"You can't want to marry me," she cried, seizing on the hard reality that unresolvable issues between parents did not provide a happy home life for a child.
"Why not?" he shot back, unmoved by her protest.
"You keep accusing me of lying, Peter. When there's such a big trust problem between us … it would wear us both down, you suspecting me of God knows what, me having to defend everything I do or say. It would be a hell of a relationship. Bad for our child, not good."
"If you could learn to be more open with me," he retorted pointedly, "we wouldn't have a problem, would we? It's silence that breeds a lack of trust-hiding things that shouldn't be hidden. Be straight with me, Erin. It's as simple as that."
She remembered Alicia Hemmings calling him a strait-laced bastard. Perhaps she should have taken more heed of that warning. There was no denying she had been at fault, not telling him she'd fallen pregnant, not correcting his assumption that she was a preschool teacher, which, of course, was at the heart of her biggest problem with him. The author thing invariably messed with men's minds, making them resentful of her success and the celebrity that went with it.
"It's not so simple, Peter," she said dispiritedly.
"Yes, it is," he insisted. "And you can't say we're not sexually compatible. I'd count that as a huge plus for our marriage."
Was that why he'd come after her with this movie deal … remembering the incredibly erotic and passionate sex they'd had together, wanting it again? She searched his eyes, saw only a burning conviction that he was right and she couldn't refute the argument. Yet how long would great sex last when he began resenting what she did and the attention it drew to her?
"Can you really see yourself living happily with what I am-a writer whose imagination can be triggered at any time, losing my awareness of you and your needs?"
"I'd never try to stop you from doing your thing, Erin," he asserted, without even pausing to consider the situation. "You have a unique talent and I'd consider it a crime to put any limitation on it. We'll hire a nanny in case you forget to feed Jack or-"
"I'm not that bad," she cut in sharply. An adult who could look after himself was one thing, her own child quite another. "There's no way I'd neglect Jack."
"Whatever. It's best he has me to give him attention when your mind is drifting elsewhere. That's how a partnership works," he said with satisfaction, apparently not the least bit perturbed about her need for time and space.
But he hadn't lived with it, hadn't been irritated and frustrated by it. He'd only experienced one short episode of it at Randwick and that had been more of a curiosity because it hadn't happened to him before.
"What about when publicity centres on me instead of you?" she mocked, not believing he would be so reasonable about that knock to his ego.
He frowned as though he didn't understand what she was getting at. "You can have as much or as little publicity as you like. Though I'd have to say you're bound to get more when we're married. Unavoidable. I can and will protect you from the worst of it, but any time we appear in public together … "
"Oh, come on!" she cried, exasperated by his dismissal of the point. "You don't like me taking the spotlight from you. Every man I've been close to has resented it after a while and you're no exception, Peter Ramsey. It instantly stuck in your craw that a newspaper headline was more about me than you."
"It stuck in my craw that you'd deliberately deceived me about who you were," he retorted fiercely. "I wouldn't care if I never made another headline. It sure as hell doesn't do anything for me."
His vehemence rattled her judgement of the situation. Had she completely misread his reaction to the newspaper story? Feeling hopelessly confused, she held her tongue, needing time to review what had happened between them, try to see it from his point of view.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have raised my voice," he muttered, throwing a glance of concern at their baby who was making a mewing sound, wrinkling up his little face, maybe sensing the tension in the room and not liking it.
"It's okay," Erin crooned, softly stroking her tiny son's cheek. "Mummy loves you."
"So does Daddy." The words were spoken very quietly but they were undoubtedly a fighting declaration from Peter. He wasn't about to be sidelined from their lives.
Jack sighed and rested contentedly again.
"He is my son and heir," Peter stated, his eyes biting in their intensity. "He can't be brought up in an unprotected environment, Erin. You will find life much easier within the Ramsey fold. In fact, it's the only way to give Jack security in every sense."
The heir to billions … her thinking had not encompassed what that might mean to their child. Peter had lived with it all his life. He knew.
"No one has to know," she said impulsively. "If he's Jack Lavelle … "
"I will not hide my son's existence," he grated out.
"He might be more protected that way, have a chance of a normal life," she pleaded.
"Don't even imagine for one moment that I will not lay claim to him."
He was right. She couldn't imagine it. That was not the kind of man he was. The sense of a trap closing around her-a trap where she had no control over anything-was very strong. The power of the Ramsey name suddenly reminded her of how she'd become connected to Peter in the first place-the little boy, Thomas, separated from his father, the issue of custody.
"What happened with Dave Harper?"
"That has nothing to do with us," came the curt dismissal.
"I want to know."
Her insistence caused his jaw to tighten. He didn't want to go down that road, but she kept her gaze locked on his, determined on an answer.
"It's not relevant to our situation, Erin," he grated out.
"I want to know," she repeated, refusing to be closed off on this point which somehow seemed very relevant to her.
"Right!" he snapped. "I placed Dave Harper in a position where he could sell on commission, choosing his own hours to work so he could look after his son without help. Given the lies his wife had told about him, and the fact that she had placed Thomas in daily care at a preschool and had a nanny to look after him the rest of the time, leaving her free to carry on a very social life with her new partner, the family court decided the father would be the better nurturing parent and awarded him major custody."
Major custody … lies told …
The trap closing around her felt even tighter, the fear growing that she could lose her child to Peter-her one and only child.
A knock on the door was a welcome interruption. Erin felt stressed and exhausted. A matronly nurse entered the room, accompanied by two male hospital orderlies.
"We're here to wheel you to your own room, Miss Lavelle. Get you and your baby settled there," the nurse announced, smiling brightly at both her and Peter. "And I think I should inform you, Mr Ramsey, that news has got out about your being here with Miss Lavelle. Hospital Reception has been fending off inquiries. Perhaps you'd be good enough to deal with the disturbance, settle the interest that's apparently been stirred?"
Peter heaved a vexed sigh and rose to his full formidable height, clearly girding himself to face a different battle. "How good is security in the maternity wing?" he asked the nurse.
"No unauthorised person will get past my station, Mr Ramsey," she confidently assured him. "Miss Lavelle should rest now and I shall see to it that she does."
"Thank you." He took Erin's hand and gave it a light squeeze to command her attention. "The three ring circus is about to begin," he said mockingly. "And I'm perfectly happy for you to be the star of this show, Erin."
"I don't want to be, Peter," she cried, panicking at the thought of being hounded by the media.
"It's inescapable."
"You don't have to tell anybody anything," she pleaded.
"That would only make the problem worse. They'd keep digging."
"What will you tell them?"
"The truth. The one really good thing about the truth is it doesn't come back and bite you. Keeping secrets is what messes everything up." He paused to let this all too relevant truth sink home. Then totally careless of the fact that other people were listening, he bored in with, "Do I have your consent to announcing that we're getting married in the near future?"
Inescapable …
She was trapped.
Her mind whirled, trying to grasp some other workable way to handle the future. The identity of her own child made going it alone a nightmare of complications. Besides which, Peter wouldn't leave them alone. She was locked into this relationship for the rest of their lives. And if she had to fight him for custody …