The Greek's Pregnant Lover
Chapter 39

Chapter 39

“Yes, I can. Trust me, Piper. It is not even a possibility.” Of all the things he’d been considering over herweek-long silence, that was not one of them.

“Do you think there is even a tiny chance that someday you might fall in love with me?” She buried herface against his chest and waited for his answer.

He wanted to lie; it would make things so much easier, but he could not. “If I was capable of falling inlove, I already would have.”

“You really believe that?”

“Absolutely.”

Her head tilted back so he could see her glare. “Everyone is capable of love.”

“That is debatable.”

“Yes, I guess it is.” She grimaced. “There are certainly people that make a great case for that point ofview anyway. I never considered you one of them, however.”

He could not help that. He shrugged. “What else scares you?”

“Oh, the usual, what will happen to my business, what if I lose the baby, what if I’m a terrible mother,am I going to turn into a whale, can I learn Greek?” Her litany of worries came out in a voice garbled bysuppressed tears he did not know what to do about.

“You are going to marry me.” Why else would she need to learn Greek?

“How can I do anything else? I’ve looked at this situation from every side until I’m sick with it. If I don’tmarry you, we’ll have to share custody and I’m not naive enough to think you are going to settle for

being a weekend dad. You’ll fight for at least equal custody, if not majority custody.”

He was shocked. She realized that. “I…”

“Don’t try to deny it.”

“I wasn’t going to.”

Her lips trembled, but she blinked away the incipient moisture in her troubled blue eyes. “Good. Wecan’t build a marriage on lies.”

“I agree.”

“The custody issue wasn’t even the most distressing.”

“It was not?” What could have worried her more?

“No. It was the certainty that if I didn’t marry you, one day you would marry someone else and build awhole family with them.”

“The thought of me married to someone else bothers you?” he asked, just to clarify. She had left himwithout any sort of contact for almost a week after all.

“Of course it does. I love you.”

Something inside his chest stuttered. “You love me?”

“Yes.”

“Like a friend.” He attempted to qualify.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and shook her head, those terrifying tears of hers spilling overnow. “No, not like a friend.”

“You won’t convince anyone you love me like a brother.” Maybe there was some special kind of lovewomen left for the father of their children.

She shook her head again, a mysterious smile flirting with the edge of her lips, despite the sadness inher eyes. “Like the only man in my universe, like the other half of my heart, like the part of my soulthat’s been missing my whole life but I didn’t know it.”

He would have staggered if they hadn’t been holding each other so tightly. “Is that how you loved Art?”He did not know why he asked except for as some form of penance, because one thing he neverwanted to hear was that she had loved her ex like that.

“My feelings for Art weren’t even a shadow of what is in my heart for you.”

Could he believe that? And if he did, what difference did it make? His mother had loved him, too, butshe’d walked away when a choice had to be made. “And yet, you did not call.”

“Loving you doesn’t make me perfect, or even perfectly unselfish. In fact, it makes me terribly self-focused because it makes me so vulnerable to being hurt by you. I want to marry you so I know youwon’t—can’t—leave me.” The tears were in her voice now. “I want to be with you for the rest of my lifeand I wanted to be pregnant so bad, it was an ache in my gut that wouldn’t let me sleep at all the nightbefore the doctor’s office called. I spent the darkest hours of that night in a perfect agony of guilt andunable to change my desires one jot even because of it. Did you hear all those I’s and me’s?”

“You wanted to carry my child?” he asked, ignoring selfflagellating guilt.

“Yes, more than anything. Which probably makes you wonder if I lost my patch on purpose, but I swearto you that I didn’t.”

“Of course not, but why did you want to?”

“Have you been listening to me at all? I knew a baby would tie you to me. Not because I’m not capableof being a single mother, but because you would not want me to be. I’m really ashamed of feeling thatway, but I can’t change it. I never would have done it on purpose, but I won’t pretend I don’t feel wildlyfortunate, either. Which probably should make you reconsider whether or not you should marry me.”