by Dani Collins
* * *
Drained, Rhys realized he was crushing Sopi and forced his still twitching muscles to shift him off her.
He had known he was at his worst when he had finished making statements and recalibrating their security. He’d taken a cold shower to cool his temper, but he’d still been too edgy to sleep. He had wanted sex, but Sopi had been asleep, and he had known his mood wasn’t gentle. He’d made himself come to this other bed and had been lying here aching with arousal, seriously reconsidering whether they should marry after all, given the way he was reacting.
When he’d heard her moving through the suite, the beast in him had nearly howled for her.
And she had arrived as though in answer, stripped naked and offered herself.
Such a fight he’d put up, too. He’d taken her with all the finesse of a rutting boar. What if she was pregnant?
With his gut aching, he asked with dread, “Did I hurt you?”
“Of course not,” she chided, rolling toward him.
“I was rough.” He didn’t let her touch him, not trusting himself to stay off her. He sat up on the side of the bed.
“Rhys.” She came up behind him, knees bracketing his hips. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders so her breasts pressed into his back. Her scent was all around him, almost impossible to resist in its inducement to turn and take her in his arms, especially when she said, “We’ve been vigorous before. It was exciting.”
It had been a snap of something inside him.
He had been lying here berating himself for hesitating at the door to the balcony. He had wanted to give Sopi the chance to assert herself with her stepsister, but the sudden flash of Nanette’s swiping hand had nearly turned him homicidal. It had been all he could do to stay this side of civilized and leave Nanette to the authorities.
His feelings for Sopi were becoming way more than he could handle. He couldn’t let her go, though. What if she was already pregnant?
She nipped at his shoulder and rubbed her lips to soothe, fanning all his basest instincts. “I would have told you if you were hurting me. Honestly? I liked that you let go for once. You made me feel sexy and desired. Needed.” Her voice held a throb. She was a bright woman. She knew he was holding back from her emotionally.
Much as he hated himself for hurting her, he stood to confront her, trying to cement the barriers in place for both of them.
“My losing control isn’t a good thing, Sopi.”
Even in the dim light he saw the flash of injury in her expression. He heard it in her voice.
“It wasn’t bad,” she argued, but he heard her quaver of uncertainty. “It means we’re at a place in our relationship where we can get a little wild and still have full trust. You wanted me to trust you, and I do.”
“You might be pregnant!” He paced away, hand going into his hair and giving a yank of frustration.
“For heaven’s sake, you weren’t violent. We just got to the good part a lot faster than usual.”
“I was still crude as hell.”
“It was uninhibited. Passionate. It was lovemaking at its finest. Literally lovemaking. For me, at least,” she added with a hesitant lilt in her tone.
“Don’t,” he commanded, naked and cold in the shaft of blue light from the window. “Don’t fall in love with me, Sopi.”
“Why not?” she cried in a flash of angry pain that left a mark on his heart.
“Because I can’t fall in love with you.” And he couldn’t stay here and watch her eyes fill with tears like that. “You can sleep here. I’ll go to the other bed.”
He left before he couldn’t.
CHAPTER NINE
SOPI MOVED THROUGH the next minutes and hours and days in a type of shell shock. Rhys didn’t love her, didn’t want to love her and refused to talk about it.
She made a doctor’s appointment for later in the week, now equally as anxious as she was excited by the idea of being pregnant. She distracted herself by staying on top of things at the palace and making appearances with Rhys and having a fitting for her wedding dress—which should have been one of the happiest things she’d ever done, but it was all she could do to hold back sobs of wretchedness.
In public, she and Rhys continued to play the part of devoted lovers, but they were sleeping apart and barely speaking except in stilted bursts. A few times she caught a look of deep regret on his face, but she always looked away and shored up her own defenses, too hurt by his rejection to bear his remorse over breaking her heart.
She should probably regret all of this. A pregnancy would tie her to a man who didn’t love her, but the truth was, she deeply wanted to be pregnant. Maybe it wasn’t the best circumstances, but since leaving Canada, she’d been feeling very rootless. She needed family. She knew that now. A baby would give her the deep connection to another human being that Rhys was so reluctant to provide.
Which was why she was so devastated to get her period while she was dressing for her doctor’s appointment.
Reeling in anguish, she tried to dismiss the maid who entered. “Can you leave me alone, please?” she said, trying to stifle the rush of tears.
“Yes, but the prince said when you’re ready, he’s in the lounge...” She curtsied and hurried away.
Rhys had arranged to take her to the appointment himself. She allowed herself one silent scream into a wet facecloth, then blew her nose and repaired her makeup.
Bracing herself, she walked into the lounge. Found a distant smile for Gerard.
“Will you please cancel my appointment and give us the room?” she asked him.
“Of course.” He sent a brief glance of surprise between her and Rhys’s arrested expression, then made himself scarce.
Rhys was headed to a meeting after the appointment. He wore a suit and tie. It fitted him as beautifully as every other piece of clothing he owned, but she thought he looked gaunt.
For the first time in days, his shields seemed to thin as he searched her expression. “What’s wrong?”
Besides everything? She didn’t know how they had gone from so great to so terrible in less than a week, but telling him she might be pregnant seemed to have been the instigator. Was she supposed to be happy that was no longer an issue?
“I’m not pregnant,” she announced through a tight throat.
A flash of something that might have been agony streaked across his features, and he rocked on his heels, nudged off his keel for the first time since the night of their engagement party.
He quickly schooled his expression into something more cautious. “A miscarriage?”
“I told you I might just be late,” she said defensively. “It happens when I’m stressed.” But even as she dismissed it as no real loss, her heart hit rock bottom. She waited in vain for a hug and some expression of sorrow that came anywhere near to the devastation wrapping itself around her.
She heard him draw breath to say something, but he seemed to change his mind at the last second. She heard it anyway.
Next time.
Her cramping middle knotted even more. She stood paralyzed by torment as the full scope of what she’d done began to hit her. She had agreed to marry him. To sleep with him until she had his babies. Plural. And she would do that while knowing he would never love her. Then she would have to make a life with him and their children.
While he wore a look of such regret, she felt sick.
Her eyes brimmed until she couldn’t see him through her curtain of misery.
“We can try again, but not tonight,” she choked. “There’s no point. I’ll tell you when I’m...” Fertile? Receptive? “Able.”
* * *
“Sopi,” he said to her back, but she closed her door. Shut him out as neatly as he’d been shutting her out.
He leaned his hands on the back of the sofa and breathed through the fiery agony that gripped him.
This was why he didn’t want to fall in love with her. The baby hadn’t even been real yet. He hadn’t allowed himself to believe she was pregnant, trying to wait until the doctor had confirmed it before he let himself get attached to the idea of being a father, yet he was as devastated as if she’d been months along and he’d already felt the damned thing move.
In his helplessness, he had searched desperately for words that might wipe that anguished expression from her face, knowing a platitude about trying again wouldn’t cut it.
She’d heard it anyway and shut him down. I’ll tell you when I’m able.
He ran his hand down his face, aching to make love to her again. Not to conceive, but to feel her. Hold her and smell her hair and say nonsense things across the pillow.
Henrik was wrong. He hadn’t chosen well. He had chosen selfishly. Yes, she ticked all the boxes. A thousand women could have done that. He had allowed his baser instincts to guide him, though. He had given in to the primeval part of himself, manipulated her into their engagement only to cause her all this pain.
He went through the motions of his day, and when he returned to the palace, he ate alone, brooding, trying to see how they could forge a way forward.
He woke to the disturbing news that his brother and Elise were returning within the hour from Paris and wanted to see him the moment they arrived.
Throat dry and appetite nonexistent, he nearly fell over when Sopi hurried into the breakfast room, an anxious look on her face. She wore a jacket with a straight skirt since she was due at a school later today. Her hair was in a rope-twist ponytail, her makeup light.
“Why are they coming back in the middle of his treatment?” she asked, voice thick with apprehension.
“I don’t know.” He didn’t like any of the possible answers.
Whatever she read in his expression had her crossing to him and pushing her cool hand into his stiff one.
“I won’t stay if they don’t want me there, but I’ll come to their room with you.”
He should have said it was unnecessary. He was a big boy, but it was all he could do not to crush her slender fingers. He kept her hand in his until word came that his brother had arrived. Then he drew Sopi with him down the gallery to the monarch’s wing.
His throat was full of gravel, his chest nothing but broken glass. Thank God for Sopi, because she found a warm smile for her soon-to-be in-laws as they were shown into the private parlor where Henrik was seated. He looked gray. Elise stood beside him, clasping his hand. They were both beaming.
“Oh,” Sopi breathed in relief. “We thought you were staying in Paris for the entire course of your treatment. Is everything going well?”
“As well as can be expected,” Henrik said with a dismissive flick of his hand. “I toss more than I eat, but the doctors aren’t too concerned. I have a three-day break now, and we missed sleeping in our own bed. Plus, we had news we couldn’t wait to share.” He looked up at his wife.
Elise was blinking tearful eyes at him.
“We’re pregnant,” Henrik said.
The announcement hit Rhys like a shock wave. Distantly, he heard Sopi’s breath rush out as though she’d been punched. He recovered first, probably because he was used to staying on his feet through life’s groin kicks. He wanted to hold on to Sopi’s hand, somehow protect her from what she must be feeling, but she pulled her hand free of his.
He was genuinely happy for the pair, though. They’d waited so long for this.
“That’s amazing.” He moved to kiss Elise’s cheeks. “No one deserves such good news more. Congratulations.” He shook his brother’s hand, unable to hide his astonishment.
“We’re as shocked as you are,” Elise said as she accepted the shaky embrace Sopi offered.
Only Rhys detected how pale Sopi was and how unsteady her smile was.
“We had completely given up trying after my diagnosis,” Henrik said. “But we had a last hurrah before my surgery.” He winked.
“Henrik!” Elise nudged his shoulder, blushing and laughing. “That’s untoward.”
“It’s a miracle.” He caught her hand again and kissed it. “We won’t be making any formal announcements, but we wanted you both to know. I’ve put a lot on your shoulders lately and we have discovered how counterproductive that sort of pressure can be. Better to...how shall I say? Celebrate what you have rather than pin your heart to an uncertain future.”
“But never give up hope, either,” Elise hurried to add.
“No, you never do, do you?” Henrik said to her with an emotive look at his wife. “How did I ever get so lucky?”
“We’ll leave you to rest,” Rhys said mechanically as all the implications of this news began to penetrate his skull.
* * *
Sopi walked in a daze back to their wing, unaware whether Rhys had offered his arm or not. She was too encased in throes of envy. She was genuinely pleased for them, of course, especially now she’d had a taste of how disappointing it was to fail to conceive. Even so, she had to press the tremble of anguish from her lips.
“That opens up fresh possibilities, doesn’t it?” Rhys asked as he closed the door to their lounge in what sounded like an ominous click.
She spun around, gasping for the breath he had knocked out of her even before she knew where he was going with that cryptic statement. She only knew it was bad.
“Like what?” she asked.
His hand was in a fist against his thigh. “We don’t have to marry now.”
It took her a few moments to find words—her ears were ringing so badly.
“Was it always about having to and never about wanting to?” she managed to ask.
“Yes.” He was utterly still, his profile carved from granite. “If I had to marry, I thought it should be you.” He swallowed loud enough for her to hear it. “But I’m realizing how self-serving that was. I didn’t recognize how many pitfalls there were for you. This is your chance to walk away before any real damage is done.”
Her heart being in tatters notwithstanding?
“You’re going to put that on me?” she asked, pressing her hand between her breasts. “I can walk away if I want to?” What happened to committing in good faith?
“No,” he stated flatly. “I’m going to tell you to go. You’ll be better off,” he had the nerve to proclaim.
“How does that compute?” she asked, voice husked by gall.
He closed his eyes as though suffering something unbearable. “You don’t want to marry me, Sopi. You never did.”
“No, you don’t want to marry me,” she flung at him. “I love you. I would want to marry you if you wanted me, but you don’t. Is it because I didn’t—”
“Don’t finish that sentence,” he cut in sharply, speaking through his teeth. A muscle pulsed in his jaw. “But that’s part of why I’m doing this. It’s one thing for a couple to want children and discover they can’t make it happen. This damned title puts far too much demand on you to perform. I can’t put that on you. Not when I saw how much it hurt you when...” He lifted a helpless hand.
She didn’t tell him she could live with that sort of pressure if he loved her. He didn’t contradict her on not wanting to marry her, though—which was probably the cruelest thing anyone had ever done to her.
He broke the charged silence by drawing in a deep breath. “I’ll make arrangements for you to travel back to Canada.”
“Don’t bother,” she said flatly, no longer the doormat who allowed lesser people than him to walk all over her. “Thanks to you, I have resources of my own.” A house in Sweden, for instance.
“I know it doesn’t seem like I’m thinking of you, but I am,” he said gravely.
“No, you’re not!” She really ought to be grateful to him for all he’d done, but she was too angry. “You’re doing this because you like pain. I don’t understand why you feel a n
eed to punish yourself, but fine. I’ll lean into it and be the point of agony you need. You’re welcome.”
CHAPTER TEN
THE FINAL FLIP of Sopi’s magnificent hair as she had walked out on him might as well have been a bullwhip that continued to flay him over the ensuing days.
It stung especially deep when he informed his brother and Elise that she was gone. They both stared at him with exasperation and bewilderment.
“But I liked her,” Elise protested in an injured tone. “What if the next woman you choose isn’t...her?”
Rhys hadn’t thought that far ahead. Now the remark was salt in a wound, rubbing and rubbing. Henrik might have an heir on the way, but more children were next to impossible for them. Rhys would still have to marry and make a few spares.
The idea of lying with anyone but Sopi made him sick.
He buried himself in work, trying not to think of her, trying not to let Sopi’s absence cause more work to fall on Elise. As for Henrik, Rhys had to stay ahead of him or he would stubbornly refuse to rest.
“You’re starting to look sicker than I am. Walk with me,” Henrik commanded one morning. He was home again for the weekend, and spring sunshine was breaking through the breakfast room window.
They were no sooner on the path along the lakeshore, a refreshing breeze skating across the lake, when Henrik said, “What do you plan to do about Sopi?”
“Nothing. We called it off.”
“Why? And don’t give me your fabrications about things not working out. You didn’t have to convince me she was right for you. I saw it with my own eyes, only for you to turn around and tell me you were mistaken. You’re never wrong,” Henrik said drily. “In fact, I don’t think you were acting. I think you genuinely love her.”
He loved her so much he couldn’t breathe for missing her. She had only been in his bed a few short weeks and he reached for her in the dark every night. When he heard a footstep in the lounge, his heart leaped in anticipation. When Elise had a light spell of morning sickness, he wondered how Sopi would have coped.
