Manacled in Monaco Read Online Free Page B

first, she figured her fantasies had run riot, but he became more real as the drugged sleep left her eyes.
    “Rolan?” Sarita knuckled her lids. “Why are you here?”
    Puzzled, wondering if she’d tumbled into another cabin by mistake, she surveyed the small space. Her savored possessions, the pink ribbon from prom night, Tony’s first blue medal for football, and the statues of Lord Krishna and the goddess Lakshmi, came into view. Her space.
    “Marry me,” he said, the words firm and ringing.
    “I’m dreaming.” She rubbed the corners of her eyes harder as if the pressure would evaporate little girl wishes and hopes.
    “It makes sense,” he said, and his harsh tone hit her like a knockout punch. “We can be real parents for Tony.”
    And she wanted to weep. Weep and rail at the unfairness of life. Not a word about them making love ten years ago, not a word about how he felt about her. Instead bland, logical words, which erased that little hint of hope left in her soul, that little bit of her that still believed in happy ever afters. So much for adolescent fantasies. Tony needed a male role model, Roland wanted the responsibility. Sarita surrendered to the inevitable.
    “Fine,” she blurted. “Tell me where and when, and I’ll show up.”
    She hopped out of the bed and disappeared into the head. “I’m having a shower and then we can discuss the details.”
    After slamming the door shut, she stared at it for long moments, before twisting the shower knob to the right. Warm water solved a million problems. She ducked into the stall.
    He was gone when she came out.
    Numbed, despairing, she shrugged on a chintz-patterned cotton sundress, forced her legs into motion, and made her way to the deck.
    Rolan stood there, hips braced against the deck rail, ankles crossed.
    Although it seemed impossible, he’d become more handsome over the years. Six feet one of honed muscle, long legs, lean hips clad in black jeans. He wore a sable T-shirt, which amplified his broad shoulders and contrasted sharply against the platinum streaks in his chin length hair. The color of his eyes had always caused her lungs to stammer, and even though Anthony’s were the exact same emerald shade, it didn’t matter. His intent gaze caught and held hers, and her heart did a wild staccato beat hammering and thudding in her chest. She could eat him up; he looked like a marauding predator.
    Delicious.
    Enticing.
    Tony’s father.
    Captain Terry O’Connor had taken the yacht out for its daily spin and they faced the calm surface of the aquamarine Mediterranean. A brisk sea breeze whipped Rolan’s lion’s mane away from his chiseled jaw. On the short walk from her cabin to the deck, she’d changed her mind about marriage ten times, vacillating between him, Tony, and hard-won independence.
    “I had Austen get me a special license. We can get hitched today.”
    His words tilted the decision.
    “No.” And sadness sank into her very depths. It meant nothing to him, nothing at all. And it had been all she had dreamed about these last ten years, the country club life with Rolan, being the blonde tennis-playing wife, the two-car family, having a husband who adored her.
    It came down to getting hitched.
    Not in her lifetime.
    “I won’t marry you. Tony and I can live with you, try things out. He needs a male role model and I suppose you’ll do. But I’m not signing away anything and I’m not giving you any rights. Tony’s mine. You weren’t there for his birth. You weren’t there for the first ten years of his life. I don’t give a damn about your biological rights and I’ll fight you every step of the way if you decide to take this to court. Got that?”
    “Every word,” he growled. “If we’re agreed that Tony comes first, then finding some sort of balance is in order. He’s a savvy ten year old. He’ll know when we’re quarreling.”
    “Right now, I really don’t give a damn. And I’d like to not see you for a few days, get