The Millionaire's Marriage Demand(29)

She'd start getting up earlier; get it over with before she even left her apartment.

Feeling slightly better for these decisions, Julie caught the bus back  to work. On Thursday, despite her best intentions, she still felt very  queasy when she arrived at the clinic. Her first appointment wasn't  until nine-thirty. She'd catch up on some paperwork in the meantime.                       
       
           



       

She was compiling her monthly statistics when a tap came at her door.  "Come in," she called, scowling down at her desk because two columns  that were supposed to add up refused to do so.

"Good morning, Julie," Travis said jauntily.

Her jaw dropped. Travis. Right in front of her. Standing on the other  side of her desk, dwarfing her tiny office. Sickness rose in her throat,  her face suddenly cold and clammy. With all the willpower she possessed  she tried to force the nausea down. "I'm not-" she began, then gasped,  "Excuse me," and ran for the door, pushing past him as though he were a  piece of furniture.

She made it to the bathroom just in time. Ten minutes later, knowing she  had no other choice, she went back to her office. "What's wrong?"  Travis said tersely, his eyes fastened on her pale cheeks.

"I must have eaten something that disagreed with me," she said rapidly.  "I feel better already, it's nothing. What are you doing here?"

He kicked the door shut behind him. "You're pregnant, aren't you?"

"I wish you'd stop saying that," she said peevishly. "Do we still have a date for tonight?"

"Julie, answer me. Are you or are you not pregnant?"

"Yes," she said, "I am."

"Then we'll get married as soon as we can."

"I-what did you say?"

"And we'll stay married. No child of mine is going to be abandoned the way I was."

"It's customary to ask a woman if she wants to get married. Not tell her."

"These are exceptional circumstances."

Her temper rose one more notch. "I don't want to get married. Don't take  it personally, Travis, it wouldn't matter who you were. The answer's  no."

"You don't get it, do you? You're not being given a choice. I'll get a special licence, probably for next week."

"You don't love me," Julie said in a stony voice.

"This isn't about love. Or romance. It's about a child who's going to have two parents. Not one."

"I had two parents who don't love each other. That's the worst thing you can do to a child!"

"I've never met your parents, but I'd be willing to bet that you're as  different from your mother as you can be. And if I'm like your father,  I'd be surprised."

"We're not in love-we can't get married," she said desperately.

"We mean something to each other, you know that as well as I do. We'll build on that, Julie."

"You're not listening to me!"

"I've been offered a plum position in a new hospital in Mexico, near  Cuernavaca. They have a physio clinic, you could get a part-time  position there."

"You've got to stop this-I won't marry you."

He said flatly, "There's something I haven't asked you, something very obvious. Do you hate the idea of being pregnant?"

"No, as a matter of fact, I don't," she said truthfully. "But as a single mother, Travis."

"That's out of the question."

"According to you."

"It's my child, too," he said with menacing softness.

"Why didn't we stop and think before we made love?"

"Because there's something elemental between us," he said ruthlessly,  raising one hand and running it down the side of her face to the hollow  at the base of her throat, where her pulse quickened in spite of  herself. "Don't bother denying it."

"You can't base a marriage on passion!"

"There are a lot worse things to base it on." He frowned down at her.  "I'll look into the licence this morning. Then I want to meet your  parents. In the meantime, I'll call Bryce and see if he'll be best man.  Who do you want to stand with you?"

"You're like an avalanche, carrying everything in its path," Julie said  furiously. "What about your mother, will you invite her?"

His smile didn't reach his eyes. "That'd throw Charles into a tailspin.  Although, the more I think about it, the more convinced I am that he  already knows Leonora's in Portland, and he staged that fake  reconciliation with me to get me away from her."                       
       
           



       

"Have you been in touch with her?" Julie persisted.

For the first time, Travis wouldn't meet her gaze. "Not yet, no."

"If you're to marry me," she taunted, "you'll have to, won't you?"

"There's no if about it, Julie."

He was standing altogether too close. She squeezed past him, putting her  desk between them, and found the courage to ask the only meaningful  question. "Why do you want to marry me, Travis?"

"I told you. Because of the child."

"Nothing to do with me, then."

"Come off it-you spent last weekend with me, you know how well we're matched."

She said with true despair, "But that won't last!"

"I disagree. But even if I didn't, do we lock ourselves in separate cages, stay alone for our entire lives? I don't think so."

Was that why she wanted the baby, Julie wondered with uncomfortable  honesty. So she wouldn't be alone? She wanted the baby, but not the  baby's father.

As though he'd read her mind, Travis said abruptly, "Were you going to tell me you were pregnant?"

"I only found out yesterday."

In a voice like a knife blade, he repeated, "Were you going to tell me?"

"Yes," she said dully, "eventually."

"When it suited you. After I'd left Portland."

She lowered her eyes, ashamed. Put like that, her plan sounded shoddy  and underhanded. "I haven't had much time to think," she said  defensively.

"Nor are you going to," he said grimly. "I'll let you know the date of  the wedding as soon as I've looked after the legalities. Tonight we'll  go and see your parents."

"Oh, no, we won't," she flared. "If this travesty of a marriage is to  take place, I'm going to see them first. By myself. To break the news."

"Then we'll go together tomorrow night."

The force of his willpower beat against her, as pitiless as the surf on  the ocean. A cliff might seem impregnable, she thought, but the water's  ceaseless pounding would eventually topple it. "You're taking for  granted that I'll marry you."

He smiled crookedly. "I dare you to marry me."

She didn't smile back. "I don't like being taken for granted."

He suddenly pounded his fist on her desk, making her jump. "This is all  wrong, the way we're going about this! Remember the weekend, Julie. I  don't know if I love you. I always figured I didn't know how to love a  woman, I'd lost that capacity when my mother disappeared. But I'm sure  not indifferent to you, nor you to me. Give us a chance, that's all I  ask. Look how we laughed and made love and talked all weekend …  I'm more  real with you than I've ever been in my life."

She stared up at him, shaken. She couldn't fault him for honesty, she  thought, and sought for an answering honesty in herself. "To marry you …   it frightens me more than I can say."

He closed the distance between them, reaching out for her. But Julie  shrank from him, knowing if he so much as laid a finger on her she'd  weep as though her heart was broken. Travis stopped dead in his tracks, a  flash of pure agony lacerating the deep blue of his eyes. But then it  was gone, leaving her to wonder if she'd imagined it. He said coldly,  "I'll call you later in the day."

As he wheeled and left her office, she made a tiny, instinctive gesture  toward him. But he was striding away from her and didn't see it.  Reaching for her chair like a blind woman, Julie sat down. Travis  disappeared around a corner.

The man who wanted to marry her. Because she was pregnant.





In her lunch hour Julie phoned Leonora, asking if she could come and see  her right after work. So at five forty-five, Julie was walking into  Leonora's cool, austere living room. It was interesting, she thought  numbly, that it was to Travis's mother, not her own, that she'd come for  help. She said, "I have to talk to you."

Leonora sat down in a graceful flow of movement. "Is it about Travis?"