Page 42 of His Highness's Hidden Heir

Oh, Magnus.

She tucked the side of her face into the hollow of his shoulder and cupped the silky whiskers on his jaw.

He caught her hand and drew it down, but held on to it.

“I feel like a ghost when I’m with them. I watch them get on with their lives without me. Now even my father is back in the picture.”

And it hurt him so much, he could hardly speak of it.

“I think they love you and don’t know how to reach you,” she said, thinking of the way they’d looked to Lexi to be that conduit, asking her questions that Magnus never would have answered.

“Because I’mhere. And what the hell am I supposed to do about that?” he asked.

She didn’t know, but she felt for his family, unable to scale the real and invisible walls that surrounded him. She had a suspicion he’d just told her more about his feelings for his family than he’d consciously clarified to himself before. And, if he was anything like her, he was about to pull back inside his protective walls and shut her out, rather than stay in a state of exposure.

But she washere. And this was the kind of intimacy she longed for between them. The kind that gave her hope and the confidence to reach out to him in a way they both could accept. A way that would reinforce these delicate emotional bridges.

She curled into him, lifting so she could set her mouth into the crook of his neck while she slid her hand up his arm to his chest, where she touched one of the buttons on his shirt.

His hold on her changed. He looked down with eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Still comfort?”

“Opportunity,” she said lightly. “Unless you’d rather wait until after dinner?” She pretended to try leaving his lap.

“No.” He gathered her as he stood and carried her to the bed.

“Lexi.” Magnus brushed the hair off her neck and buried his lips against the spot that made her shiver and gasp. “You have to get up and get dressed.”

“No,” she grumbled, scowling at the daylight pouring through the open curtains, then glanced over her shoulder to see him sprawled on the bed behind her, fully dressed. “Why are you up already?”

“Because your mother is landing soon.”

“Magnus.”She rolled onto her back to glare at him.

He lifted onto his elbow. “I told you I was having her flown in for the wedding. Are you going to tell me you wanted your brother and sister here after all?”

“No. They’re out of my life. ButItoldyouthat I’m not prepared to marry you in some rush-to-the-altar, shotgun wedding.”

His expression cooled. “Was there something in the prenup that you didn’t like?”

He had forwarded the documents after dinner last night, when she’d still been floating in the afterglow of their lovemaking. Then he’d left for a conference call.

Annoyed, she had nearly deleted them unread, but she never considered a role without reading the fine print of the offer so she had begrudgingly pored through them.

Despite seeming very fair, they had put her to sleep. He had come to bed later, not disturbing her beyond a spoon and a kiss, so they hadn’t talked about the wedding and now her mother was here, expecting to see her daughter married.

“The terms are fine.” She sat up. “It’s the unreasonable demands of the director that are putting me off. You can’t just book a wedding and order me to show up for it, Magnus. That’s not how it works.”

“Have you been paying attention at all?” He swung his legs off the bed and sat there a moment with his back to her.

She saw his fist clench before he smoothed his hand open and rubbed it on his thigh. Then he drew a breath and stood to look down on her.

“I will be at our wedding the day after tomorrow. Whether you join me at the altar depends on what kind of woman you are, doesn’t it? What are you afraid of? That this life might be hard? It will be. Life is hard. This life, here in the palace, can be very hard. It is lonely and it is bigger than either of us, but you are carrying the next person who will shoulder this burden, Lexi. What are you going to tell them? That you didn’t marry their father because you didn’t have the guts for it? Fine. If that’s true then you’re right. You’re not fit to wear my ring or a crown. I have places to be.”

He walked out, pulling the door closed firmly behind him.

Lexi refused to cry, but she was still upset when she collected her mother from her guest room and brought her to the suite she shared with Magnus.

“Iknewyou did more than dance with him,” Rhonda said the second they were alone. She wasn’t looking at her, though. She was taking in the decor of rare art and hand-loomed carpets and luxurious furnishings. “I thought our room was nice. Did he make you sign a prenup?”

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