Read Online The Buenos Aires Marriage Deal by Maggie Cox - Free Book Online Page B

have had about remaining a single mother and raising our child on your own in England. That was in the past. Today is a new day, and from now on things are going to look very different for you. You can count on it!’
    Feeling as if a storm had just ripped off the roof of her house, Briana found the power of speech had temporarily eluded her. It was as though what she’d just heard had rendered her mute with shock.
    ‘Have you nothing to say?’ Pascual thrust his implacable jaw forward in annoyance.
    ‘Yes…I do.’ Her returning glance was wary. ‘I have plenty to say. But whether you’ll listen to it or not is another thing.’
    ‘I will listen. It does not mean that I will concur or change my mind.’
    ‘I understand that you want to be in Adán’s life, and that is your right as his father. But you can’t really be serious about us going back to Buenos Aires with you and the two of us getting married. We surely don’t have to go that far? And anyway…I can’t believe that you’d even want to marry me after what’s happened between us. It just doesn’t make any sense.’
    He scowled. ‘Well, it is certainly not because I have found I cannot live without you, or anything as ludicrous as that! No. I am doing this purely for the benefit of my son. The son you have denied me for the past four years. You are his mother, and even though you have not shown me the least respect in any way I will accord you respect and not let him down. No…I intend to become the father to Adán that I should have been right from the beginning—and if that entails marrying his treacherous mother, then—’
    ‘Treacherous?’ Briana’s grey eyes rounded in protest. ‘I never cheated on you… ever ! If anyone showed any tendency to be attracted to other people, it was you!’
    ‘You are still holding a grudge about that ridiculous scene with Claudia?’ Pascual sighed with impatience. ‘What can I say that will convince you of the truth? I swear to you that she was drunk. Because I had broken up with her and she was mad at me, she wanted to make me look bad in front of you. I had not even realised you saw what happened! If I had you can be sure I would have talked to you about it and explained. But you never gave me the chance to do that, did you?’
    ‘I was too upset and shocked!’
    ‘And apparently you believed that I was just like your father! The reason I call you treacherous is that you made me a promise that you would become my wife, Briana. You did not keep that promise. Instead you left and made me look like a fool in front of everyone I cared about, and then kept the fact that you were pregnant with my son a secret up until now. Disloyal, duplicitous, untrustworthy…Treacherous is as good a word as any in your English vocabulary to describe your actions…would you not agree?’
    ‘Even if you think that, you can’t really expect me to go along with your plans without protest and simply do everything you command, Pascual. We’re not living in the Middle Ages, here, and I’m not going to agree with everything you say simply because I feel bad about what happened between us five years ago!’
    ‘So you feel bad, do you? At last! Some indication of regret!’
    ‘Of course I feel bad about what happened. Every day…watching Adán grow…I’ve thought about what he’s missing by not having his father in his life. I truly regret what I did as regards to that. But I wasn’t being vindictive or cruel by not contacting you about him. At the time…considering the strain I was under…I just did what I thought was right.’
    ‘It is my view that you did not employ any thinking at all in the matter! You purely reacted! I knew you could be impulsive and I liked that about you…but I did not guess in a million years that that impulsive nature of yours would lead you to take the drastic steps that you took five years ago.’ His blistering glance narrowed. ‘I have a question. Did you ever plan to contact me