Page 6 of Baby Proposal
“Look.” She gets up and paces away. “I’m not saying yes, but… What would I have to do?”
“Attend events with me.” This emerges easily. I know what I want: her, by my side. All the time. When I have to do activities I find excruciating, or things I enjoy—possible exception on the murder of mafia goons who overstepped the lines of good taste—and her in my bed, every night, her thighs as my noise cancelling earphones. Pregnant with my child sounds like an excellent bonus I hadn’t really thought of until now, but hell yeah. One baby. Two. Seven. As many as she needs and an extra for luck.
“What sort of events?” she asks cautiously.
“There’s one in particular with some colleagues, rich men with their partners and occasionally their children.” The London Mafias Collaboration group is full of smug bastards like Grant Lambeth with adoring young wives and kids so cute you’d find them in the Japanese food aisles next to neatly packaged mochi. “It’s tedious.”
The aims are laudable—less killing, fewer kidnappings, more cohesive public transport.
“And you think that it would be better if you had a wife?”
Literally everything is better when Adi is around, so it stands to reason this would be too. I shrug. “I don’t find it acceptable on my own. You’d come with me and deal with some of the social stuff. You’d fit in. I don’t.”
She scoffs. “You’ve got totally the wrong idea. I don’t fit in with anyone.”
“You would with me,” I can’t help but say. “And the rest of the London Mafi…Maths Syndicate.”
“The London Maths Syndicate,” she repeats, a quizzical furrow in her brow.
“Yeah.” I thought that was a top-notch save, but Adi’s amused scepticism suggests not.
One major shock at a time. That I want her to marry me and have my babies is probably enough for a Monday afternoon. For revealing that I’m a ruthless mafia boss I’ll wait until a Tuesday morning, sometime right around… Never. “It’s my thing.”
Her eyes narrow. “I don’t think I’m qualified to be arm candy.” She plucks at her modest but well-fitted dress and I really fail to see the issue. “I’m your assistant, I can find an agency and—”
“You’re perfect.”
“But someone more—”
“You asked me what I wanted in return for giving you a baby, this is it,” I snap, then immediately feel bad as she recoils.
She regroups, biting her plush bottom lip as she thinks. “Okay. What else?”
“Live at my house.” I crave that. I thought seeing her at work would be enough. But now I’m imagining how this would be between us, I can see that even if we never progress past me taking care of her as my fake wife, and we parent our child together, I’d sleep so much better with her safe in my home.
“As your fake wife?”
“You only have to pretend to be my wife in public.” Those words are broken glass on my tongue. Pretend. Public. They’re reasonable, rational conditions to make this proposal more appealing. And although part of me wants to demand she act as my wife in private too, there’s a voice at the back of my head pointing out that I’ll need to remember this is a charade. Living my whole life as a lie isn’t healthy.
Neither is eating steak five nights a week, overdoing it in the gym so you can’t walk the next day, or murdering the thugs of rival mafia’s who are inconvenient, but that has never stopped me.
“How long for?”
Forever. I shrug. “Two years.”
Even I can make her fall in love with me in two years. Surely? Over the last six months electricity buzzes between us at unexpected moments. She’ll put a mug of tea down on my desk while I’m on the phone and I’ll have the sudden urge to pull her onto my lap and finger her to silent orgasm as I finish the conversation. Or we’ll lock eyes over an entirely unreasonable expenses claim she’s put in for shoes for her plants or something, and I’ll swear she’s leaning in, about to kiss me into compliance.
“Your magic potion is pretty expensive,” she replies lightly. “That or two years of my life are very cheap.”
“You’re notcheap, Miss Blake.” I have a lot of receipts to testify to that. “And would being married to a billionaire really be such a hardship?”
“Grumpybillionaire who also happens to be myboss. And you’re—”
“Minor details,” I cut her off. If I allow her to remember that I’m a lot older than her, or realise I’m the head of a London mafia, she’ll never marry me.
She bites her lip. “Two years as your wife in return for your being the father of my baby.”
“Yes.” I force the word out like the air is treacle. Having her is so close I can almost taste it. The salt. The sweet. That hint of orange in her perfume first thing in the morning, and the musk of her scent at nine in the evening when I’ve kept her working late with me for no better reason than to put off returning to my echoing luxurious apartment without her.
