Page 27 of His Highness's Hidden Heir

Not that he’d had any real doubt. No, the greater surprise was the nature of this feeling that swept through him. It wasn’t a cold chill, the way he’d felt when he’d been told his father was really King Einer. When that had happened, a bleak weight had fallen on him, one that had severed him from his old life and left him sick with loss.

This was the opposite. His life had flipped again, reordering everything he believed to be true. A similar crushing sense of responsibility crashed over him, but this time it expanded a force within him. Strength pulsed through him. Determination.Fire.

Why? Everything about this was wrong, especially the part where he was becoming a father. What the hell did he know about parenting? Neither of the two men he referred to as his father had given him a good example to follow. They’d each cut him adrift in their own way, leaving him floundering in strange waters, abandoned and questioning his self-worth.

Yet he was the father of Lexi’s baby. He had a thousand pressing matters that he’d disregarded to come here and all he could wonder wasWhere is that damned doctor?He needed to know the baby was okay. That Lexi was.

“You’re not happy,” Lexi said heavily.

He hadn’t been happy, truly happy, since he’d beat his own record on a giant slalom the day he’d turned eighteen. Things had gone downhill even faster than he had, once Ulmer had introduced himself, but at least that memory reminded him what needed to be done as the doctor returned with the wheelchair.

“Let’s get you down the hall for your tests,” Dr. Rivera said to Lexi.

“Add one more,” Magnus said. “Paternity.”

He didn’t believe the baby was his.

She shouldn’t be surprised. Or insulted. But she was both.

Lexi agreed to have blood drawn for the paternity test along with the rest. A nurse helped her change into a hospital gown and she answered all the questions about what she had eaten today, submitted to various pokes and prods, then tried to relax while the monitor recorded the baby’s heart rate.

It wasn’t easy. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the thunderous expression on Magnus’s face when he had pulled open that door.

“They said I could come in as long as I don’t upset you.” He walked in with the energy of a caged lion and closed the door behind him.

She suppressed her jump of surprise, but decided she would rather get this discussion over with than sit in preperformance jitters, feeling as though she was waiting to go on a talk show for a six-minute mea culpa.

He had removed his suit jacket and wore a pin in his tie over a crisp white shirt. His hair was smoothly pulled back, his brows low with consternation. His shoulders weresobroad. Everything about him screamed power, intimidating her, yet she reacted in a potently sexual way, too. She was accosted by memories of his lips pressing her skin, his wide hand between her thighs. His body surging over hers while lightning gathered in her belly.

She tried to swallow and looked to the pastoral painting on the wall, pretending that her cheeks weren’t stinging with a bloom of sexual heat.

“You’re the one who’s upset,” she said stiffly. “I hope you believe me when I say I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

“The responsibility is mine. I never should have touched you.”

Oh, Gawd. His disdainful tone made her shrivel inside.

“Why am I the last to know?” he asked in that same aloof voice.

“No one knows you’re the father. Only a handful of medical professionals know I’m pregnant and Vijay only knows where I am because I asked him to meet me here. I wanted to clear my debt with you before I told you so you’ll believe me when I say I’m not asking for anything from you. By hiding my pregnancy, I can say the baby was born by surrogate and keep you out of it completely.”

“Am I supposed to be comforted by that?” His tone was even, but she heard the roil of emotion beneath it.

“I knew this wouldn’t be welcome news,” she said shakily, touching where the baby was giving a reassuringly strong kick at the top of her belly. “I know the challenges I’ll face if we acknowledge this baby is yours. Webothhave a vested interest in keeping your name out of it.”

Her deliberate use of his words landed on target because he narrowed his eyes.

“You’re deluding yourself,” he said flatly. “On several fronts. That baby is going to come out at five kilos wearing a horned hat. There won’t be any doubt that it’s mine.”

“I...don’t know how much that is.”

“Big.”

She was afraid of that. Had literally been worrying about it.

Magnus muttered something under his breath and flexed his hands.

“This is me keeping my temper so I don’t upset you as I explain why I’m very angry that you kept this from me,” he said in a tone that was exaggerated in its evenness.

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