by Lucy Monroe
As the pleasure ebbed, small aftershocks dwindling to an all over sense of perfect well-being and happiness, she became aware of the small kisses he was placing along her neck, cheek and temple. She turned her head and their lips met in a moment so laden with her love, it was a living blanket around them.
*
They shared kisses between drying each other off after finishing their shower in lukewarm water. Her apartment didn’t have the unlimited hot water tank his swank penthouse suite enjoyed.
“What does sérdeńko mean?” she asked.
Maks stilled and then leaned forward to kiss the side of her face. “Heart. It means heart.”
It was her turn to pause, everything inside her stilled in wonder. “Why?”
“You are the heart of this relationship.”
It wasn’t the words of love her soul longed to hear, but it was so much more than she’d expected after the way they’d broken up ten weeks ago, Gillian had to duck her head so he didn’t see the moisture pooling in her eyes.
He knew, though. Maks always knew.
He pulled the towel from her unresisting fingers and pulled her into another full body hug. “It will be good between us, Gillian. Believe me.”
“I do.” For the first time since she was a tiny child, Gillian made no effort to temper the hope bubbling up inside her like the sweetest of champagnes.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE NEXT FOUR days were a blur of activity for Gillian as she worked to clear her schedule for the last-minute trip to Volyarus.
Maks video called her twice a day, once in the morning and before bed each night.
In between, he was back to texting her frequently and now she was getting all three meals delivered as well as snacks in between. Some came to her apartment, others her studio, but when the catered delivery showed up at an offsite shoot, she knew this was more than just a matter of Maks instructing someone to make sure she got fed.
He was taking care of her and she liked it. She liked it a lot.
*
The private jet Maks sent to bring Gillian to Volyarus was swank, every appointment on the luxury end of comfortable. It was also already occupied.
Gillian had only met the woman sitting primly in the leather seat facing the entry door a handful of times, but she would have recognized Queen Oxana even if she never had. The queen of Volyarus might be a lesser known royal in the world of monarchies, but her visage had been in enough magazines and newspaper articles to make her a recognizable figure.
“Good evening, Miss Harris.”
Extremely grateful for all the awkward moments she’d spent at her father’s side at social functions now, Gillian did a standing curtsy. “Your highness.”
The queen rose from her chair, even that small movement graceful and elegant. “You may address me as Oxana. We are to be mother and daughter by marriage, I am told.”
Gillian couldn’t tell how the older woman felt about that fact from her perfectly smooth tone and politely inquiring features. Where the heck was Maks?
She couldn’t believe this little tête-à-tête was his idea. Which meant it was the queen’s. Oh, joy.
“Yes.” Gillian swallowed, her mouth gone dry.
“You are pregnant with my son’s child.”
“He told you?” The adrenaline of shock lasted only a few seconds and then tiredness took over, the past weeks catching up to her in an inexorable wave of mental and physical exhaustion. Gillian sighed, putting her bag on the seat nearest her. “Of course he told you.”
“Actually he did not.”
“Demyan?” Gillian guessed.
“Yes.”
“But why?”
“Apparently, unlike my son, he thought I should know the reason for Maksim’s insistence on a rushed elopement followed by a State reception.” The queen waved toward one of the cream leather seats, indicating Gillian should take it.
Knowing their takeoff slot was approaching quickly, Gillian put her seat belt on as soon as she’d lowered herself to the cushy leather. “Yes, of course. What I meant was why didn’t Maks tell you?”
Perfectly tweezed and shaped eyebrows rose slightly. “He does not want me to believe you have trapped him into marriage.”
“He’s protecting me.” Typical but not altogether welcome in this instance. Gillian would much rather Maks’d had this discussion with his mother. “The news was bound to come out.”
Queen Oxana nodded as she returned to her own seat, leaving the belt undone. “Yes, it was. Sooner than later and if he was thinking with his usual clarity, he would have realized this.”
“I haven’t noticed any lack in his sharp brain processes.”
“Haven’t you?”
“No.” Heat washed through Gillian, bringing with it a resurgence of the nausea she’d thought was gone for good.
Suddenly the queen was standing over Gillian, her hand on Gillian’s forehead. “You feel a bit clammy. Are you nauseated?”
Gillian could only swallow and nod.
Moments later, Gillian had a glass of carbonated mineral water and soda crackers sitting in front of her. The queen had returned to her seat, buckling her belt when the engines started warming up.
Gillian nibbled on the soda crackers while taking sips of the mineral water and tried to calm her inexplicably racing heart as the plane began its taxi toward takeoff. Or maybe not so hard to understand in the circumstances. She reacted to her own mother’s presence this way.
Why not a queen’s?
Queen Oxana spoke quietly to the flight attendant and then the man moved to the back of the cabin. Eyes so like her son’s examined Gillian with probing dispassion. At least, it looked like a lack of feeling.
Gillian was fairly certain there was a cauldron of emotion under the placid royal exterior.
“Feeling better?” Queen Oxana asked.
“Yes. How did you know, that I wasn’t feeling well, I mean?” Since she had been sitting down, there was no way the older woman could have seen how dizzy Gillian had become.
“Your face is quite expressive.”
So her urge to throw up had been evident in her expression? How attractive. “I see.”
“You will have to work on that.”
If she was going to keep up with the queen and her son, Gillian certainly would. Thinking that went without saying and that Maks’s mother didn’t need Gillian’s verbal agreement, she took a sip of her water and considered the next few hours in light of her company.
This led to another sip as her stomach roiled.
She was going to kill Maks. With his Machiavellian brain, he should have realized what Queen Oxana would do and circumvented it.
“I am not certain what that particular expression means, but it seems like someone might be in trouble.”
“You could say that.”
“My appearance surprised you.”
“Yes.” There was no point in trying to pretend otherwise. The way Gillian had nearly fainted in her seat was a dead giveaway.
“Maksim was born with duties and expectations few could understand, much less live up to.”
Unsure where the queen was going with that statement, Gillian nodded.
“He has always accepted his role without regret or complaint.”
“I know.” Gillian wished she knew the script for this scenario. “He has a highly developed sense of responsibility.”
“Some might even say overdeveloped.”
“Yes, but I would be surprised if you were one of them.”
“I am not the starry-eyed idealist I was when I first became queen. As I have gotten older, I have come to realize that perhaps my son’s happiness is as important as his duty to the throne.”
Gillian could not stifle the gasp of shock that opinion elicited.
Queen Oxana smiled wryly. “Yes, I know, Maks and his father both would find the idea bordering on the heretical.”
“But…” Gillian realized she did not want to bring up the queen’s own ch
oices that precluded happiness for the sake of duty.
The woman might be a public figure, but that did not make her life an open book.
“I would like to ask you a question, and I would appreciate it very much if you would answer honestly. Though I have little confidence you could hide the truth with your open expressions,” the queen mused, seemingly appreciative of that fact rather than disparaging.
“All right.” Gillian took another careful sip of water, her nausea not noticeably improved yet.
Queen Oxana nodded, like she hadn’t expected any other answer. “Did you get pregnant in order to trap my son into marriage?”
Water spewed as Gillian choked on the question and the beverage. The queen pressed a button and the flight attendant came bearing a linen napkin and a fresh glass of water. How he’d procured both so quickly, Gillian was content to leave a mystery.
He left, the damp napkin and her “compromised” glass of water in his capable hands.
“My question shocked you. It upset you as well, I think.” Queen Oxana looked vaguely regretful.
Gillian took several deep breaths and frowned at the queen, not even a little appeased. “You think?”
“Sarcasm can be very unpredictable in its outcome when used in a diplomatic setting.”
“So can inappropriately probing questions.”
“Touché.”
“I am not a gold digger.”
“Many people find power far more seductive than money.”
“The only thing seductive about Maks’s life is the fact that he’s in it,” Gillian said with pure sincerity.
Queen Oxana’s eyes widened infinitesimally, the only sign that she might be surprised by Gillian’s viewpoint. “Demyan said you did not tell Maksim of your pregnancy.”
“Demyan needs a hobby that isn’t spying on me.”
The queen’s lips tilted in an almost smile, humor glinting briefly in her dark eyes. “He has not spied on you personally.”
Gillian just looked at Queen Oxana, not willing to play a game of words right then. She was at enough of a disadvantage; she wasn’t going to let the older woman lure her into engaging in a sparring match Gillian had little hope of winning.
Her experience with the rich and powerful had taught her the effectiveness of silence and reticence.
The queen nodded, as if Gillian had confirmed something though nothing had been said. “Tell me, why did you not inform my son of your pregnancy immediately?”
“I felt it was best to wait.”
“Why? Did you hope the further along you were, the more desperate Maksim would be to give his child legitimate claim to its place in the House of Yurkovich?”
“No.” What kind of manipulative, self-serving person did this woman think Gillian was?
Depressed emotion overwhelmed her. She’d been feeling so hopeful, but the queen’s doubt and clear disapproval despite her calm air renewed Gillian’s own worries about this marriage born of necessity, not love.
She kept telling herself that even though they didn’t have love, they had something special. How long could the special part of it last though if his mother disapproved and sought to undermine Gillian’s relationship with the future king?
Doing her best to swallow the emotion clawing at her, she said, “Eleven weeks ago, your son dumped me because my medical exam revealed that I have compromised fallopian tubes.”
No shock showed on the queen’s placid features. “Again, Maksim did not share this with me.”
“But you knew anyway.”
“Naturally. Demyan did not learn his habits from a stranger.”
“Was that a joke?” If it was, Gillian wasn’t laughing.
Queen Oxana flashed that barely there smile again. “Perhaps.”
When Gillian made no effort to continue the conversation, the queen remarked, “I have yet to understand why you hesitated to tell my son of your condition.”
“It’s not a condition. It’s a baby.”
“I apologize. I did not intend to offend you.”
No? Gillian just shook her head. “You and my birth mother would get along well.”
“In that, I think you are mistaken.” For a moment, unmistakable emotion clouded the queen’s eyes and it wasn’t humor.
There was no question that for some reason, the queen of Volyarus did not like the feminist politician from South Africa.
“If you say so.”
“It truly was not my intention to offend.”
“I find that hard to believe. Your diplomatic skills rival your son’s, or so I’ve been led to believe.”
“Perhaps my son is not the only one disturbed by recent events.”
Well, that told Gillian where she and the baby in her womb stood in the queen’s estimation. They were disturbing.
“I didn’t tell Maks about our baby because my fallopian tubes are still compromised. If I miscarried, we were in the same place we had been ten weeks ago.” Simply saying the words reminded Gillian what she was ignoring in order to marry Maks. “I would once again be the wrong person to be his princess.”
“Maksim, in his usual optimistic fashion, ignored that possibility, did he not?”
“Yes.”
Queen Oxana seemed to thaw slightly. “Why were you concerned about the viability of your pregnancy?”
“Rates for miscarriage are higher than most people are aware. Stress increases them.”
“Having been abandoned by the man you loved would have caused enough of that commodity.”
Gillian had never said so to Maks, but yes. She nodded.
“You felt like you were defective and worried that increased your chances of losing this miraculous baby.”
Gillian had no idea how the queen came to that conclusion, but she could not deny it. “Yes.”
“Maksim has no idea, does he?”
“Of course not. He wouldn’t know how to feel defective.”
“Thank you.”
Gillian found a smile. “Nana would say you raised him right.”
“Your grandmother is a very colorful character.”
“She is that.” Nana was going to add some interesting spice to royal gatherings in Volyarus.
“I, on the other hand, understand intimately that feeling of defectiveness.” Sadness shone in Queen Oxana’s dark gaze. “I lost three babies after Maksim’s birth.”
Gillian sucked in a breath. “I’m very sorry.”
“Thank you. Some pain is so deep, it never leaves completely.”
The fact the royal couple had married in order for Queen Oxana to provide heirs to the throne made the tragedies that much more poignant.
The queen looked out the oversize cabin windows into a rapidly darkening sky. “I would have enjoyed a houseful of children.”
It was such an unexpected thing for a woman like the impeccable and controlled queen to say, Gillian gasped.
The older woman looked back at Gillian, meeting her gaze with a troubled brown gaze. “You cannot picture it, can you?”
Gillian considered lying, but wouldn’t disrespect the other woman with less than honesty. “Frankly, no.”
“The miscarriages, the dissolution of my marriage in every way but on paper, it all changed me, but one thing I never lost was my desire for more children. I never resented Demyan’s place in our lives. Far from it.”
“Maks considered you a very good mother.” No doubt Demyan had as well.
The man had picked up the queen’s habits by her own admission.
“I am pleased to hear that, but I fear I did him a terrible disservice in raising him so focused on duty and with such a wariness toward love.”
“You know he’s only marrying me because of that deeply ingrained sense of duty, don’t you?” Stupid tears Gillian blamed on pregnancy hormones burned her eyes. Understandably the queen regretted raising her son in a way that made the current situation possible. “I know it, too.”
No matter how much Gillian might wish things were dif
ferent.
“You do not believe my son would have married you without the baby to draw you together?”
“I know he wouldn’t.” Hadn’t the older woman been listening when Gillian told her that Maks had broken up with her eleven weeks ago?
“Maksim has been very attentive the past days he has been in Volyarus for a man only doing his duty.”
“He’s a committed guy. I’m one of his responsibilities now.” And she’d been an idiot to let herself begin to believe it might be something more.
If not love, something.
Right.
“Surely you do not begin to imagine my son does not care for you?”
She almost snarked back, surely you don’t imagine he does. Only Maks did care, if only for the fact she was the mother of his unborn child. “Your son does not love me. He’s been very clear on that point.”
“Has he?” The queen almost looked guilty. “Has he explained why?”
“Can you explain why one person falls in love and another doesn’t?” Gillian asked, trying to get hold of her emotions and knowing she hadn’t succeeded when her voice came out shaky from the tears she refused to let fall.
“He is afraid to love. I made him that way.”
Gillian wouldn’t deny that his mother’s views on the subject had influenced Maks, but ultimately the problem was with what he actually felt, not what he thought about feeling. “He doesn’t believe in love and really, it’s a moot point. If he loved me, he wouldn’t be able to deny it.”
“I think you underestimate my son’s power of will.”
Gillian shrugged, not agreeing but lacking the energy or will to argue the semantics of emotions with the queen.
She was sure the other woman had something else of more importance—to her anyway—to discuss. “Is this where you try to buy me off, or something, your highness?”
“I must insist you address me as Oxana. We will be family.” For once all of the other woman’s emotions showed on her perfectly made up features. And every single one of them was horror. “As to your question, no. Absolutely not.”
“But you think I trapped your son into marriage.”
“No.”
“You asked…” Gillian let her voice trail off.
What did it matter? The queen…Oxana had only brought to the forefront what Gillian knew in her heart to be true. Maks had been coerced into marriage by his personal sense of honor and his very real concern for their baby. There was no getting around it.
