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‘Leo?’ she whispered, her heart so full now she was scared it might burst.
What had she done to this strong, steady, beautiful man? What had they done to each other?
‘It’s not that I don’t love you, Juno. It’s that I was too terrified to admit it.’
The bubble of hope inflated against her breastbone, making the pain increase. ‘But—’
‘Please, let me finish,’ he interrupted, but the roughness in his tone wasn’t impatience, she realised, it was regret. ‘I hadn’t thought of a pregnancy, hadn’t really considered how I would feel about it. What we would do. But when you came out of that bathroom with the positive result, everything inside me... It all felt so right. So wonderful.’
She nodded. ‘I know, because you need an heir.’
He shook his head, the emotion in his eyes so real and vivid now the bubble of hope expanded even more. ‘That is what I told myself. That is what I told you. And that is what I wanted to believe, but when you collapsed into my arms in the forest, I knew it was not the truth.’
‘It wasn’t?’ she heard herself say.
‘No.’
‘What is the truth?’ she asked, scared to hope now, but so much more scared not to know the answer.
‘It’s really very simple. I wanted to have a reason to demand you stay with me, that you marry me, without ever having to reveal my feelings for you. Feelings which I think began to develop the moment I first laid eyes on you at the Winter Ball.’
His head bowed, as if the weight of the world were on his shoulders. ‘I told myself I didn’t want you to love me, that I could never love you in return.’ He traced his thumb over the back of her hand, then lifted it to his lips again in an act of supplication that stole her breath. And made her heart expand with the bubble of hope now bursting under her breastbone. ‘The pregnancy was just another excuse. Not to confront those feelings.’
His gaze met hers, the shattered blue so full of longing her breath caught in her throat.
‘And this is why you must forgive me, not the other way around. You told me you loved me, and I refused to say the same—refused to even admit it might be a possibility. Because I’m a coward. If you wish to have this child in New York, away from me, you can. I would never take the child away from you. Never force you to marry me for the sake of a duty you don’t feel.’
‘Oh, Leo!’ She forced herself up on her elbows, to cup his cheek.
He was wrong. He wasn’t a coward, he was just scared. She’d been a fool not to see that the love they shared—so rich, so sudden, so vibrant—had terrified him when it had scared her so much too.
They had both been terrified. And the only reason she’d told him first was because she’d never been able to guard her feelings. The way he had been forced to guard his.
‘You idiot. Can’t you see none of that matters now?’ she whispered, her voice raw.
‘It doesn’t?’
‘Of course not. Not if you love me too.’
He gripped her cheeks, pulled her towards him, until his lips hovered over hers. ‘If being terrified of losing you is love? If wanting to listen to you breathe every day for the rest of my life is love? If wanting to go to sleep with you in my arms every night and wake up beside you each morning is love? If wanting to hear your voice, even when you are calling me an idiot, is love?’ He placed his hand on her abdomen. ‘If wanting to watch you grow round with our baby, and plant many more inside you, is love?’
She nodded, the tears cascading down her cheeks turning to happy tears at last.
‘Then I guess I am in love too,’ he said.
‘Good,’ she said. ‘Now please shut up and kiss me, Your Majesty.’
EPILOGUE
Two days later
‘YOUR MAJESTY, IS it true that the Queen is not the Queen?’
‘Queen Jade, how are you in two places at once?’
‘Which Queen is the imposter?’
Juno blinked furiously, overwhelmed by the barrage of camera flashes and shouted questions that greeted her and Leo as they stepped onto the podium at the hastily arranged palace press conference. Her stomach jumped into her throat, the guilt threatening to make her vomit as she gazed out into the sea of faces—their expressions ranging from curious to astonished to stunned to excited.
