Page 28 of His Highness's Hidden Heir

“My body, my choice, Magnus.”

“Agreed,” he cut in, still with that suppressed emotion suffusing his deep voice. “I appreciate that pregnancy is a huge decision. You needed time to consider whether you wanted to continue with it. Fine. Hiding the pregnancy from the rest of the world is also fine. Hiding it from me strikes a very raw, personal nerve.”

“I tried to meet you in Monte Carlo,” she reminded in a hiss.

“You didn’t try very hard,” he snapped back.

She couldn’t argue that so she didn’t bother.

“I told you I never met my father. My biological father,” he clarified. “Everything about my relationship to him was kept from me until it was thrown in my face on my eighteenth birthday.”

“By whom?”

“Ulmer. He found me at a ski hill, showed me some identification and asked to speak with me. My mother was born on Isleif. She still had family there. I thought he was going to tell me someone we knew had died. Instead, he told me Queen Katla was approaching forty and was childless. She feared she would be the end of the Thorolf line so she was forced to determine whether I was her bastard half brother.”

“He didn’t call you that.” Ulmer knew how to make a person feel small, but he didn’t resort to insults. Did he?

“It quickly became obvious that’s what I was,” Magnus stated with a sweep of his hand through the air. “My mother wasn’t married when I was conceived, only engaged to the man I came to believe was my father, Sveyn. She genuinely didn’t know who the father was, but she feared the palace would take me if I turned out to be the king’s. She talked Sveyn into moving to Norway.”

“Did she tellhim?”

“No. King Einer was killed six years later. By then Katla was married and trying for an heir. My mother thought it would never come up again.”

“Sveyn never questioned it? Did you? Do you look like him?”

“Enough. We’re all tall with similar coloring. I thought Ulmer was delusional when he said what he did. I consented to the blood test because it seemed the quickest way to make him go away. Within a few hours I was confronting my mother, blindsiding Sveyn in the process.”

A chill settled into Lexi’s chest. She bunched a handful of the sheet that covered her legs, feeling the anger and betrayal coming off him as waves of icy gales and scorching heat, understanding that some of that was directed at her, for hiding this baby from him.

“That must have been a difficult moment for all of you,” she murmured.

“It broke their marriage,” he said starkly. “Sveyn left. I haven’t spoken to him since. For years after, my brother and sister barely spoke to me.”

“They blamed you?” She flashed a look up at his grim expression.

“They didn’t know what to think of me. Everything we had in common, everything we believed about our family, was a lie. I had to move to Isleif so I wasn’t there to... Hell, I don’t even know what my side of it was, only that no one cared to hear it.”

Her heart felt squeezed in a giant fist. “Magnus—”

“It’s water under the bridge,” he said bluntly. “What I’m saying is, I would never do something like that to my own child. I wouldn’t hide their parent from them. That’s why this—” he waved a finger to take in the clinic and her pregnancy “—infuriates me.”

“I understand.” And she hurt for the young man he’d been. It explained so much about how remote he was, walking around as though infused with the force of a hurricane. “But I didn’t know any of that. And if we’re talking childhoods, let me explain where I’m coming from. Whenmymother got pregnant, my father shuffled her off to Arizona and resentfully paid her support, angry that she insisted on having me. I was six when I realized I was the reason we had nice things, and that other little girls didn’t play house on film sets every day. It was only when my career began to take off that my father showed an interest in me. Once he got involved on the contract side, the pressure to work really hit. And when Paisley Pockets became a hit, Mom and Dad got into a huge custody battle that had everything to do with the value of my renewal contract and nothing to do withme.”

She glanced at the monitor to ensure that her strident voice and climb in temperature wasn’t affecting the baby.

“Iwant this baby. It had to be my decision and I had to know I could raise it alone. You think I don’t know how it looks? Your first thought had to be that I plotted to have the baby of a rich man. Don’t deny it.” She waved an accusing finger at him. “But that’s not what this is. I need you to believe that. I was waiting until I was in a position tonotneed you before I told you.”

“I don’t think that’s true.”

“I’m not lying to you!” She dropped her hand to her side.

“No, you’re lying to yourself.” He glanced with concern at the monitor. “You wanted to cement yourself into a life where you can raise this baby alone because you knew what would happen as soon as you told me.”

Her heart lurched and she splayed both hands on her bump. “You’re not taking this baby from me, Magnus.”

“Of course not. I just explained why it’s paramount to me that my child knows both their parents from their first breath. No. For such a smart, ambitious, levelheaded woman, you have been remarkably naive, Lexi. I can only assume it’s fear. You’re not wrong to be frightened. It’s a hellish life you chose for both of you when you decided to have that baby. But you did.”

“No, Magnus.” She dug her heels into the mattress, pushing her back into the pillows because she sensed whatever he was going to say would be too big to withstand.

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