can visit whenever you want.”

Her voice sounded high and constricted to her ears. At that moment she also knew that any feelings about her precious independence being threatened were so flimsy it was laughable. To acknowledge that fact now made her feel even more exposed. If her independence, which she’d guarded so zealously after her break up with Bruce, could so easily be forgotten, then what did that mean?

He advanced and she backed away. This was exactly what she didn’t want to look at; she didn’t want to have to clarify her feelings. She knew now that was why she’d craved the physical contact so badly. She’d sensed he had an agenda. He’d been intent on weaving her into the fabric of his life with an ease that scared her. He was threatening the very foundation of her life, the life she’d built so carefully after Bruce.

She shook her head, begging him silently to understand. “Can you honestly tell me that when I’m like a beached whale, you’ll still be happy with me in your life? That when we have a screaming baby waking every hour on the hour for feeds, that you’ll not regret failing to maintain your independence?” His relentless advancing goaded her further, making her lash out. “Or perhaps you’re planning on keeping this apartment and having it for your mistresses? Well, I won’t stand for that, either.”

He finally caught up with her and grabbed her arms in his hands; they burned through the thin material, and it was only then that Sara became aware of how she was still dressed in his shirt and tie. It mocked her now, the thought that she could have used the physical to avoid talking about this.

“Dammit, Sara, I won’t live up to the box you want to put me in. I have no intention of taking a mistress. I was going to move out of this place.” He laughed harshly, and the sound grated on Sara’s nerves. “I never thought I’d say this, but for the first time in my life, I’ve even been contemplating marriage-you’ve made me believe that perhaps it can be amazing for me. So I’ve been bending over backwards to try and show you that we can have a life together, that we can have something that’s not just about sex. I’m prepared to commit to you, but you won’t even give the thought of family life a chance, not even for our child,”

Sara was starting to shake. His words…What was he saying? It was too much for her to deal with. “But you…you are…. You like being single. You don’t do this. How can you want this?” A treacherous flutter of hope mocked her loudly amidst the panic.

“When you’re the woman and you don’t?” he asked caustically. He laughed then, harshly, his hands still around her arms.

Every small hair seemed to stand on edge along Sara’s skin. She saw his eyes drop to take in her attire, and her breasts felt heavy and sensitive. She’d thought he’d killed her desire with all his words and scary rationale, but now it was flaming back, yet she wanted to fight it. But Simon, it seemed, had other ideas.

His mouth was a cruel line. “It seems an awful pity to waste this, after all.” He ran a long finger around her jaw and down to the pulse beating hectically in her throat.

“No, Simon, not like this; you don’t want this.”

“Don’t I?” He arched a cynical brow. “You seem to know me so well, Sara. You think that I’d be turned off by your pregnant, blooming body, or that I’d hate to hear my own baby call for food, that I’d hate to take it in turns to do night feeds to give you a break. That I’d grow tired of domestic life, that I’d keep this place to house my mistresses. As you seem to know me so well, perhaps you’ll also know that I’m done with talking. I’m done with trying to show you another side to this relationship when clearly all you’re interested in is physical gratification. It never went beyond that for you, did it?”

Before Sara could take in his words, before she could formulate anything, even a thought, as the hurt rippled through her, he brought his hands to the tie and pulled it open and off in a fluid move. Then he brought his hands to her shirt, his shirt, and calmly, without violence, ripped it open. Sara gasped as the air whistled over her naked breasts and buttons popped and fell to the floor, scattering loudly.

“Right now, I’m also done with denying myself what you’re so generously offering.”

With that Simon hauled Sara’s semi-naked body into his, one hand around her back, the other spearing through her hair as his mouth drove down onto hers, taking and plundering. Her world became a ball of fire that she couldn’t step away from, even though she knew it was going to burn her badly.