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Feeling like someone sitting in the eye of a storm, knowing that any second all hell would break loose again, she drank and felt a little less wretched.
She set her mug down on a side table and waited, tensing when Dante unfolded his long, lean length and got to his feet.
‘I didn’t think about the time,’ he admitted. ‘I was—’
‘In shock—I know.’
‘I realise that you must feel… I know this isn’t what you wanted, but it is happening, and we have to deal with it.’
‘We don’t need to deal with anything.’ She still felt as if she had been run over by a truck, but the tea was making her slightly more coherent. ‘I am already dealing,’ she added, anxious to correct any impression to the contrary she might have given. ‘I’m booked in for my first scan, just to confirm dates, I think, in a few weeks.’
‘Right, I’ll cancel and have them schedule one for when we get back,’ he murmured half to himself.
‘Back?’she said, pretending a bewilderment she wasn’t feeling as a cold fist tightened in her stomach.
‘I’m not going anywhere. I’m here and I’m staying here.’ She drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. ‘Relax, once the divorce comes through we can sort out the details, how things will work.’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’ he ground out, realising that his life had changed the moment he had met Beatrice. Nothing had been the same since that day.
‘There isn’t going to be a divorce now you are carrying my child.’
She looked into his eyes and saw the same steely conviction that his voice carried. She half rose and subsided, shaking as panic spilled through her body.
She looked up at him, eyes looking even bigger. The dark rings around them making him think of a trapped animal.
‘You are carrying our child, the heir to the throne. That changes everything.’
‘He…she won’t want that,’ she said, pressing a hand to her stomach, the gesture unconscious.
‘Shouldn’t that be their call? Are you going to try and rob that child of their heritage, their birthright?’
‘It didn’t make you or Carl very happy,’ she slung back.
‘We don’t have to repeat the mistakes of my parents.’
She lifted a shaking hand to her head. ‘There has to be another way. I can’t go back to that…’ She shook her head. ‘I won’t be manipulated and managed.’
He was looking at her with the strangest expression. ‘Is that how you felt?’
His shock seemed genuine.
‘It is the way it was.’
‘It won’t be like that when you go back. There will be changes.’
She didn’t have the strength to hide her extreme scepticism even if she had wanted to. ‘What changes?’
‘To hell with opinion polls, I’m putting my family first. This is not about having an heir. It is about being a father.’ Until this moment he had never appreciated the massive difference between the two. ‘We’ll make it work.’
‘For the baby.’
He said nothing, the steely determination she saw shining in his eyes said it all as he took her chin between his fingers.
‘You can’t bring this child up alone…’
She fought the urge to turn her cheek into his palm. ‘People do every day, some out of choice, some because there is no alternative.’
‘But you have an alternative,’ he cut in smoothly. ‘We’ve had a trial separation, why not a trial marriage?’
