“You mean about the avionics deal? I just don’t think it’s right to take advantage of the poor guy’s divorce, that’s all.”
“If we don’t take advantage of it, someone else will.” His expression was hard. “And his liquidity problems are his own fault, for not making his wife sign a prenup.”
“Don’t be too hard on him. After all,” Hana tilted her head with a flirtatious smile, trying to lighten the mood, “you didn’t make me sign one...”
His dark eyes were grim. “That’s something I’ve been meaning to discuss with you.”
The smile slid from Hana’s face. “You want me to sign a prenup?”
“A postnuptial agreement, yes.” Antonio looked calmly handsome in his perfectly tailored dark suit. “And perhaps you should stop coming to the office.”
Hana’s jaw dropped. “You’re kicking me out?”
“Nothing so dramatic,” Antonio said gruffly. “It’s just that you’re about to become a mother...”
“You’re about to become a father, but I don’t hear anything about you leaving your job.”
“Our baby will be so tiny,” he persisted. “Helpless. Surely you would not wish to abandon a newborn to the care of nannies.”
His words felt like an attack. Like he was trying to give her an argument that she could not fight, rather than tell her his real reasons. “I’m planning to stay home for a while, yes. But CrossWorld Airways is part of our family. Even the name comes from our surname. In a few months, I’ll return to work and bring the baby with me.”
“It’s an office, not a nursery,” he said coldly.
“Why are you acting like this?” Hana glared at him. “Just because I didn’t want us to buy that poor man’s company at fire sale prices?”
“Since you mention it, I think it does confuse some of my employees when you give orders, since you don’t have an official position at the company.”
“I’m your equal partner,” she said.
He said nothing.
Searching his closed face, she pressed, “I am, aren’t I?”
“The post-nup is fairly standard.” Antonio suddenly wouldn’t meet her eyes. “It just says, in case of a split, we’ll each keep the assets we came into the marriage with. You also get a generous settlement, of course.”
The passing streets of Madrid seemed to whirl in front of her eyes. “You...you don’t want to share the company with me.”
“Don’t say it like that.”
“Like what?”
“Accusingly,” he accused.
Hana stared at him.
After all his fine words about wanting their airline to be a family company, he was going to go back on his word and keep it for himself alone?
The foundation of everything she’d believed about their marriage shifted beneath her.
“You lied to me?”
“I’ve reassessed the situation.”
“You said the company was ours,” she said. “That we’d share it, and build it together for our child.”
Antonio looked at her emotionlessly in the back seat of the car. “You’re not the one who created an empire from nothing. It’s mine. I built it. All you did was help me a little.”
Turning, Hana stared blindly in front of her, at the blank privacy screen. She felt the soft calfskin leather of the Bentley’s leather seat beneath her fingers.