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Noelle could tell she was losing her son and spoke quickly. “I wanted to wait until you were old enough to understand.”
As if paying no attention to her words, Marc let his body go limp and slid onto the floor. “Did you see that, Mama?”
“I did. Now please come sit on the sofa and listen to what I’m telling you.” Her temper rarely flared with Marc, but the past ten days had left her emotions raw and her nerves frayed. She waited until Marc had flopped back into his original seat before setting her hands on his forearms and compelling him to look at her. “Prince Christian is your father.”
“No.” Marc shook his head hard enough to dislodge the controlled waves his mother had combed his hair into before dinner. “I don’t have a father.”
“You do. And he’s Prince Christian.”
Marc got to his knees and leaned close to whisper in her ear. “But I don’t like him.”
“Of course you do.” She aimed a glance at Christian to see how he was reacting.
As if taking this as an invitation, he hunkered down beside his son and offered an engaging smile. Noelle’s insides melted at his earnest warmth, but Marc wasn’t swayed.
“I don’t like him. I like Geoff.”
“Just because you like Geoff doesn’t mean you can’t like your father, too.”
“He’s not my father. I don’t know him.”
“I’d like to change that,” Christian said. “You and your mom can come stay at the palace, and we’ll all get to know each other.”
“I don’t want to stay at the palace. I want to stay in my house.” Marc’s face grew red as his frustration grew. “Please, Mama. Can’t we stay at our house?”
Noelle hated seeing her son upset and shook her head at Christian. “It’s a lot for him to absorb all at once. Why don’t I take him up to bed? We can talk more tomorrow.”
Christian ran his large hand over his son’s dark hair, looking unsurprised but bleak when the boy flinched and pressed his face against his mother’s chest.
“Of course.” Christian got to his feet. “Given how we were doing earlier, I had hoped that would have gone better.”
“As did I.” Noelle dropped a kiss on Marc’s head and stood. “Good night, Christian.”
Heart heavy, she led her son upstairs to his bedroom where she urged him into his pajamas and found where the maid had put his favorite dragon when she’d unpacked his suitcase.
“Mama, you’re not going to let Prince Christian make us live at the palace, are you?” Marc’s plea carried less defiance than he’d shown downstairs.
“Not if you don’t want to.” She lifted the covers, indicated he should get into bed, and then fussed with the sheets and comforter while she sought for some way to convince her son it was all going to be okay. “But I think you might like the palace. You have grandparents, and an uncle and aunt and two cousins who will love spending time with you.”
“I only want you and Nana.”
What was really going on with Marc? He was usually excited to experience new things. He’d rushed into his first day of school without once glancing back at his mother. An extrovert like his father, he made friends easily.
“You know that Nana and I aren’t going anywhere, right?”
Marc sat up and hugged his mother, his arms showing a desperate sort of strength. “Don’t make me live with him.”
“You don’t like the prince?”
“He’s okay.” Marc sat back down and toyed with his dragon. “Do you like him?”
“Yes, of course.” Noelle sensed there were more questions to come and wondered where her son’s thoughts were taking him.
“Are you going to marry him?”
With all the time she and Geoff had spent together, Marc had not once asked her that question. Why did he think things were different between her and Christian? Had he overheard them talking, or was it just a logical progression because Christian was his father and in Marc’s mind, parents were married?
“I don’t know.”
