Carrying the King's Pride

by Jennifer Hayward

  Katharine hung the dress she was holding on a hanger. “I think you have depression hunger. The to hell with it kind.”

  “I’m also starving.” Sofía set the chocolate bar down on the counter and reached for the bottle of water she’d stashed behind the register. “Like nauseous hungry if I don’t eat lately. It must be the exercise.”

  She’d been sweating it out in a fitness class every night to take the place of her dates with Nik. It was definitely helping her figure, despite the chocolate.

  Katharine gave her a funny look. “You know what that sounds like, right?”

  Sofía blinked. Blanched. “Oh, no. It couldn’t be. We were always careful. Obsessively careful.”

  Katharine shrugged. “I’ve just never seen you eat junk food.”

  A customer popped out of the fitting room at the back of the store. Her partner went to assist her. Sofía put the bottle down on the counter, a jittery feeling running through her. There was no way she was pregnant. She was on birth control.

  She pulled her phone from her purse and checked the calendar. The blood drained from her face. Dear God. She was late. She hadn’t even noticed given the insanity of her life of late.

  “Back in a minute,” she blurted to Katharine, grabbing her purse and hightailing it out the door. There was only one way to dispel the impossibility of what was running through her head.

  At the drugstore, she snatched two pregnancy tests from the shelf, paid for them and flew back to the boutique, where she locked herself in the bathroom and administered them. Two solid blue plus signs later she stood looking at a disaster in the making.

  “Sofía...” Katharine banged on the door. “Are you okay?”

  “Fine.”

  Katharine’s tone was grim. “Open up.”

  She opened the door. Held up the stick.

  Katharine’s face dropped. “Did you do more than one?”

  Her head bobbed up and down.

  “Okay,” her friend said slowly, “This is what we’re going to do. You’re going to remain calm until you see your doctor. Then you can panic.”

  Except seeing her doctor the following morning only triple confirmed what she already knew. She was pregnant. And no amount of denial or panic was going to change it.

  * * *

  Nik lifted his gaze from the seemingly endless document recapping plans for the immediate expansion of the armed forces, his eyes having glazed over ten minutes ago. Undoubtedly it was a complex, tightly timed schedule on how the government should move forward, but he failed to see how it required fifty pages to bring him up to speed. He’d gotten the gist by page five.

  Exhaling deeply, his gaze slid to the pile of newspapers on his desk. Admittedly, part of his distraction might have to do with the picture of Sofía on the front page of the society section of one of the New York papers, her face turned down as she left her apartment. Beautiful Sofía Trumped by a Countess Licks Her Wounds blared the headline.

  Aside from being patently untrue—spirited Sofía could never be found lacking versus his chilly soon-to-be fiancée—the racy headlines weren’t helping his merger with the Agiero family. Although when it came to Vittoria, it was hard to tell if it was just her stiff demeanor or that her nose was, in fact, out of joint. He had dined with her three times now and was actually wondering how he was going to psyche himself up to bed her. Beautiful she might be; engaging and personable she was not.

  Unfortunately, he and the countess were announcing their engagement next week and his choice of who to bed would be forever taken away from him. As it had been with everything else.

  His chest tightened at the thought of what he’d had and what he’d lost. Things that would never be given back to him. His brother. His life. The world as he’d known it. It was like opening a can of worms, thinking about it. He’d tried not to.

  His life had been a living hell since he’d come back to Akathinia, his father’s recovery slow, his country’s recovery from its crown prince’s death equally lengthy and sorrow-ridden, particularly given Carnelia’s failure to deliver anything other than a formally worded apology via messenger. As if that would ever do.

  His coronation had been a blur. He was fairly sure he had processed little of it, his only focus his increasingly verbose neighbor who continued to insist Akathinia was better off back within the Catharian island fold—a desire that Nik knew was motivated by economic reasons. Carnelia’s economy was struggling, had been for years, and Akathinia was prospering. It wasn’t hard to put two and two together.

  And, if he were to be honest, he wanted, needed to prove to his father and the people that he had the ability to lead this country as well or better than Athamos would have. It was something that kept him up at night.

  Exhaling a long breath, he took a sip of his coffee, set the cup down and returned his attention to the report in front of him, skipping to the conclusion. His attention was pulled away once again when Abram knocked on the door and entered.

  “Sorry to interrupt, sir.”

  He lifted a brow.

  “You asked me to keep an eye on Ms. Ramirez, given the news coverage.”

  His fingers dropped away from the papers. “Is she all right?”

  “She’s fine.” Abram clasped his hands together in front of him. “There has been a development.”

  “Which is?”

  “Ms. Ramirez is pregnant.”

  “Pregnant?” He repeated the word as if he couldn’t possibly have heard it right.

  “We had a detail on her as you requested, with so many photographers still trailing her. She purchased a pregnancy test earlier this week, then saw her doctor.”

  Thee mou. His brain attempted to absorb what his aide was telling him. It was inconceivable. They had been so careful.

  A buzzing sound filled his head. “And the doctor? We know for sure it was confirmed?”

  “Yes.”

  He got to his feet, his head spinning violently. It was impossible. Impossible.

  He excused Abram. Paced the room and attempted to wrap his head around what he’d just been told. He was going to be a father. Sofía was carrying the heir to Akathinia. It was a disaster of incalculable proportions.

  It occurred to him Sofía hadn’t told him because the baby wasn’t his. But as soon as the idea filled his head, he discarded it. Sofía hadn’t had a lover before him for a long while. They had been exclusive. That he knew.

  So why not tell him? What was she waiting for? An image of that last time they’d been together filled his head. Woke up old demons. Sofía running a finger down his cheek. I wanted to end it like this. The emotion he’d read in her eyes that said she’d gotten too attached. How she’d stopped him when he’d reached for a condom... Can it be just us tonight?

  Blood pounded his temples. Had she bedded him that night with the intention of getting pregnant? It seemed so at odds with Sofía’s independent personality. With her acceptance of the no commitment rules of their relationship. Yet didn’t he know from personal experience just how far a woman was willing to go to keep a prince? To preserve a relationship she knew was ending?

  His head was in only a slightly better state when he found his father taking a mandated walk in the formal gardens. He curtly broke the news, without preamble. The king’s leathery old face turned thunderous.

  “Pregnant? Thee mou, Nikandros. We have all turned a blind eye to your philandering, but to have her conceive your heir? Have you lost your mind?”

  His jaw hardened. “It was not planned, obviously.”

  “By you. What about by her?” He shook his head. “Has history taught you nothing?”

  A red mist descended over his vision. “Sofía is not Charlotte.”

  “You wouldn’t hear ill of your first American plaything either. Then she sold her
story to the tabloids and seriously damaged the reputation of this family.”

  And his father would never let him forget it. Never mind the fact that Gregorios had indulged in countless affairs during his marriage, had torn this family apart and was far from a saint.

  His father waved a hand at him. “No use dwelling on your irresponsibility. We are on top of this. It gives us a chance to deal with it. Consider our options.”

  His heart skipped a beat. “What options are you referring to?”

  “We need this alliance with the Agieros.”

  What his father didn’t say rendered him speechless. When he did recover his voice, his tone was as sharp as a blade. “This is the heir to the Akathinian throne we’re talking about. What exactly are you suggesting?”

  “We can make this go away. There will be other heirs.”

  Stars exploded in his head. He clenched his hands by his sides. “Do not utter that thought ever again.”

  “Don’t be naive about her, Nikandros. Women are your downfall. They always have been.”

  Nik gave him a dismissive look. “I’m flying to New York on Friday.”

  His father gaped at him. “You can’t leave the country right now.”

  “Idas is not going to start a war overnight. I’ll be there and back in twenty-four hours.”

  “And if it gets out you’ve left Akathinia at this crucial time?”

  “It won’t.”

  “Send Abram.”

  Nik pinned his gaze on his father. “As you’ve just said, the country is on tenterhooks right now. I am trusting no one to deal with this extremely sensitive issue but me. I know Sofía. I know how to reason with her. We’ll be back within twenty-four hours.”

  His father clenched his jaw. “This is insanity.”

  Nik shook his head. “Insanity was when Athamos decided to take Kostas on in a suicidal race neither of them should have survived. This is practicality. Sofía is carrying my heir. Marriage is the only answer.”

  * * *

  Sofía turned the sign on the boutique door to “closed,” kicked off her shoes and carried them to the register, where she started doing the nightly deposit. Working was preferable to facing up to the question of when she was going to tell Nik she was carrying the royal heir.

  When she unleashed a ticking time bomb with the potential to rock a nation and its leader at a time when it needed it the least...

  From the timing the doctor had given her, she had conceived her and Nik’s baby the night they’d ended it. When she’d questioned the effectiveness of her birth control pills, the doctor had informed her the migraine medication she was on could have interfered with the pill’s effectiveness, a fact she hadn’t been aware of. A fact she’d desperately wished she’d been in possession of.

  That she’d gotten pregnant that night seemed to be the only thing she was certain of. That and the fact that she was keeping this baby. Treasuring it.

  Her initial shock had faded into sheer, debilitating panic as her life shifted beneath her feet once again. How could this be happening now, when this was her time to shine? Her time to begin her design career with her business thriving. She’d even hired someone last week to make it happen.

  She knew how difficult it was to bring up a child on your own. She’d watched her mother attempt to do it after her father’s death and fail under the unrelenting pressure of the responsibility. She had been the one to parent her mother when her mother had lapsed into a deep depression. And yet what choice did she have? Nik was marrying someone else, he hadn’t wanted her and it was up to her to figure this out, regardless that the life of an entrepreneur was completely unsuitable for what she was about to take on.

  Overriding it all, however, had been the elemental, protective instinct that had risen up inside of her. That had always been in her DNA. The need to treasure what she’d been given. The need to protect the fragility of life. Although the sheer, debilitating panic still came in waves, something she had to keep a handle on, using the coping techniques the doctor had given her after her father’s death, lest it get out of hand. Not a place she wanted to be.

  She counted the twenty-dollar bills for the third time, her concentration in tatters from all the possible scenarios running through her head. The door chimed. Katharine went to intercept the customer who’d ignored the closed sign. Sofía kept counting. Her gaze rose as a funny sound escaped her partner’s mouth.

  The tall, dark male standing inside the door swept both of them with an enigmatic look. “You should lock the door if you’re closed. This is New York, ladies.”

  The deposit bag slipped from her fingers. Eyes trained on Nik, she knelt and picked it up. He walked toward her, bent and scooped up two loose twenty-dollar bills, then straightened to tower over her. Their eyes locked. Her heart jumped into her mouth. Nik in full-on intensity mode was ridiculously intimidating.

  She swallowed hard. “Nik— I— What are you doing here?”

  “We need to talk, Sofía.”

  Her mouth went dry. He couldn’t know. She had just seen her doctor. Then what was he doing here when tensions were running high in his country over its aggressive neighbor? Why did he have that furious glint in his eyes?

  Katharine cleared her throat. “I have plans with my sister for a drink. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  She wanted to beg her not to go. Would have preferred a buffer between her and Nik until she figured out how to handle his unexpected appearance. How to tell him about the baby. Instead she nodded, a sinking feeling in her stomach. She had to get it over with now. She’d already waited too long.

  She forced a smile. “See you in the morning.”

  The store was vastly, terrifyingly quiet after Katharine left. Sofía set the deposit bag on the counter and looked up at Nik. “I’m so sorry about your brother. About everything that’s happened.”

  He inclined his head, his abrupt nod toward the deposit bag dismissing the subject. “Finish the deposit. We’ll talk afterward.”

  The heated expression on his face made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She counted the rest of the money with trembling hands and shoved it in the deposit bag. Tried to convince herself Nik was in New York on urgent business and had simply dropped in to see her.

  It seemed very unlikely.

  She set the deposit bag on the counter and closed the register. Nik nodded toward the bag. “We’ll drop it off, then talk.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “We can talk here.”

  “No.” He picked up her purse and handed it to her. “We’ll do it at home.”

  She was too tired, too frazzled to argue with him. They dropped the deposit into the slot at the bank, then Nik tucked her into the back of the Bentley and slid in beside her.

  She tried to ignore how much she wanted to throw up. What he would say when she told him her news. How she was going to tell him.

  Lost in her thoughts, vainly trying to devise a strategy, she frowned as the driver took an unfamiliar exit. “I thought we were going home.”

  “We are. To Akathinia.”

  She jackknifed into an upright position. “What?”

  “I can’t be here. The fact I left the country with Idas breathing down my neck caused my advisers considerable anxiety. We’ll talk in Akathinia.”

  She gaped at him. “We are not talking in Akathinia. I have a business to run. Take me home and we’ll talk there.”

  His gaze turned incendiary. “You lost your chance to set the rules of the game when you elected to keep your pregnancy from me, Sofía.”

  Dear God. He knew. She swallowed hard and forced herself to stay calm. “I was going to tell you. This week.”

  “This week?” He yelled the words at her, his iron control snapping. “Do you have any idea what this means?”

>   Her insides flip-flopped. “Of course I do. Which is why I haven’t said anything yet. Because I knew you would appear just like you have now and start making decisions. And I need to understand how I feel about this first. What I want to do.”

  His gaze narrowed on her. “What you want to do?”

  Heat rushed to her cheeks. “I didn’t mean that. Of course I’m having this baby. It’s the logistics I’m not sure of.”

  “Logistics we should have discussed days ago.”

  She stared at him. So she’d been wrong in not telling him. Did he think this was any more convenient for her with her lifestyle? Any less than a disaster than it was for him?

  Her chin dipped. “We can talk about this over the phone.”

  He caught her jaw in his fingers, the rage burning in his eyes making her heart pound. “We aren’t talking about it on the phone. Akathinian law says this child we have conceived will succeed me to the throne. It doesn’t matter if he or she is born in or out of wedlock. Which means I cannot marry the countess. My alliance is dead, an alliance I needed to fund a potential war.” His fingers tightened around her jaw to ensure he had her attention. “It’s a huge problem, Sofía. One we need to work out now.”

  Her insides twisted. She hadn’t known Akathinian law well enough to draw that conclusion. Hadn’t wanted to know.

  She took a deep breath, inhaling past the tightness in her chest. For the first time she noticed how deep the lines bracketing Nik’s eyes and mouth were. How stressed he looked. This pregnancy was a disaster in the current circumstances and she had made it worse by keeping it from him.

  Guilt slammed into her, swift and hard.

  “Come with me,” he said flatly. “Before my actions set off a national security crisis. We’ll talk and figure this out.”

  She pursed her lips. “I would need to see if Katharine can handle the shop by herself.”

  “Call her.”

  She fished out her mobile and dialed her partner. Katharine assured her she’d be fine for a couple of days.