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He moved closer to Hannah, and she held her breath.
His hands curved over her stomach and she felt so much in that moment. It was as though a piece of string were wrapping from him to her, binding them, tying them together. If this had been a wedding ceremony it would have felt like a lesser commitment.
He focussed all his attention on Hannah. ‘I will put everything I am into protecting you both, into ensuring men like that cannot get you. I cannot let you get on with your life as though this is simply an aberration when there may very well be a target over her head. Or yours, just because you happened to make the regrettable decision of sleeping with me one night.’
‘You were the one who regretted it,’ she pointed out and then shook her head, because that didn’t matter any more. Panic was surging inside her; she felt as though she were falling back into a well only there was no light at the top of it.
She sucked in a breath but it burned through her lungs. ‘Leonidas,’ she groaned. ‘I don’t want anything to happen to her.’
‘I won’t let it,’ he promised, lifting his hands to her face, holding her steady for his inspection. ‘I promise you that.’
‘How can you stop it?’
His eyes roamed her face intently. ‘I will protect you and our daughter with my dying breath, that is how.’
She shook her head, the madness of this incongruous with the sounds of revelry beyond the room. Fear had her forgetting everything they were to one another, the brevity of their affair, his quickness to leave her, the fact he’d intended for them never to see one another again—and she’d agreed to that. In that moment, he was her lifeline, and she lifted a hand to his chest to take hold of it.
‘Do you really think we’re in danger?’
His eyes held hers and she felt the battle raging within him—a desire to reassure and placate her and a need to be honest.
‘I will make sure you are not. But you must do what I say, and trust me to know what is right for you, for her, for our family.’
Family.
The word seemed to tear through both of them in different ways, each reacting to the emotion of that word, the harsh implications of such a term.
He looked stricken and Hannah felt completely shocked. She hadn’t had a family in a long time. And even though this had been foisted on both of them, the word felt warm and loaded with promise. She swallowed past a lump in her throat and shook her head, nothing making sense.
‘How? What? Tell me, Leonidas. I need to know she’ll be okay.’
‘Marry me,’ he said simply, the words like rocks dropping into the boat.
‘What?’
‘Marry me, as soon as is legally possible.’
She sucked in a breath, his words doing strange things to her. In a thousand years, she hadn’t expected this, and she had no way of processing how she felt. Marriage? To Leonidas Stathakis?
‘How the heck is that going to help?’
‘You’ll be my wife, under my protection, living in my home. We will be raising our child together.’
The picture he painted was so seductive. Hannah took a fortifying breath, trying to disentangle the irrational desire to make sure her daughter didn’t suffer the same miserable upbringing as she had from what was actually the right decision. It was impossible to think clearly.
Hannah shook her head slowly. ‘It would never work between us.’
?
?What is there to “work”?’ he asked simply. ‘You love our child, do you not?’
Hannah’s eyes sparked with his. ‘With all my heart.’
‘And you want to do what is best for her?’
Hannah’s chin tilted in silent agreement.
‘So trust me. Trust me to protect you both, to ensure her safety. I will never let anything happen to either of you.’
