Page 54 of His Highness's Hidden Heir

How could she even say she loved him? That was the real reason he’d told her not to say it. How could she love him after the things he’d done to cage her into this life with him? He’d done it out of selfishness, because he was so damned tired of being alone. How could she lovethat?

She didn’t come to their bed, staying in Rolf’s room overnight. She didn’t talk much the next morning either, keeping the baby and nannies and Ulmer between them as a buffer.

When they arrived back on Isleif, she said she had a headache so Magnus let her retreat to her room while he brooded on how he would pull them from this tailspin.

Before he saw Lexi the following morning, he was summoned to speak to Katla.

Irritated by what felt like a prime example of what had caused their fight—the fact that his obligation to the crown would always come before her—he strode into the formal receiving room with his usual flouting of protocol.

“Is this about Asia? I’ve already had discussions with Sorr. It’s under control.”

“No. That trip will be canceled. We have a personal matter to discuss.”

“You are not going to attack me about Lexi. She’s all but living under a veil. No, Katla. We have to learn to live with the bad press.”

“Magnus,” she said with quiet urgency. “I’ve been waiting until the diagnosis was confirmed. I have the same heart defect as my mother. I must abdicate.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

THEWORLDFLIPPEDon its axis.

No, he thought.

“Yes, Magnus,” she said, making him realize he’d spoken his reaction aloud.

“It’s really that serious?” The severity of this news—of her condition—drove him to his knee before her.

“Have you known me to be overly dramatic?” There were lines of distress around her eyes. Her lips were pale. “It’s not as severe as hers, but I’ve been struggling to breathe lately. I can’t continue with my duties, but with careful management, I should have a few years before I require a transplant.”

“A transplant.” That punched the air out of him.

“I’m being brutally honest with you, which I know is one of the things you hate most about me, but it’s necessary.”

“I don’t hate you. I find your desire to do the right thing extremely annoying.” He let himself fall onto his ass, turning as he did so his back landed against the chair that was angled toward hers. He braced his wrist on his upraised knee, trying to take it in.

“I don’t want you to be ill.” It was an understatement, but it was the most emotion he could allow himself to express without giving in to the shaken sensation in his chest. He and Katla clashed because they were knitted from the same chain-link armor, but she was as much his sibling as Dalla or Freyr. It would break his heart to lose her.

“I don’t wish to be ill either, but it is a fact so we’ll deal with it,” she said with her own steely refusal to give in to emotion.

They would deal with it, but he had time to process what her illness meant to both of them. To help her find the care she needed to prolong her life, but the other part. King? He’d been preparing nearly fifteen years, but it still seemed like a bizarre fantasy so he brushed that aside to be parsed through in the coming hours and days.

No, in this moment, his most immediate concern was, “What do I do about Lexi?”

“What do you mean?”

“Come on, Katla. Look what I’ve done to her, forcing her into royal life the way you did to me. At least I had the DNA. What you did was necessary, but I essentially kidnapped her.” There’d even been a level of emotional extortion when she had tried to delay their marriage and he’d challenged her on what kind of woman she was. He pinched the bridge of his nose, remembering their most recent argument. “When we were in London, I told her she should go back to acting if she wants to. Now I have to go walk that back? Tell her she has to stay here and become queen? I’d best have one of the bodyguards in the room with me. She’s liable to kill me.”

“Why on earth would you tell her to go back to acting?” Katla cried. “She’s a perfect partner for you. She makes youbetter, Magnus.”

“She makes me selfish,” he argued, thrusting to his feet. “You know that. I could have made arrangements for her, let her raise Rolf away from all of this.”

His chest felt ripped open at the thought. His son had become a part of him, but he shook off the sensation. At the time, his son hadn’t been real to him. It had all been about Lexi. About his desire to drag her into his life.

“I wanted her and went around you to get her. But the weight of this is affecting her. I don’t want to crush her and lose her. I love her too much to watch that happen.”

“I know you do,” Katla said with a choke of humorless laughter. “That’s been obvious to me since I heard the defiance in your voice when you told me she was pregnant. You were so glad. So proud. It was—” She looked away and blinked.

“Katla.” The unfairness of her infertility hit him anew.

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