It had from the first moment he'd seen her across a crowded charity ball. She'd been with her mother and Nikos had been instantly intrigued by this woman who was so clearly of the world he wanted to conquer, but not like it.
"I want children, a legacy—a legitimate legacy, to inherit what I have built, to build onto it. I want to please the woman who sacrificed so much to give me life and keep me with her. Even in Greece thirty years ago, a woman could find ways to end an unwanted pregnancy, but she never even considered it."
"How do you know?"
"I asked."
The compassion he liked so much sparked in Ashlyn's eyes. She was exactly the kind of woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. A woman who could help to calm the demons that raged in his soul.
"Your mom wants you to marry?"
"You know she does."
Ashlyn smiled. "Well, she's not very subtle…but I figured she hinted that way to all your dates."
"Actually, no."
"You mean I'm special?" she asked facetiously.
"Yes. She has hinted at me enough, but never to one of the women I dated. Until you."
"She wants grandchildren. A lot."
"Yes. What about you?"
"I'm too young to be a grandmother."
That was one of the things he really enjoyed about his little Ashlyn. She teased him. She made him smile and she was always ready to do so herself.
"I meant do you want children?" He did not doubt her answer, she was too perfectly suited to motherhood not to want to be one, but he wanted to hear her say it.
"Yes. Very much."
"I thought as much."
It was her turn to grimace. "You think you know everything."
"Apparently I do not. I thought you would accept my proposal without a lot of fuss."
"Fuss?" she asked delicately and suddenly he knew he was treading on very shaky ground.
"I did not think it would be a difficult decision for you to make," he amended.
"It would have been easier if you had said you loved me."
He could only respect her courage and her honesty. "Do you want me to say it?"
"A lie of expediency designed to get you the outcome you want? What of your insistence on truth from me? I told you I won't accept any less."
Yet, he had a sneaking suspicion that they defined honesty differently. He dismissed the niggling worry and said, "I will give all the loyalty and dedication to your happiness a man who professes such feelings would do. There would be no lie in my saying the words if you need them to feel more comfortable about our marriage."
"Except that you don't feel the emotion and neither do you want to feel it. They'd still be a lie, Nikos."
"But the intent behind them, my dedication to your well-being, is not a lie."
"I understand that we see things very differently. Not only do you not want love, but I'm not sure you believe in romantic love at all or you could not blithely talk about saying the words as if that's all they were. Mere words."
"Romantic love is not something I have any personal experience with."
Pain flashed in her pretty blue eyes, but was gone so quickly, he could not be sure he had seen it.
"Will it help if I promise I will never say those words to another woman?"
"Can you promise that? What if you fall in love? Just because you don't love me doesn't mean you are incapable of loving someone else."
"I do not want to love anyone else."
"It doesn't always come with a choice."
He did not agree. "I keep my promises. It is up to you to decide if you trust me to do so."
"I do trust you."
A flare of triumph coursed through him.
She saw it and frowned. "I'm not saying I'm going to agree to marriage, but I think I'm beginning to understand why you asked me at least."
"I would have thought that was obvious."
"There you go being wrong again. This can't be good for your ego, but your reasons for picking me to share the rest of your life with are far from obvious."