She frowned. “I don’t understand, Alex. What’s changed?”
The plane started to bounce around as they hit a patch of turbulence and Alex was grateful for the distraction.
“I’ve decided I’d like to stay married to you for a few more years. And if we could produce a child in that time, even better.”
She sucked in a sharp breath. “No,” she murmured, looking horrified.
Mixed feelings surged through him. On the one hand he understood her being taken by surprise, on the other, was it so horrible that he wanted his wife to have his child?
“I thought if we both felt the same way,” he began. “We could—”
“This is so not fair, Alex,” she cut across him.
“But—”
“No, I’m sorry.” A look of resolve grew in her eyes. “I can’t help you with this.”
Anger sparked inside him. She hadn’t even given it any thought. “Can’t or won’t?”
Before she could answer, the plane bounced even more roughly and he saw the flare of fear in her eyes. He suddenly didn’t feel too at ease himself.
All at once the moment was more important than their future. “Make sure you’re strapped in,” he warned as he reached for the phone flashing a red light beside him.
“You, too,” she murmured, a look in her eyes that said she was just as worried about him as for herself. And that made him realize that she cared about him.#p#分页标题#e#
How much, he wasn’t sure.
As much as she was scared about the turbulence, Olivia was thankful for the interruption. Being bounced around inside an aircraft and fearing for her life was a good companion to the turmoil inside her. How could Alex have thrown her for a loop like this? Why would he want her to have his child?
The child she could never have.
Dear Lord, this was one of the reasons she had agreed to a temporary marriage in the first place. She’d thought she had no need to worry about giving Alex children and that he need never know that she really was less than perfect.
Her heart squeezed at the thought of her baby, lost to an ectopic pregnancy. And at the loss of any future babies she should’ve had. Oh, how she wished she was capable of having a baby.
Alex’s baby.
Yet how could she tell him? She had to. And she would, once they were back on terra firma and in the privacy of their hotel suite with time to talk properly.
Only, after they landed—the turbulence having finally ended—they were surprised by an invitation to a luncheon with one of the most powerful men in California. It was impossible to refuse, despite being jetlagged, so they quickly dressed at their hotel and then were whisked away to his mansion in Bel-Air.
So it was early evening before they returned to their hotel suite. Olivia wanted to get what she had to say out of the way, but decided a while longer wouldn’t matter. They both needed to shower and have a light dinner and unwind before she dropped her bombshell.
Unwind?
Yeah, right.
That wasn’t possible, she decided as she went to return a call from her mother while Alex showered and changed.
Felicia was excited about having been offered a part in a television series, so she didn’t notice that her daughter wasn’t quite herself. Her mother now had the dilemma of whether to accept the part or wait to hear if she would get the role in the movie, and she asked Olivia to convey her regrets to Alex that she now wasn’t able to come to the perfume launch in New York as she’d planned.
“I didn’t know she was coming,” Olivia said to Alex over dinner, after she told him the rest of her mother’s news. As a fashion designer she’d thought she would be enough, along with the Cannington name of course. It wasn’t that she minded, but she did mind Alex not telling her he’d invited her mother in the first place.
Alex shrugged. “She mentioned it at our wedding, but I thought no more of it.”
She frowned, accepting what he said but more interested in his attitude to her at this very moment. He’d played the perfect husband this afternoon when they’d been in the company of others, but now, in private, he was withdrawn and cool.
“Why not?” she said to be contrary. “My mother would have been a good asset to have there with us.”
“Frankly, I like Felicia but she’s not the type in whose promises I would put any store.” There was a tiny pause. “Not like you.”
She should take offence at what he’d said about her mother but she was more concerned with what he was implying about her.
Her chin angled. “I didn’t promise to have your baby, Alex.”
A muscle tensed at the edge of his jaw. “I know.”