by Lucy Monroe
There was no give in her tone, no evidence of possible softness in her blue gaze. He was not used to seeing Gillian as the hardline taker, but there could be no question. This woman would not be moved.
“Then in two weeks’ time we will be married.”
“I’m not making any promises—”
“Until you’ve hit your second trimester. I heard you the first time.”
“So, stop trying to push for a promise I’m not prepared to make.”
“But you will make it.”
“I don’t know.”
“You do.” She must. “You made your choice.”
“What do you mean?”
“You knew dating me came with different expectations than other men.”
“I didn’t sign my life over to you when I agreed to see you exclusively.”
They’d never verbalized that agreement, but he took her point.
It just wasn’t the salient one. “You did not know about your compromised fallopian tubes when you agreed to make love without a condom.”
“We had sex and you made the same choice.”
“I believed pregnancy was impossible, or at least extremely unlikely,” he felt compelled to add.
“Unlucky you.”
“That is not how I see it.”
She frowned and then enlightenment dawned, but he held no confidence she’d seen light about the right thing. “No, I suppose you think me being pregnant with your child is lucky indeed. The heir is on the way.”
“I will treasure our child, and not merely because he or she is the heir to the throne of Volyarus.”
“Will you? Really?” she asked intently.
“Yes.” There could be no doubt.
“That’s something, I suppose.”
“My parents were king and queen of a small but still demanding nation. Nevertheless, they were very good parents.”
“Even though your father split his time between your family and his friend the countess?”
“No one’s home life is ideal, but mine was good. Our child’s will be better.”
“That’s what I want for my child. Better. I want her, or him, to know unconditional love.”
“Like you did from your grandparents.”
“Like I wanted from either or both of my parents.”
She’d never voiced that desire before, though he could have guessed at it.
“We are not your parents.”
“We aren’t yours, either.”
It was his turn to ask what she meant.
“If, and I do mean if, I agreed to marry you, there would be requirements.”
“Like?”
“Like, no mistresses. I’m not your mother and I won’t tolerate a long-standing or short-standing affair, or one-night stand for that matter. I would leave you and you’ll sign a prenup giving me primary custody in the event of your infidelity.”
“I am not my father.” Maks was determined not to emulate the other man when it came to this area of his father’s life. “The king’s long-standing understanding with the countess is not something I will ever repeat.”
“I’m the only one in your bed. Full stop. Period.”
He hated she felt the need to make the stipulation because he knew this was about his father’s choices not any Maks had made. He’d never cheated on a lover, even in his college days.
And he never considered his position made him immune to the rules of honor in regard to his future wife, either. “Again, I am not my father.”
“You put Volyarus first, last and always.”
“But my father does not.”
“You don’t mean that,” she said in obvious shock.
Well, she might be. He didn’t criticize his father often and he’d done so twice in one day to her. But if they were to be married, he would not pretend wholesale support of his father’s decisions as he did for public consumption.
Like Demyan, Gillian would be privy to things Maks would never express elsewhere. “If my father put Volyarus first and in all ways, he would not continue a liaison that could explode in our faces at any time.”
“Your outrage at your father’s behavior is based on your concern for Volyarus, not your mother.”
“My mother was well aware of the countess when she agreed to marry my father.”
“If I am unable to conceive a second time, we will use a surrogate or pursue fertility measures. You will not leave me for a more fertile woman and that would be in any prenuptial between us.”
“Fine.” Though he didn’t know how she planned to ensure that one.
“The prenuptial will include any future offspring in that custody agreement.”
“You would have primary custody of any child I conceived with another woman?” He couldn’t help the appreciation of her planning lacing his tone.
The woman was not only intelligent, but she knew how to be ruthless. He could appreciate that fact.
“Exactly.”
“And if the mother doesn’t agree?”
“She’ll be forced to fight the Crown in a very messy custody battle right in the center of the media’s eye.”
“You will use your connections to your father to bring Volyarus into the public eye?”
“You have no idea how far I will go to protect my children’s future and their happiness.”
“I was raised by a woman willing to sacrifice anything for mine, I do know.”
“Oh, no, your mother never fought the way I would fight. She’s too wrapped up in the good of Volyarus to push as hard as I would.”
That was true. “She is not weak.”
He used to think otherwise, but had come to appreciate his mother’s brand of strength.
“No, but she is too self-sacrificing. I won’t be her.”
“You won’t be your parents, either. You’ll never deny your child its birthright.” The way she was talking made him realize just how much time Gillian had spent since discovering she was pregnant thinking about the scenario of a marriage between them.
There could be no doubt the prospect no longer thrilled her, but she clearly understood the importance of protecting their child and his birthright.
“I don’t have to marry you for you to name our child as your heir.”
“According to Volyarussian law, I can name any living relative as my successor, but the birth of a legitimate heir negates all previous claims to the throne.”
“You’re saying if you marry someone else and they have a child, that child inherits the throne?” she asked carefully and with clear thought.
“Exactly.”
“Fine.”
Shock coursed through him. “You would deny our child his place in life?”
In no scenario had Maks expected categorical denial.
“I’m not saying what I would do. You do not seem to be getting that. I’m acknowledging the consequences if I choose not to marry you.”
“You cannot do that to our child!” She must realize that.
“You walked out on me ten weeks ago.”
“And our child must pay because of it?”
“I have to make the best choice for this baby, one way or another. He or she deserves the best I can give. That may, or may not be, marriage to you.”
“Damn it. Why?”
“You don’t love me.” She put her hand up when he made as if to speak. “In your mind, that doesn’t matter. I know, but it matters to me and I have to decide if I can be the best mother possible married to a man who does not love me and who found it so easy to discard me.”
“It was not easy.”
He could see by the expression on her face that she considered his claim very much a situation of far too little, far too late.
And her words proved it. “It was easy enough. You wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t found out by nefarious means that I am pregnant.”
“It was hardly nefarious means.”
“You managed to get information in my confidential medical records. What wo
uld you call it?”
“Expedient.”
She laughed, the sound both unexpected and welcome. “You’re a piece of work, Maks, you know that?”
“I am a prince.”
“Who thinks he has the right to put surveillance on an ex-girlfriend.”
“I told you—”
“Demyan did it. I knew you two were like brothers. I didn’t know that extended to finger pointing.”
“He was doing what he thought best.”
“Why? I wasn’t going to go to the tabloids. You had to realize that.”
“I told him about that night.”
“What?”
“That we did not use condoms.”
“Oh. You told him? Really?”
“Yes, really.”
“Why?” She clearly could not see him sharing confidences.
“I was drunk.”
“Oh.” Her brows furrowed. “Why?”
“I missed you.” Hadn’t they already been over this?
“You said.”
“I meant it.”
“I guess you did.”
“What? You thought I was lying.”
“If it meant convincing me to your point of view? Yes.”
“You do not trust me at all.” That shocked him.
He was eminently trustworthy.
“No, I don’t.”
“That is not acceptable.”
“You say that a lot. You can’t deny that it took finding out I was pregnant to bring you back here. What is there to trust in that?”
“You know why.”
“I know I didn’t rate even considering fertility treatments.”
He had no answer for that. The truth was not always palatable.
“You never doubted the baby is yours?” she asked.
“No.”
“Oh, right…you had me followed. You would have known I didn’t so something crazy like sleep with a stranger to make myself feel better.”
She sounded like that might have been in the offing and he did not like knowing that at all. “It never even crossed my mind you would have sex with another man.”
“We weren’t together. Why not?”
“You don’t sleep around.”
“People do crazy things when they’re hurting.”
He shrugged. He wouldn’t know. Self-control had been drilled into him from the cradle. “You didn’t.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Do not sound so miffed by that fact. I am very pleased about it.”
“Did you?”
“Did I what?” And then he understood what she wanted. “No other women.”
“Why?”
“I missed you.” It didn’t sound so naff now that he was trying to get her back with interest.
“I might just believe you.”
CHAPTER SIX
GILLIAN FELT AS if the universe was conspiring with the Prince of Volyarus to keep him uppermost in her thoughts every second of every day.
As if it wasn’t hard enough to get him out of her head as it was.
While photography for book covers comprised the majority of her work, it did not dominate it completely. Usually.
For three days running, every single shoot Gillian had done was for a romance cover. Every single one. And why all of the heroines were blonde she didn’t know.
She often photographed brunette heroines, redheads, even one who had pinks streaks in her hair, but not for the past three days. All her female models were decidedly of the light haired variety.
And they’d all been paired with tall, handsome, dark haired love interests.
None of the men were a patch on Maks, though. They lacked the underlying steel in his character, that cold aloofness that had allowed him to walk away from her without a backward glance.
These models might be amazing men in their own right, but none were Maks. None made Gillian’s heart stutter, her breath catch, or her body heat.
And their very differences made Maks even harder to forget.
He wasn’t helping, either, not giving her a moment to collect her scattered thoughts.
Maks texted her several times a day. The bits of info on pregnancy were understandable, even charming. His short messages were geared as much toward her comfort as they were the baby’s health. She appreciated him not making her feel like a brood mare.
But he acted as if they were still dating, wanting to go to dinner, take her to a show, asking if she was available to be his plus one at upcoming social events.
As if on cue, her phone announced in a snooty tone, “Your text has been served, madam.”
The current pair of models both looked up from where they were getting into position for the first set of shots.
“Do you need to get that?” the dark haired not-Maks asked.
She shook her head. “It will keep.”
“Don’t worry on our account. Go ahead and check it,” the blonde offered with a smile that encompassed both Gillian and the male model.
Oh. The woman was interested. The male cover model wasn’t married and Gillian had no intention of standing in the way of possible romance.
“Thanks.” She grabbed the phone and clicked through to the text messages.
La Bayadére is playing. Do you want 2 go?
The fiend. He knew she loved the ballet!
She texted back. Too busy.
She wasn’t getting sucked back in. Not until she knew what she wanted for the future.
R u sure? Great seats.
The temptation was strong, but she held out. Absolutely sure.
Silence. No reply text, no virtual butler giving her a little smile with his snooty tone.
Feeling unaccountably let down, she called the two models back to work.
Now her thoughts kept going back to the choice ahead of her. A choice that impacted the unborn child in her womb irrevocably.
Gillian would give thanks every single day of her life for her grandparents and their love, but they’d resisted her ever considering them full-on parents.
Maybe at first, they’d hoped her dad would take a more active role in her life. Later, it had been their way of maintaining the illusion that Rich Harris was her dad, when he’d never been more than a financially generous sperm donor.
He said so himself, laughing about it as if holding no particular affection for his only child was something funny rather than tragic.
That was not a destiny she was willing to write into the stardust of heaven for her own child.
Maks wasn’t like Rich, though. The prince loved his own family, even if the words never passed his lips. It was in everything he did for them, the way he put the very select few ahead of his own wants and desires.
His parents. Demyan. They were all afforded the protection of Maks’s considerable will and strength.
It was one of the first things she noticed about him; his commitment to family had given her false hope for their own relationship.
He didn’t love her, but Maks would adore any child of his and that was a circumstance Gillian simply could not ignore.
*
Maks knocked on Gillian’s door. He’d been texting and calling her since leaving her apartment—against his better judgment—the other night.
She replied to most of his texts and took some of his calls, though she never returned the ones she didn’t. She’d put off seeing him on one pretext or another, even refusing his offer of La Bayadére.
It was very different than the way she’d behaved before, when her eagerness for his company had often caused him to smile on days otherwise very challenging.
He’d never expected Gillian to dig her heels in like she had. This streak of stubbornness was something he had to file away for future reference.
The woman could be supremely intransigent.
He was not used to being treated this way by women, and this woman particularly. He did not like it. He’d had enough.
He had to fly out to Volyarus in the early hours tom
orrow and he wasn’t leaving Seattle without settling some things between them.
The door flew open to reveal Gillian glaring at him in bad temper. “How did you get into my building?”
He shrugged. The hacker had upset her. Telling her he had sublet an apartment on the floor below hers he had never stepped inside so he would have open access to her building would not make her happy, either.
“You are too much.”
“I am just enough.”
She shook her head and turned toward the kitchen. “You may as well come in. The dinner you had delivered is clearly enough for two. I assume you intend to share it.”
“You don’t like it?” he asked.
“It’s my favorite chicken Parmesan. From a restaurant that does not do takeout no less, though apparently they do for you. What’s not to like?”
He didn’t know. So, he said nothing. He’d read pregnant women could be emotionally unpredictable.
“I appreciate you sending me dinner the last few nights.” The words were grudging, her lovely face set in lines of annoyance rather than gratitude.
Her grandmother would be proud Gillian had remembered her manners when she so clearly would rather tell him to take a flying leap.
“You do not need to be cooking. It’s clear you are tired.” Too tired to be working full-time, he thought, but was smart enough not to say.
Right then. And though she hadn’t allowed him to see her, he had done his best to care for her needs regardless.
“Pregnant women have been cooking their own dinners for millennia.”
“This pregnant one does not have to.” He laid his hand on her shoulder.
She jolted, like he’d touched her with live electricity, and stepped away from him with an alacrity that troubled him.
“You can no longer bear my touch?” He’d read that some pregnant women went right off sex, too.
He’d hoped Gillian would fall in the other category. The one where pregnancy drove their hormones in quite a different direction. The physicality between them had been something he’d missed sorely over the past months. And he’d hoped to use it to reestablish intimacy between them.
Gillian didn’t answer him, but moved to where takeout containers sat open on the counter. With quick, economic movements, she plated the food in silence.
