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‘I mean, you will be marrying me, Freddie.’ He smiled. ‘Welcome to the monarchy.’
CHAPTER SIX
WINIFREDSATONthe couch, her hands clasped tightly together, conscious of the solid icy ball of fear that had gathered in her stomach. It made for an unsettling companion to the sparks still coursing through her body, little pulses of electricity and flickers of fire, the remnants of his touch.
She’d felt as if every part of her was alive, hyperaware and awake and so achingly conscious of him in a way she hadn’t been before.
It was confusing to want him like this and yet to also be so afraid she wanted to run straight out of this room and out of the palace. Run all the way to the next country, put as much distance between herself and him as she could.
Yet she couldn’t. She was going to have his child and now he knew, now she’d seen the flare in his turquoise-blue eyes as she’d told him about the adoption, both fury and possessiveness in equal measure; she knew there would be no more running for her.
She’d been caught.
Except that terrified her. He didn’t know that nothing about her was real, that everything was fake, a lie she’d told to keep herself safe.
Her name. The accent she’d worked on so diligently. The degree from the Sorbonne. The years of experience working for thoseFortune 500companies. All those glowing references...
She’d paid an extortionate amount for the best fakes she could buy, yet still had never been able to believe the palace hadn’t investigated her and her qualifications more thoroughly. But Augustine had told her at the time that he’d needed someone ASAP, that she was perfect and that he was sure all her details were in order.
Trying to distract him from his relentless questions with her body had clearly been a mistake, though. An act of sheer desperation, because if she’d fully thought it through, she’d never have put a lit match to the smouldering attraction between them. Not when she too had been burned so completely by the flames. What had she been thinking? And now... What? He wanted to marry her?
This was insanity, and she needed to think about her next move, but it was impossible to think of anything in his presence. He made it so very difficult.
There was a knock at the door and Augustine mercifully turned away, dealing with the delivery of tea. The smell of it, a concoction made specially here at the palace, apple and cinnamon with echoes of orange, usually made her mouth water. But today it made her feel sick.
She had to get out of here. She had to find somewhere where he wasn’t, so she could think about what to do.
The maid arranged the tea on the coffee table in front of the sofa then withdrew.
‘Shall I be mother?’ Augustine was already picking up the teapot and pouring.
She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t sit here sipping tea and discussingmarryinghim. Not after they’d just had sex on the floor.
A king. He was a king. She couldn’t marry him. She couldn’t, not with her past. Not with all the terrible things she’d done. He’d find out. He’d know how she’d lied to him, over and over again...
If you’re his queen, though, your child would be safe.
Her hand stole to the curve of her stomach before she could stop herself, a complex rush of emotion filling her, everything so tangled she didn’t know one emotion from another.
Relief at the thought of her child being safe. Joy at the thought of being his wife. Fear at the thought of actually being a mother. Satisfaction that her child would be heir to the throne...
Why do you deserve any of that, though? After what you’ve done? You should give him the child and leave, and never come back.
‘You’re very quiet,’ Augustine said, placing the cup of tea in front of her. ‘Struck dumb at the thought of being my bride?’
She shoved the insidious thought away and looked up at him.
Even contemplating the idea of marrying him felt dangerous, because if she accepted his proposal, he could never know the truth. That the mother of his child had been deceiving him for years. That the queen of his country had killed someone.
She had dreams sometimes at night, nightmares of Aaron, her mother’s boyfriend, trying to drag her little sister into the bedroom of the trailer, and of the gun in her hand, the barrel shaking as she’d pointed it at him. She hadn’t meant to kill him. She’d only wanted to stop him from taking Annie. But she’d never fired a gun before, and she hadn’t expected the recoil...
‘Don’t be absurd, sir,’ she said, forcing the memories away and trying to sound even and measured. ‘You can’t seriously be thinking of marrying me.’
He straightened, folding his arms over his impressive chest, staring down at her.
Her heart twisted. He was beautiful, so very beautiful in his jeans and a T-shirt, with his dark hair mussed from the passion they’d shared not a few minutes earlier. Yet even so, he was still royal, every inch of him commanding.
She still couldn’t believe that had happened between them.
