thought herself in love with him.
“I negotiate to win.” His icy smile told her he’d yet to lose. “And I always, always win.”
She softened her tone and changed tactics, hoping to appeal to his logic. “How is making Emma miserable a win for you? Or for anyone, for that matter?”
“She won’t be miserable. I can make my own child happy.”
“By taking her away from her mother? By ripping her away from the only parent and home she’s ever known?”
“Don’t paint me out to be the villain here. You’re the reason she doesn’t know me.”
“Yes, but we can’t change the past. We can only work with Emma’s life now. If you truly wish to be a good father to Emma, you’ll care more about her welfare and happiness than your own. Maintaining her sense of security will take precedence over any feud you and I might have.”
“Whereas if you truly wish to retain your role in Emma’s life, you’ll accept the inevitable and marry me,” he countered. “You’ll save Emma the torture of a long, drawn-out fight and just admit defeat.”
She shook her head, the sick realization that she might never change his mind settling in her stomach like a stone. “Why would you want to marry me, knowing that I would view it as a defeat?” she asked. Distress made her voice crack. “You can’t tell me that’s the kind of marriage you want to model for our daughter?”
His expression hardened and she saw the ruthless businessman who always won, the merciless negotiator who went for the jugular, no matter the cost to his personal fortune. “My child deserves my name and an intact family. She deserves to know I am her father.”
“Then we’ll tell her. Together. And we’ll work something out that doesn’t make her feel like she’s lost her entire world.” Colette placed a tentative hand on his forearm, finding it as hard as carved granite. “Please? I swear, we can find a middle ground that doesn’t make us all miserable.”
A muscle jumped in his jaw. “I have no interest in compromise.” He scowled. “Nor in middle ground.”
“I know you’re angry. I know you want to punish me, and I don’t blame you,” she said. “But there has to be another way. There has to be a way to fix this without resorting to marriage and compromising our child’s happiness.”
His nostrils flared as his icy gaze narrowed on hers. He stared at her in silence for several beats, skimming her torso and face with his eyes before asking, “What are you offering, exactly?”
She swallowed, her entire body trembling with the vulnerability of her position. “Unlimited visitation. My support of you as her father.” She inhaled sharply, the control she needed to feel slipping inexorably from her fingers. “Time with Emma alone.”
“No.” A feral light glinted in his blue eyes, and his expression telegraphed his triumph. “I want more.”
Fear made her mouth go dry. “More?”
“I want you. At my disposal. In my bed. At my beck and call.”
She sucked in a breath, her heart racing wildly within her chest. “You can’t be serious!”
“Oh, but I am, sweet.” His smile mocked her desperate circumstances. “You either marry me, or you become my mistress.”
“I can’t sleep with you again,” she breathed. “You know I can’t.”
His arctic gaze glittered with brittle, dangerous threat. “And here I thought you were willing to do anything to keep Emma safe.”
Stunned, she remained silent.
“You’ve done it before,” he reminded her. “Quite willingly, if I recall.”
Her stomach twisted beneath her ribs. “The situation is hardly the same now.”
“Then you can marry me instead,” came his curt reply.
He stood waiting before her, as immutable and stalwart as stone, while she grappled with a decision that wasn’t a decision at all. She wanted to toss his counteroffer back in his face, to tell him there was nothing that would make her join him in his bed again. But the thought of Emma, a helpless, hurting pawn in this game of his, kept her silent. For Emma, for her sweet, innocent daughter … she’d sleep with the devil himself.
His eyes trapped hers, as impenetrable as granite, while icy fear slugged hard against her chest. “So what’s it going to be? Marriage or my bed?”
“Do I really have a choice?”
He straightened and then rounded the hood of his car. “You have until tomorrow to decide.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
WHEN Colette entered the elevator to Stephen’s office the following morning, she’d reached a decision. She wasn’t convinced it was the right one, but given her