Page 29 of King's Heir of Hate

Esme rested her hands on the convenient shelf of her baby bump, no longer hidden at all today. It had been decided that they might as well use this opportunity to launch her pregnancy to the world in one go.Not a moment too soon, Esme had thought when the team had informed her of this decision, because she couldn’t imagine that very many people had been fooled this whole time no matter what games she’d played with shapes and fabric and flow.

Still, back home in their own kingdom, the people would only whisper their suspicions. They would not print them, out of respect.

There was nothing respectful about the broader European tabloid press, and so Tadeo’s team had decided that they would use the expected feeding frenzy to their advantage. The thinking was that the tabloids could and would shriek about Esme’s Royal Bump or some such thing and then cooler heads from the palace would put out a far more restrained announcement. The kingdom would tut at the intrusiveness of the press and would in fact argue thatwere it up to them,theywould not wish to know if the Queen was pregnant untilthe day she gave birth.

Even now, pictures of her in her wedding finery that had been altered to showcase her belly should likely be appearing on all the usual websites. It was all part of the game, and few people played the game better than Tadeo and his message-obsessed public relations team.

But it also felt like a good thing, Esme thought as the car inched along the ancient streets of this old, storied European city. She might not have wanted her marriage to have been the way it was for those first seven years. She might not have wanted the divorce she knew that Tadeo had been so bent upon, either, though she’d been prepared for it.

She was well aware that this baby was the reason everything had changed. It was possible that there was a part of her that resented it, but it was a vanishingly small part of her. If that. Because she had always wanted Tadeo more than she’d ever wanted to be free.

The reveal of her pregnancy meant that he was accepting their future too. She couldn’t hate that.

Esme knew that Tadeo believed thathedecided whether he got to feel emotion, and hated that she had always forced him to do exactly that and not on his schedule. She didn’t know how to tell him that a baby was likely to do the same—babies being babies—but that didn’t matter. He would find out soon enough, and anyway, the great thing about their marriage was that there were dynastic implications to the children they had. The only option he’d had to get rid of her was to make sure there was no issue. That was the only way he might have managed to pull off the supposedly amicable split she assumed he’d wanted to sell to his people.

The whole world would have assumed—no matter what they said—that the marriage had ended because she couldn’t have children. Whether they thought that was sad or not, they would have accepted that as a fair reason for a king to find a new wife.

Just in case Esme liked to pretend that the world had moved on from the Dark Ages.

Oh well, she thought now.That won’t be happening now.

But these were not the challenges Tadeo was talking about.

“I think that we are uniquely qualified to mitigate the challenges of this life,” she said, her belly warm beneath her palms. “My parents very much wanted me to have more real-world experiences than some other heirs to thrones. I went to grammar school with the public. That was very important to them. I did go to a private school after that, but they insisted that I leave the country for college, so I could see something of theworld outside of Clarebonne. They were deeply opposed to those finishing schools so many queens are polished up in. I think they always felt strongly that education was by far the better thing to concentrate on when manners can always be learned.”

“I’m not sure that schooling is the issue,” Tadeo said.

Esme smiled. “Is it not? Where else will you interact with others who are not of your rank? Who do not share your history? I think schooling is very important. Not just for the education you might receive, but for the social interaction. How else can you get to know your subjects?”

Tadeo looked as close tobewilderedas she’d ever seen him. “My father had a different view of the situation,” he said after a moment. Then he cleared his throat. “He spoke to me of duty, of course. And the responsibilities that would always trump any of my personal concerns, naturally. But when it came to education, he was very traditional.” He named the famous boarding school he’d attended that was known to handle the schooling of a great many royal children, not to mention the offspring of celebrities and billionaires of all stripes. “Then Cambridge, of course. Followed by Harvard, as you know. My father considered this a sort of hat trick of an educational pedigree.”

“But you already had a pedigree,” Esme pointed out softly. “The child I’m carrying does too.”

She thought that he looked taken back. Or, again, something likebewildered—though he hid it quickly beneath his more typical neutral expression. He aimed his attention out the window again, to continue the smiling and waving that was expected in situations like this.

“These are things I’m sure we can argue about once a child is here,” he said, dismissively. But it was like those nights when she was obediently silent and he started poking at her. She had the distinct impression that he was trying to get her temper to flare. He wanted her to fight with him, clearly.

Esme looked out the window again, but she didn’t see the crowds pressing in at the barricades. She had a little prickle of awareness that told her that this was an important moment, so she couldn’t quite see why. Aside from her inkling that he wanted her to poke back at him, he was perfectly right. They had years to worry about the schooling of their unborn child, not to mention what sort of society the next king might keep.

But somehow it felt as if this was a bruise that she’d unknowingly pressed against.

At the palace there were more cameras, and she could already hear the roars from the paparazzi as Tadeo helped her from the car. He made certain to pause for a moment outside it, as if he needed to adjust his sleeves, with her belly on full display. Then there was the long procession up the palace stairs and in through its grand gates that allowed most of Europe to get a glimpse of the contours of her pregnancy.

Precisely as planned, she knew. Esme couldn’t quite put her finger on why it was that she felt so unsettled by the conversation they’d had in the car.

It wasn’t his rules. As the weeks passed, they had loosened. Now it was not pure silence that he required. It was pleasantness. Only if he felt attacked, or he felt she was being unreasonable, did he decree that she’d lost access to him.

Though it was never for a week these days and the real truth was, he didn’t do that much anymore anyway. It was as if he’d become as addicted to their nights together as she was. Esme suspected that he didn’t sleep any better without her than she did without him.

But she didn’t dare say that, either.

What she did instead was pour her feelings into everything they did. Whether it was a dance at a ball or the way she held on to him as she found her pleasure, she did anything andeverything she could to infuse these moments with the love she felt swimming inside her, as sure as the blood in her veins.

Sometimes she was sure that he could feel it. Sometimes, in those unguarded moments when they were together and naked, and there was nothing in all the world but the fire they built together, she was sure that she glimpsed it. That light in his eyes. When he looked at her, sometimes, that curve in his mouth.

All those things he never said.

Inside the palace, they moved along a gorgeous entry hall that led into a ballroom. They were announced and then they walked down the stairs and were swallowed up by the crowd. Only then did Esme allow herself to start looking around with purpose.