Page 17 of Bound By Her Shocking Secret

With an effort, he pushed the rogue memories down deep. That was the past. They were dealing with the present and the future, and Daniel was sure that the madness that had existed between them before would be well burnt out by now. It couldn’t still exist.

Yet your blood hums even now. And you can’t take your eyes off her.

He scowled.

Mia was taking a step back, shaking her head. ‘I am not marrying you, Daniel. It’s a ridiculous suggestion. I shouldn’t be surprised, though—the last thing the Devilliers brand will want is a child and an ex-lover hanging about on the margins. Much neater to marry and incorporate us into your world.’

‘And what about Lexi? Doesn’t she deserve to be part of her inheritance?’

Mia was agitated now, with colour in her cheeks. ‘I wouldn’t dream of denying her her inheritance. She can even have your name if she decides that she’d like that when she’s old enough. We don’t love each other, Daniel, and I know how you feel about having a family. So I won’t go along with a charade just to help keep your world neat and tidy. Lexi deserves more and I deserve more.’

Daniel snorted. ‘Since when did you turn into a romantic who wanted a perfect picket fence existence?’

Mia’s cheeks went pinker. ‘Maybe since I had a baby and my priorities changed. I’m under no illusions about what to expect from relationships, Daniel—believe me. But I want more for my daughter than to be a single parent with an absent father. At least she will know who you are and have some kind of relationship with you.’

She put down her glass and turned as if she was going to leave. With two steps Daniel put his hand on her arm, stopping her. He took his hand away, seriously afraid that he might haul her against his body and stop her speaking such nonsense by putting his mouth on hers.

‘So you’re telling me you’d marry someone else, but not the father of your child?’

‘In order to have a happy life and home environment for Lexi? Maybe.’

Mia’s head was spinning.Marriage. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected, but it hadn’t been that. To her eternal shame, her initial reaction when Daniel had said the word ‘marry’ had been a flutter of something very illicit deep inside. That part of herself that she’d packed in ice after his cruel words in the hospital that day. When he’d told her that losing their baby had been ‘for the best’.

It wasn’t much of a salve to know the reason why he’d believed that now. It only made her heart ache to learn about his less than idyllic childhood and losing his sister. Which was an indication that after only twenty-four hours in Daniel’s company she was seriously in danger of losing her footing all over again.

She needed space from Daniel. He was seeing too much. Saying too many ridiculous things.

She blurted out the first thing she could think of to put space between them. ‘I need to use the bathroom.’

Daniel pointed to a door at the other end of the vast room. ‘There’s a guest bathroom through that door.’

Mia walked towards the door, asking herself why she wasn’t just leaving.

Because you created this situation and you need to deal with it. For Lexi’s sake.

She found a plushly carpeted corridor on the other side of the door, and another door leading into an opulent bathroom. She shut herself inside, sucking in deep breaths to counteract the shock of Daniel’s suggestion of marriage. Although ‘suggestion’ was far too gentle a word. It had been an assertion. An expectation that she would just agree.

She forced the panic down and told herself that Daniel couldn’t force her to marry him. She’d never entertained any romantic notions of marriage after being brought up by a single parent, but her first boyfriend had exposed a weakness she’d denied to herself. A secret dream for a lifelong connection. Love. A family with two parents who loved and respected each other. She’d discovered she wanted more for her own children than a one-parent family, and that dream being unearthed had felt like a betrayal of her mother.

And then that dream had shattered at her feet anyway, when her ex-boyfriend had sneered at her,‘Of course this was never going to go anywhere, Mia, you’re trailer trash.’

Any notion of marriage she had now was far more pragmatic, and she’d vowed that if it ever happened it would be with someone who she respected and trusted and who wouldn’t hurt her. Not intentionally, at least.

Daniel Devilliers was literally the last man she would marry. While of course Mia wanted Lexi to know her father, and have a relationship with him, she wasn’t going to allow it to happen in a sham marriage.

Mia had made a huge error of judgement once in her life, and had come close to another lapse with Daniel the last time. It wouldn’t happen again.

CHAPTER FOUR

‘HAVEYOUEATEN?’

Of all the things Mia might have expected Daniel to say to her on her return from the bathroom, feeling marginally more composed, it hadn’t been that.

He said, ‘I’ve been in back-to-back meetings all day and the chef has made me something—would you join me?’

Much to her chagrin, Mia felt her stomach respond to that question with a slight hollow ache. She remembered her appetite had never failed to amaze Daniel but, as much as she longed to say no, she hadn’t eaten much herself that day.

She put her light-headedness down to that, and not the man standing a few feet away who had just upended her world with one word.

---