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She never argued. She never protested. She was never difficult. She knew all his secrets, was aware of all his foibles. There were even times when she seemed to know what he wanted before he knew it himself.
She was the perfect assistant in every way.
Except the perfect assistant would never get herself pregnant, not when her presence was vital to the smooth running of his life.
Today, she was in a black skirt of some cheap, stretchy material, and it must have been new since it didn’t match her grey jacket. He hadn’t noticed it this morning, because he never noticed. And now he was looking directly at her, studying her, he could see why the skirt was necessary. She was definitely thicker around the middle than she had been, though the jacket did hide it.
‘Pregnant.’ The word come out strangely, as if he’d never heard it before in his life. ‘You’re pregnant.’
She met his gaze with her usual serene expression. ‘Yes. I’m...three months along.’
He found his hand had closed around the cut crystal of his tumbler and he was holding it far more tightly than he should have. The square edges were digging into his palms. Pain throbbed behind his eyes, but he was used to that so he ignored it. ‘Three months is a very long time to wait to inform me of this,’ he bit out, the only thing he could think of to say.
He’d thought his two Oxford friends, King Galen Kouros of Kalithera and King Khalil ibn Amir al Nazari of Al Da’ira, both getting married within the space of a year had been surprising. He’d never have picked his self-effacing assistant for a shock pregnancy.
‘I had to wait three months,’ she said in her cut-glass British accent, that made it sound as if she was biting out each word. ‘A pregnancy may not be...viable in the early stages.’
Of course, he knew that, though children would never be in his future. Not after the accident. He could barely be a king let alone a father and actually, could he even call himself a king when he couldn’t read? When he had to have Freddie do everything for him? She was the one running the country, not him.
How are you going to do that without her?
He couldn’t do without her, that was the thing. Not if he wanted to keep presenting a strong front to the world. His father would have wanted that at least and Augustine would be damned if he let his failings get in the way of his father’s wishes.
‘So now it’s...viable?’ There were edges in his voice, edges he didn’t mean, but he didn’t have the energy to smooth them out. Besides, it was only Freddie. She knew him. She had to know he wouldn’t be happy about this.
‘Yes. It is.’
He raised his glass and took a sip, letting the alcohol work its soothing magic, while he studied her, a dim part of him still echoing with shock.
If Freddie was pregnant then at some point she must have had a lover. A lover with whom she’d had sex and he couldn’t quite reconcile his precise little assistant with sex.
‘How did this happen?’ he asked, then heard what he’d said and amended, ‘I mean, are you married? Or do you have a partner I don’t know about? You never said anything about planning for a family, which I would have appreciated by the way.’ Yes, he was tired and he needed some painkillers, and he wasn’t feeling at all charitable about anything. Especially not the unexpected pregnancy of his highly valued assistant.
You should be congratulating her. That’s what normal people do when they learn someone’s expecting a child.
Yes, but he wasn’t a normal person. He was a king and even apart from that, the thought of her being pregnant sent a strange kind of electric shock through him. Possessive almost, which couldn’t be right. He was possessive of her professionally—he’d never allow anyone to poach her, for example—but that was all. If she’d decided to have a baby with a husband or partner, then who was he to argue?
She shifted minutely on her feet and he noticed that her knuckles were white. She was upset, he realised with another little jolt of shock.
She’s human. You do know that, don’t you? She has feelings.
Of course he knew that. He just didn’t often think of her feelings, because he’d never needed to. She never even betrayed that she had them. But she obviously had feelings about this, and it was not the unalloyed joy he often associated with pregnancy announcements.
‘I...didn’t plan on getting pregnant,’ she said carefully and precisely. ‘So this came as somewhat of a surprise.’ She hesitated. ‘You should know I don’t have a husband or partner, sir.’
‘Well, I didn’t know you were pregnant.’ He couldn’t quite keep the acid from his voice. ‘So forgive me if I somehow missed an important man in your life.’
She blushed for some reason and he experienced another jolt of possessiveness. What other man was there? And there had to have been one, because she wasn’t the Virgin Mary. So who was it? Had Augustine met him? But how would he know when she never talked about herself?
You never asked her to talk about herself.
No, of course he hadn’t. She was his assistant. He didn’t have to get to know her. Her only job was to do what he said, help him run the country, and that was all.
‘No,’ she murmured. ‘There is no important man in my life. It was...an unexpected turn of events.’
‘An unexpected turn of events,’ he repeated, glancing once again to her white-knuckled hands. ‘You didn’t want this, did you?’
A twitch of emotion rippled over her face, though it was gone too fast for him to be able to tell what it was. ‘Like I said, I didn’t plan it. But I’m going to have the baby.’
