What made Belle even more enticing was the fact that she, like me, rejected marriage as an institution and treated her romantic affairs with the same practicality she would her finances. I found her fire, intellect, and nonconformist ways refreshing. What I did not find refreshing was the way she’d kicked me out of her apartment in the middle of the night shortly after we started sleeping together.
Miss Penrose could be Aphrodite herself, rising from seafoam on the Cypress shore, but I was still a man of self-respect and social standing.
I forgave, but I did not forget.
Though now that I took a good long look at her, she looked a bit … frayed?
Like she was on the verge of bawling into her glass of chardonnay.
A man came on to her not even a second after she walked into the bar, and I sat in the corner, watching her nearly snap his arm in two, chuckling to myself.
But with the amusement came a rather exasperating sense of responsibility gnawing at my gut. No matter how unappealing I found the idea of helping out this bratty vixen, I knew Cillian’s wife and Belle’s sister, Persy, would put me through all of Dante’s nine circles of hell if she found out I’d simply ignored her.
Plus, Emmabelle was not the type to self-indulge in a full-fledged mental breakdown over a broken fingernail. As a lawyer, I’d always been anthropologically curious. What could make this tough-as-nails woman crumble?
I approached her, showered her with compliments and reassurance, and tried coaxing the information out of her. Belle refused to cooperate, like I knew she would. The girl was thornier than a rose garden—and just as beautiful.
I decided to loosen Belle’s tongue through the international, unofficial truth serum. Alcohol.
It was after the third cognac that she turned to look at me, her big turquoise eyes aglow, and said, “I have to get pregnant immediately if I want to have a biological child.”
“You’re thirty,” I said, still sipping the same Stinger I started the evening with. “You have plenty of time.”
“No.” Belle shook her head furiously, hiccupping. I suppose today was the day of hysterical females. I couldn’t seem to escape them. “I have a … medical condition. It needs to happen sooner rather than later. But I don’t have anyone to have it with. Or the financial stability.”
A practical, albeit sick idea began forming in my mind. A two-birds-one-stone situation.
“The father part is not a big deal.” Belle snuffled, about to take another sip of her drink. I pried it out of her hand and placed a tall glass of water there instead. If she had fertility issues, becoming an alcoholic was not a step in the right direction. “I could always get a sperm donor. But Madame Mayhem is just now starting to turn in a substantial profit after months of breaking even. I shouldn’t have bought out the other partners.”
Belle was the sole owner of a burlesque club downtown. From what her brother-in-law had explained to me, she was a shrewd businesswoman with killer instincts on the fast track to turn a seven-figure profit. Buying out the two other partners of the club put a dent in her bank account.
“Babies cost money,” I tsked regretfully, setting the groundwork for what I was about to propose.
“Oof.” She sipped on the water reluctantly, throwing her arms on the bar. “No wonder people usually stop at two.”
“Not to mention, you’ll need to go back to work at some point. You work nights, don’t you? Someone’ll have to take care of the babe. Either a costly babysitter or the father.”
I was going to hell, but at least I was going to head there in style.
“A father?” She looked at me incredulously, as though I suggested she leave it with a street gang. “I already said I’m going to use a sperm donor.”
Was she now?
Impregnating Emmabelle Penrose was the perfect solution for all my pressing problems.
I would not propose to her—no. Neither of us wanted a marriage, and I suspected Belle was harder to tame than a honey badger on crack. But I would come to an arrangement with her of sorts. I would provide for her. She, in return, would be my mark of Cain. My ticket out of royalty.
My mother would be off my case, Louisa would want nothing to do with me, and other women would have no false illusions about making me settle down. Not to mention, I genuinely wanted an heir. I did not want the marquess title to die along with me. Recently, the British Parliament, in an effort to be more progressive, introduced a bill to say that children born out of wedlock were now legitimate heirs. It was like the universe was sending me a message.