A Daring Proposition Read Online Free PDF Page B

of women—too many of whom are trying to lead me to the altar.” He paused. “Why don’t you get yourself another glass of wine,” he said softly.
    She shook her head wildly, and pivoted so that she was facing the window. She had a horrible feeling she knew what was coming.
    His reflection was suddenly in the paned glass behind her. He’d moved without sound and showed no expression. And as he approached, she felt his nearing sexuality like an internal drumbeat—a slow, insidious rhythm as menacing as it was powerful.
    She whirled before he was close enough to touch her. He stopped, with a frown between his eyes, and rather than be subjected to his intense scrutiny she moved rapidly away to the bar and refilled her wineglass. “Mr. Hathaway,” she began.
    “Brian.”
    She shook her head.
    “Leigh, that baby deserves a name.”
    She shook her head again and took a long swig of wine, setting her glass on the bar with trembling fingers. She felt caged; she hadn’t felt so stifled in a long time. “You’re not seriously suggesting…” She wouldn’t pretend not to know what he was talking about. “No,” she said simply.
    Brian came to the opposite side of the bar and held out his glass for a refill. “Relax,” he said quietly. “If there’s anyone who should be skittish about the subject of marriage, Red, it’s me. I’m thirty-five and have avoided that tie for more than a decade. I’ve never had the least urge to come home to curlers and ten o’clock headaches and boredom. In most marriages I’ve seen, the satin turns to cotton the day after the honeymoon.”
    “Your preference for a playboy’s lifestyle is well known,” she said caustically.
    “I play the game fair, Red. I always have,” he replied evenly. “I’ve never promised commitments I didn’t intend to keep. But I’m tired of the scenes that keep occurring every time one of my lady friends gets it into her head that there’s no reason why an unattached bachelor like me shouldn’t marry her. A wife—a pregnant wife—and child…”
    “I see,” she said coldly. “A wife and child would mean you couldn’t marry someone else. But why don’t you just marry one of your ‘lady friends’ as you call them?”
    He shook his head. “I would have married a long time ago, if only for business reasons, if I thought I could find someone who shared my idiosyncratic concept of marriage. Respect, independence, determination and honesty—with no demands made.”
    “No!” she said wildly.
    “I wouldn’t take anything away from your…past lover, Red. You don’t have to sleep with me—I can get that elsewhere.” His eyes bored into hers. “I’m talking about a marriage on terms we both understand. Not a fly-by-night arrangement, a legal marriage. I’m sick of eating in restaurants, coming home to a lonely apartment. A name for your child, protection—those things I can offer you. We’d have no emotional ties, just respect for each other, an objective ear on occasion. It’s the one kind of marriage I believe I could live with, where two people might actually have a chance to fill one another’s needs, without hurting or destroying each other.”
    “Brian…” But that last argument had pierced through the wall. He was talking about the only kind of marriage she could live with, too, and the word protection floated back to her—the child’s name, the blunt promise that sex was easily available to him elsewhere, not important… And Robert would be so pleased—thrilled, in fact. She gave Brian a long look. She could not doubt that he meant every word he said; sincerity was in his eyes, his face, his posture.
    She took a breath. He sounded so persuasive, but if ever a man personified virility, total domination and control, it was Brian Hathaway. “You wouldn’t consider—” she started softly.
    “You can have your baby out of wedlock—but not by me, Red. It has to be marriage. I’ve tried to make it clear that I