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She’d figured as much, when she hadn’t heard from him after the accident. She’d waited and waited, caught up first in shock at losing Kay, then in growing awareness of her own desperation until, finally, she’d realized the prince’s silence was a message.
Still, it wasn’t enough.
He had to put his denial of his rights to his child in writing. She needed a document that said he didn’t want the baby, that he’d rather believe her story was a lie than acknowledge he’d fathered a child.
Even that was no guarantee.
Damian Aristedes was powerful. He could hire all the lawyers in Manhattan and have money left over. He could not only make his own rules, he could change them when he had to.
But if she had something on paper, something that might give her a legal edge if he ever changed his mind—
“I can almost see you thinking, Miss Madison.”
Ivy blinked. The prince was standing with his arms folded over his chest, narrowed eyes locked on her face.
It was disconcerting.
She was accustomed to having men look at her. It went with the territory.
When you had done hundreds of photo
shoots, when your own face looked back at you from magazine covers, you expected it. It was part of the price you paid for success in the world of modeling.
Men noticed you. They looked at you.
But not like this.
The expression on Damian Aristedes’s face spoke of contempt, not desire. How dare he be disdainful of her? She’d made a devil’s bargain—she knew that, had known it almost from the beginning—but she’d been prepared to stand by that bargain even if it tore out her heart.
Not him.
He was the man who’d started this. Now, he was pretending he didn’t know what she was talking about.
That was fine. It was perfect. It meant she’d kept her promise and now she was free to put the past behind her and concentrate on the future. On the child she’d soon have.
Her child, not his.
It was just infuriating to have him look at her as if she were a liar and a cheat.
Except, there’d been a moment, more than one, when she’d caught him watching her in a different way, his eyes glinting not with disdain but with hunger.
Hunger only she could ease.
And when that had happened, she’d felt—she’d felt—
“You’re as transparent as glass, Miss Madison.”
Years of letting the camera steal her face but never her thoughts kept Ivy from showing any reaction.
“How interesting. Do you read minds when you’re not busy evading responsibility, Your Highness?”
“You’re trying to come up with a way to capitalize on that moment of shock I showed when you told me I was your baby’s father.” He smiled thinly. “Trust me. You can’t.”
He was partly right. She was trying to come up with a way to capitalize on something, but not that.
Ivy took a steadying breath.
“I’ll be happy to leave, happier still never to see you again, Prince Damian. But first—”
