One Night Heir

by Lucy Monroe

  They were both trapped and guilt was like a stone in Gillian’s heart because part of her was glad. That had to make her a very selfish person, even though she would never have intentionally pushed Maks into their current situation.

  “I want you to marry my son,” Oxana said quite distinctly.

  “I find that difficult to believe.”

  “Again, I am sorry. I am not usually so inept at making my wishes known.”

  Gillian had no trouble believing that.

  “I did not like the idea you had tricked Maksim into marriage.”

  “Like you did his father.”

  The queen did not react angrily to the supposition, but she shook her head. “There was no trickery involved with Fedir. He wanted my womb. I wanted him.”

  “Maks believes you only wanted to be queen.”

  “Maksim sees the best in his parents. It is a child’s prerogative.”

  “Yes, I suppose it is.”

  “Fedir never stopped loving that woman, even after Maksim was born.”

  “It didn’t work for Leah, either.”

  For a moment Queen Oxana looked confused, but then her expression cleared. “From the Old Testament? No. I should be grateful that Bhodana never conceived, but I am not. Fedir would have enjoyed having more children.”

  “I thought the countess was infertile.”

  “No tests were done. It was her status as a divorcée that prevented her marriage to Fedir while his father still lived.”

  “And your presence as his wife after.”

  “He would not dissolve our marriage. He refused even when I offered.”

  “He and Maks have a warped sense of duty to Volyarus.”

  “Overdeveloped and maybe it is warped, but I never saw it that way.”

  “You shared it. After all, you stayed.”

  “Of course I stayed. My son was to be king one day. He needed me to guide him and Demyan’s own parents abandoned him to our care for the sake of their own ambitions. He needed me as well.”

  “In the end, you’re saying it was the children who came first.”

  “As it should be.”

  “I agree.”

  “That is why you are marrying Maksim?”

  “Yes.”

  “You love him.”

  “With everything in me.”

  “And that is what makes this so difficult for you? That is what brings the grief and pain into your lovely blue eyes.”

  “He won’t love me.” The truth of that statement weighed like an anvil on Gillian’s soul. “It’s not an emotion that grows out of nothing.”

  “You have a child between you, common interests, shared experiences. That is not nothing.”

  “You had all those same things with King Fedir, but he never learned to love you.”

  “His love was already spoken for.”

  “It wouldn’t have mattered.”

  “You don’t think so? I am not so sure, but I suspect you are right. He cried out her name…the nights we tried for a baby.”

  It was such a startlingly intimate revelation, Gillian knew it was heartfelt and extemporaneous. “I’m sorry. If Maks did that, I’m not sure he’d leave the bed with his bits intact.”

  Incredibly Queen Oxana laughed. “As it should be. Perhaps a good kick in certain regions would have knocked sense in the king.”

  “Maybe.” Love wasn’t the great bearer of rationality, though.

  “I believe you are wrong.”

  “About what?”

  “My son’s feelings for you.”

  Gillian wished with all her heart she was, but she knew the truth. “No.”

  *

  Gillian’s first view of Volyarus was glittery lights in the extended blackness that was night in the Baltic Sea.

  From research she’d done, Gillian knew that while the majority of the inhabitants of the small nation lived on the main island about the size of New Zealand, it was actually an archipelago with some of the most profitable mineral rights existing on the lesser inhabited, more barren islands.

  The main island boasted a mountain whose snow peak never melted but at the base of which a thriving capital city was surrounded by extremely productive farm land.

  The growing season was short, but the constant sunlight made for bumper crops.

  Gillian couldn’t see any of that as she stood on the top of the steps leading down from the jet’s doorway.

  The early summer darkness here was absolute, once the sun had set. Like it had been in Alaska growing up. The landing strip and its surroundings were lit, but the area beyond was nothing but inky blackness.

  Three cars waited at the bottom of the stairs. Two SUVs with large unsmiling men standing beside them and an official-looking stretch limousine with the flags of Volyarus flying on either side of the hood. The driver stood by the open back door.

  A silver Mercedes sports class, just like the black one Maks drove in Seattle, came screeching to a halt on the tarmac as Gillian reached the bottom of the steps shortly after the queen.

  “Oh, dear,” Oxana said. “It appears Maks has discovered my trip to meet you.”

  Gillian had no chance to answer before the driver’s door slammed open and Maks sprang out. Moving forward with speed, his attention so completely on Gillian, he did not hear his mother’s greeting as he walked right by her.

  The queen smiled, surprising Gillian, turning to watch as Maks swept Gillian into his arms and kissed her until she was breathless.

  Deciding he knew the protocols best, Gillian went with it and kissed him back, letting her body relax into the man she loved. Once again in his arms, her worries for their future dissipated.

  Eventually he pulled back, though he kept her close, facing him, as Maks’s dark eyes searched her own with an intense expression she didn’t understand. “How was your flight?”

  “Fine.”

  “I did not expect you to have company.” He still hadn’t acknowledged his mother’s presence.

  “Me, either.”

  “Is it all right? Did she…” Maks looked over at his mother, his expression one Gillian could live the rest of her life without having directed at her. “She did not attempt to turn you off marrying me.”

  There was no question that if Oxana had tried that route, it would have led to a near irreparable schism with her son.

  “I did nothing, Maks, but get to know the lovely woman you intend to marry.”

  They actually had spent some time talking like two new friends, before the queen had insisted Gillian take a nap for the remainder of the flight. Oxana had kindly woken Gillian in time to brush her hair and teeth in the jet’s lavatory before landing, so she didn’t feel so rumpled meeting Maks.

  “If she said anything to upset you…” Again that look.

  And it made Gillian feel badly. Oxana loved her son deeply. “She only wants your happiness, Maks.”

  “I am happy to be marrying you.”

  “And to be a father, I am sure,” Oxana said smoothly.

  Maks jolted, as if it had not occurred to him that his mother would learn the truth before he told her. Which made no sense. How could Maks have believed that Demyan would keep something that elemental from the queen?

  Oxana was right. Maks wasn’t thinking with his usual clarity.

  Gillian shook her head. “It’s fine. She’s happy about the baby, too. Okay?”

  Maks again searched Gillian’s features, as if he was not sure he believed her before turning to examine his mother with the same questioning intensity.

  The older woman frowned. “How can you doubt it?”

  He did not answer, but turned back to Gillian.

  She looked up into brown eyes that caught at her heart.

  “She did not upset you?”

  “I was surprised when I found her on the plane,” Gillian deflected.

  Unmistakable worry washed over Maks’s features. “But you are not upset.”

  Grateful he’d used the present tense
rather than the past, she was able to answer without prevaricating. “No.”

  “Very well.”

  “Maksim. Really.” The hurt outrage in Oxana’s tone rang sincerely. “You will have Gillian believing I am a monster.”

  Maks sighed, his expression showing guilt only a loving mother could engender.

  He turned his face toward Oxana, but he kept his body in a protective stance around Gillian. “Of course not.”

  Incredibly, Oxana laughed, the sound soft and free somehow. “Oh, Maksim, I was so afraid I’d ruined your ability to love.”

  Maks went rigid. “Love is—”

  “A tremendous blessing when the one who loves practices selflessness rather than selfishness,” Oxana interrupted in a very unroyal way.

  Maks opened his mouth to respond, but Oxana shook her head. “I fear that between your father and I, you have only ever seen the selfish side of romantic love. Perhaps if you’d spent any time with the countess, you would have seen what selfless love is like.”

  “How can you say that woman—”

  Oxana put her hand up, interrupting again. “She is more than that woman, Maksim. She is the woman, the one woman who offered your father love without strings and he took it. Selfishly.”

  “Mother.”

  “Come, this is no place for a discussion about our family’s brokenness.”

  Gillian thought perhaps both Maks and Oxana should have considered that reality before this moment; this entire night had been a strange one.

  Maks frowned and insisted, “Our family is not broken.”

  The queen merely smiled that enigmatic smile and walked toward the limousine. “Come, Maksim. Ivan can drive your car back to the palace.”

  “I wanted…”

  “Gillian is too fatigued for a nighttime tour of the capital city. Come, Gillian. Bring my son with you.” The imperious tone wasn’t one Gillian would think of dismissing.

  Thankfully Maks showed he was smart enough not to, either.

  Soon, they were all ensconced in the limo, Maks’s car in Ivan’s care. Despite the roomy compartment, Maks kept Gillian so close she was practically sitting on his lap.

  She didn’t mind. Not a bit. The closeness, his constant touching, it all helped overcome that sense of despondency she’d been feeling on the plane.

  Laying her head on his chest, Gillian snuggled in as she wouldn’t have dreamed she could do in front of his very proper royal mother.

  Once the car was moving, Oxana said, “Maksim, I am very displeased.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Mother, but I will marry Gillian.”

  “Of course you will. She’s the mother of your child.”

  “She is sérce moje,” he said with conviction.

  “That is all well and good, Maksim, to say she is your heart. What she does not realize is that she fills your heart. Her reaction to my presence on her plane made that very clear.”

  “Mother,” Maks warned.

  Gillian didn’t know what the queen was trying to prove, but whatever it was, Gillian was afraid it was going to end up breaking Gillian’s heart all over again.

  “Fine.” Oxana crossed her arms in most unqueenly like fashion, a stubborn glint in her dark eyes. “You told me you love my son, Gillian.”

  “Yes,” she croaked out.

  Her feelings had been laid bare already. It shouldn’t hurt to have them dragged into the light right now, only it did. Very much.

  And she really wasn’t sure why.

  Oxana nodded, like she expected nothing less than Gillian’s agreement. Then she pressed, “Enough?”

  “Yes.” It didn’t matter what Oxana meant, what Gillian loved Maks enough for.

  She’d loved him enough not to go to him with news of her pregnancy to protect him and his freedom. She loved him enough for whatever it took to put his happiness above her own.

  And then Gillian knew; this was the great power of love he could not understand.

  But she knew it was there and would never again doubt the strength it could give her.

  “Enough to give him his freedom after your child is born and a sufficient period of time has passed?” Oxana asked.

  Gillian didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

  “No,” Maks barked at the same time, his volume much higher than hers, his conviction laced with desperation she didn’t understand.

  If she did not know better, she would think he was the one unsure of her feelings for him.

  He turned to her, his expression wounded in a way she’d never expected to see. “You will not leave me.”

  “She knows that you are better off without her if you do not love her.” Oxana’s eyes were filled with both certainty and compassion.

  Maks sucked in a harsh breath. “No.”

  “Yes.” Gillian felt the pain of that admission, but it wasn’t greater than the strength of her love. “You deserve to find love, to live with the glorious knowledge that there is one person in this world whose happiness will always come ahead of your own.”

  “No. Damn it to hell! You are not leaving me.” He turned a sulfuric glare on his mother. “If she leaves me, I will never forgive you.”

  The certainty in his tone left no room to question his absolute sincerity in the statement.

  Oxana flinched, but she never looked away from her son’s anger. “Why, Maksim? What would make you turn from your family so completely?”

  “She is mine.”

  “And are you hers?” Oxana asked, her own voice sharp with pained censure.

  Gillian understood only too well. King Fedir had never been hers, but Oxana had given the man her own heart and life.

  He’d squandered both and never realized it, or if he had, did not care.

  “Yes. I am hers.” The ferocity in Maks’s tone was matched by the way he pulled Gillian tighter into his body.

  She squeaked.

  He looked down at her, but did not relax his hold. “Are you all right?”

  She nodded, completely lost for words in this conversation that seemed to be leading a direction she’d been absolutely sure no discussion between her and Maks could ever go.

  The Rolls-Royce stopped and Oxana set a gimlet stare on her son. “You will give her the words. You will not hold anything back from a woman who loves you enough to give you your freedom for the sake of your happiness even knowing it will decimate her own heart finally and forever.”

  The queen got out of the car, walking toward the palace without looking back.

  Tension vibrating off him like the aftershocks of an earthquake, Maks followed. Gillian went with them.

  She had no choice. Maks had a hold of her and he wasn’t letting go.

  Full stop. Period.

  Gillian barely noticed the austere beauty of the palace’s architecture, or the opulence within. Her attention was fixed entirely on the man leading her across the massive foyer, up one side of a double marble staircase and down a long corridor.

  He stopped when they’d gone into a room that could belong to no one but him with its masculine luxury.

  He turned to face her. “Would you like a bath before bed?”

  “Don’t I have my own room?”

  He shrugged. Like it didn’t matter.

  “I thought the idea wasn’t to make a big splash in the media. Won’t someone notice I’m sleeping in your room? That can’t be appropriate, surely?”

  “I am Crown Prince—no one will question me.”

  “The media don’t have to question. They just have to report.”

  “Let them report it then.”

  “Maks! You’re not thinking straight.”

  He stared down at her, his jaw taut with emotion she was beginning to think exceeded anything he’d ever admitted to. “I thought my mother would try to convince you to leave me.”

  “Why? You said she approved of me as your potential wife.”

  His paranoia was irrational, emotionally driven.

  The concept blew her belief abou
t their relationship straight into space. Because Maks claimed not to be motivated by emotion with her.

  Had he been lying to himself and her?

  “She went to meet you. She didn’t tell me beforehand. That kind of subterfuge never ends well.”

  “She didn’t do anything wrong, Maks.”

  “She suggested you leave me.” The pained betrayal in his tone hurt Gillian’s own heart.

  But it made those champagne bubbles of hope start fizzing again too.

  “Only after our child was guaranteed his or her place in the House of Yurkovich.”

  “Do you think that is all that matters to me?” he demanded, his eyes wounded. “Is it all that matters to you?”

  “You know it isn’t.”

  “Then why would you leave me?”

  “So you can find love.”

  “I have already found love,” he shouted, his entire body rigid with feeling he didn’t seem able to keep inside anymore.

  Emotion she had been utterly sure he didn’t have inside of him. “You broke up with me.”

  “I should not have done.”

  Could it be that simple?

  “You need heirs.”

  “I need you.”

  “You do?” she asked softly, her heart blossoming like a rose under the sun.

  He stopped and stared at her. “Koxána moja. I live for you. My brain is clouded with thoughts of you. I forget my place in the middle of a meeting and find myself texting you while businessmen and politicians watch, believing I am contacting someone of more importance than them. It is the truth, but not in a way most would understand.”

  From his tone, it was obvious Maks wasn’t truly understanding it himself.

  “The prospect of you leaving me again fills me with dread.” The intense feeling lacing his voice brought moisture stinging to her eyes. “What would you call it?”

  “Love. I would call that love.”

  Could it be true?

  He stared at her, his expression so dismayed it was almost comical. “I just called you my love.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “I will teach you the words, so you can say them to our children.”

  “All right.”

  He dropped to his knees in front of her, his expression stricken. “I love you, more than duty, I love you. And I tried to deny it. There are no words for the depths of my sorrow at my own cowardice.”