needed to tell you something for a while now,” he said to her, and kept pulling her down the stairs. They came to the lobby and he pushed out of the stairwell. Unfortunately, that meant that they were now surrounded by people rushing around. It was too busy here for him to kiss her again and he also knew that she was a celebrity today. After the astounding news article, everyone seemed to recognize her. Even as they walked through the lobby, he noticed several people point in her direction.
He wanted to kiss her again, just to show her how proud he was of her efforts. But the need to show her was private too.
“I’m parked over here,” he clicked the locks to his car. She dove into the passenger seat and he circled around to the driver’s side. As soon as they were safe in the relative privacy of his car, he turned to face her.
“Malcolm, we really need to talk!” she whispered, putting a hand to his shoulder.
“I know,” he replied, then chuckled.
“Malcolm, I’m pregnant!” she blurted.
He heard the words, but because he’d been inches from kissing her again, his finger wrapped around the diamond ring in his pocket, it took him several seconds to change gears.
“You’re pregnant?” he repeated, waiting for the words to compute.
Ella swallowed, looking down at her fingers on her lap. “Yes. I think I’m about seven weeks along,” she admitted. “I know that I should have told you. But the timing never seemed right.”
She peered at him, trying to determine what he was thinking. But his eyes were skimming the parking lot, silently asking, “This was the right time?”
“I know!” she burst out, unable to look him in the eye any longer. “I know that this is the worst possible moment. Edward was just arrested, the news just came out about everything he’d done, and…well, I just couldn’t wait any longer. It wasn’t fair of me to keep this to myself.” She lifted her head, staring straight out of the windshield. “I just…I wanted…”
“Marry me.”
Ella blinked and turned to look at him. Then she looked down at the sparkling diamond ring he held with his thumb and forefinger. Ella was speechless.
“Marry me, Ella.” She stared into his blue gaze. He looked so intense, so sincere. For a brief moment, Ella allowed herself to feel the intense joy at his words.
But then reality came crashing down around her, just as it always seemed to. “I can’t!” she whispered.
There was another stunned moment, and he asked, “Why?”
Ella hiccupped as the tears raced down her cheeks. “I love you, Malcolm.” She lifted her eyes to look at him, needing him to see the sincerity there. “I love you so much!” She lifted her hand to stop his next words. “Please, let me finish.” She sniffed, then wiped the tears away with the back of her hand. “I love you and I know that I will always love you, Malcolm. But right now, you’re on an emotional roller coaster. You don’t want to marry me, Malcolm. Not really. You’ve just witnessed your father being arrested and he will go to prison for everything he’s done. And you’ve just been told that you’re going to be a father.” Another sniff. “But you don’t love me. I know this, and I respect your honor in proposing to me. That’s exactly what I knew that you’d do because you are so honorable. But I love you too much to trap you into a marriage that you’ll regret later.” She took his hand, ignoring the diamond ring he was still holding and looked into his eyes, blinking rapidly to see him clearly through the haze of tears.
“I love you so much. Too much to marry you. But we’ll raise this child together. We’ll do the co-parenting thing and we’ll make sure that we do it right. You’ll be the best father! I know that you will! And I know that you’ll find someone that you’ll love to marry. I’m the one that took down your family, so I know that it can’t be me. But eventually, you’ll marry and we’ll work that out too. Our baby will be so loved!” She swiped ineffectually at the tears pouring down her face and sniffed. “We’ll work it out! I just…I won’t make it awkward either. I love you too much to do that to you.”
With that, she jerked at the door and stepped out of his car. With a burst of energy, she