Page 27 of Modern Romance September 2025 1-4
‘You told me that you were raised to be a gentleman but that you don’t behave like one,’ she reminded him.
‘I’m also highly adaptable. All my life, I’ve had to be,’ he imparted, leading her through the parked cars, not to the front entrance as she had expected, but to a quieter side entrance. She heard the distant hum of voices and the clatter of china and cutlery. An older man greeted them and ushered them along a cosy panelled corridor into a very comfortable room with a beautifully set single table, two chairs and a big, cushioned sofa by the window. The fire in the old-fashioned fireplace was lit to ward off the autumn chill and decorated with pumpkin lights.
‘This is lovely, very seasonal,’ Bunny said warmly as they ordered drinks and the menus were presented. They both chose light bites rather than full meals. A private lunch date where they had their own room was unexpected but she assumed that once again Sebastian was conserving his privacy.
Sebastian fingered the tiny box in his pocket and breathed in deep. The server left the room. Sebastian looked at Bunny’s happy smiling face with satisfaction and then he rose upright before dropping down fluidly onto one knee. He was being traditional so he might as well go the whole hog, he decided with determination, even if his agile brain was already throwing up a cartoonish image of the old-fashioned gesture. He clicked open the box and extended it and said with all the gravity he could muster, ‘Will you marry me?’
CHAPTER EIGHT
BUNNY HAD NEVERbeen as shocked or unprepared for a surprise in her life. She leapt upright, wide-eyed and conscience-stricken. ‘Oh,no!’ she exclaimed in dismay. ‘Please don’t say anything more!’
Slanted ebony brows pleating in confusion, Sebastian slowly rose back to his feet and stared down at her in disbelief. ‘I wasn’t expecting you to immediately say yes but I did think you would be pleased. Instead, you’re staring at me as if I asked something untenable!’
‘Please sit down,’ she urged shakily. ‘Can I see the ring? Just out of sheer curiosity?’
Sebastian set the tiny box on the table. Bunny’s eyes were stinging, pain and guilt and a whole host of other emotions swimming around inside her and threatening to spill over into the tears that were all too ready to assail her in recent times. She didn’t need a doctor to tell her that her hormones were all roaring into pregnancy hyperdrive.
The ring was a glorious glittering diamond surrounded by emeralds in an art deco geometric shape. ‘It’s gorgeous,’ she whispered admiringly.
‘Did I say something wrong?’ Sebastian demanded in a raw undertone.
‘Sit down,’ Bunny urged. ‘I get dizzy when you stand over me.’
Lean bronzed profile taut, Sebastian sat back down in his seat.
Bunny leant forward and immediately reached for both of his hands. ‘Youknowthat you don’t really want to marry me.’
‘I beg your pardon,’ Sebastian challenged, sculpted jaw determined.
She squeezed his hands as if to demand his full attention. ‘Sebastian, I know how you feel about marriage. You don’t believe in it or in relationships or in couples or in love. Let’s talk plainly here,’ she murmured steadily. ‘You’re asking me to marry you either because you think youshouldbecause I’m pregnant or because you think it’s what I want and expect.’
‘Thank you for clarifying that for me.’ Sebastian spoke with sardonic bite.
‘I never thought you would be so impulsive.’
‘I miss you,’ he framed in a driven undertone. ‘It’s been six blasted weeks. I’m not being impulsive, I’m being practical.’
‘Practical isn’t proposing to a woman you were only with for two weeks.’
‘Two weeks, twenty-four-seven,’ he incised the reminder.
‘Marrying me would be a mistake for you. You don’t want to be trapped into something like that,’ she reasoned uneasily, a warm spot inside her spreading at his admission that he had missed her, had counted their weeks apart. ‘We could end up hating each other by the time this baby’s born, and splitting up always creates bad feelings, so co-parenting would be more difficult after a divorce.’
‘And to think that I believed you were Little Miss Sunshine and yet you have made only negative assumptions about me and what I could offer.’
‘You said you missed me…’ Bunny hesitated and then bravely pushed herself on to go out on a limb and spell it out. ‘Are you saying that you have feelings for me?’
She was literally hanging by her fingernails in the hope of an encouraging answer because that would have been a game-changer.
Instead, in a frustrated movement, Sebastian yanked his hands free of hers. ‘No, I’m not. I’mnotin love with you. I’ve never been in love and I don’t want to be. Love can be a nasty, twisted thing and I want nothing to do with it. But I do believe that I can love my child and that my child can love me. If we’re not together, though, I’ll hardly see that child and that worries me. I also find the idea of being parted from you while you’re carrying my baby even more worrying. I feel very strongly that we should be togethernow.’
Just for a moment, Bunny allowed herself to imagine how she would have felt if Sebastian had answered her differently, if he’d thrown out a few flattering lies and sprinkled them with stardust. Had he done that, she’d have bitten his hand off with eagerness to accept his proposal, but that wasn’t Sebastian’s way. He preferred brutal honesty. He didn’t make empty promises or feed her half-truths with a sting in their tail, like Tristram insisting that he loved her even after she found him with another girl and then telling her while she was packing up to leave him that she was boring and dull in bed.
‘You’re not prepared to marry me and take a chance on me, are you?’ Sebastian breathed in an almost savage undertone.
‘Not right now. It’s too soon and I’m not convinced you’ve thought it through in enough depth. I can imagine nothing worse than becoming your wife and then you changing your mind about wanting to be married.’ Well, actually she could, she reflected reluctantly. Sebastian walking away for ever would be the absolute worst scenario. And he would probably never ask her to marry him again and that was a thought that made her feel a little desperate and fear that she was her own worst enemy.
‘We could get engaged,’ she suggested in a sudden rush. ‘Try that for size first.’
