“What changed?” she asked once he took a seat in the cushy white chair next to her. “You never wanted a relationship.”
“I still don’t,” he explained. “This is nothing more than business. We both want what’s best for our baby, and we’re both workaholics. It’s the perfect merger, really.”
Harper stood and crossed to the cart, where she poured herself another glass of juice. “A merger.”
“Are you going to keep repeating everything I say?”
She turned to face him with a smirk that made him wonder if he would get her to come around. He wouldn’t have it any other way. Ethan never backed down from a challenge, and Harper, their baby and Robert Anderson were all part of his past, present and future. No challenge, no payoff, had ever been more important.
“Are you going to keep insisting this is a good idea?” she retorted.
Ethan crossed his ankle over his knee and leaned back in the chair. He didn’t want to appear anxious or worried. He was neither of those. What he was, was determined, and that’s precisely how he’d gotten this far.
“If you can move beyond the shock of my proposal—”
“Is that what that was?” she mocked, taking a seat back on the sofa and curling her legs to the side.
“Of sorts,” he conceded.
Harper gripped her juice glass and stared down at the contents. Ethan waited, letting the kernel of an idea roll around in her head. She seemed skeptical, but she was still in discussion, so he wasn’t discounting her just yet. He had a way of being persuasive.
“You can’t just ask me to marry you as some sort of business plan,” she argued, but her voice lacked the heat it once had. He was winning her over.
Dane had always said Ethan was the reckless one, the twin who jumped headfirst into things without thinking them through.
Well, here he was again. Wait until Dane heard about all of this.
“I figured you’d appreciate an honest, laid-out plan,” he stated. “We marry, we raise our child together, we don’t have to get our attorneys involved. We both can continue doing what we love and have someone who understands and is actually supportive at our sides while we share the parenting responsibilities.”
Harper pursed her lips and leveled a stare at him. “And what happens when you want another woman or I see a guy I’m interested in?”
Ethan didn’t hesitate to leap from his chair, circle the table and brace himself over her. With one hand on the arm of the sofa and the other on the back near her shoulder, he leaned down so there was no question about how serious he was on this topic.
“There will be no other men,” he growled. “My wife will be in my bed and only my bed. I won’t share.”
Most people would be intimidated by his snarl and low tone, but Harper continued to stare, and she even had the nerve to pat his jaw and smile.
“Calm down there, sweetheart. Your proposal is getting less and less attractive.” She narrowed her dark eyes and flattened her palm on his cheek. “There had better not be any other women, either. I also don’t share.”
A burst of accomplishment spread through him.
“Is that a yes?” he asked, inching closer.
When she didn’t say a word, Ethan shifted to slide one hand over her bare thigh. He watched as her lids lowered for the briefest of seconds, her breath caught on a sharp inhale. Without taking his eyes off her face, Ethan trailed his fingertips over her stomach, straight up to the little knot tied between her breasts.
“I... I never said yes,” she muttered.
“But you’re thinking about it.”
He gave the tie an expert yank, allowing the scraps of material to fall aside.
Harper closed her eyes and chewed on her lip. He had her...in every way he wanted her. She’d marry him; she’d be in his bed. He’d ultimately have his revenge on her father. He worried how she’d react, but he had to keep moving with this plan and take baby steps when it came to Harper. He had to choose his words, his actions, carefully so she didn’t completely hate him at the end. He had to make her understand his side once everything was out in the open.
There was no way Robert Anderson deserved a daughter like Harper, and the man sure as hell would have no part in the life of Ethan’s child.
“I’m not thinking at all right now,” she told him as he cupped her full breast in his palm.
Ethan eased his other hand behind her back, pulling her forward until she sprawled over his sofa. He wanted her on display before him. A body like Harper’s was meant to be worshipped.