Page 46 of Royally Knocked Up
“Hailey, it’s all right,” he murmured. “I promise you, I’ll take care of this.”
She shook her head. “It’s not that. I…” She drew a deep, shuddering breath. “I’m so sorry, Enzo. I was going to tell you. I didn’t want you to find out this way. I would never have wanted that. But… it’s true. I’m pregnant.”
She turned away, and Enzo felt as if his heart had come to a stop.
CHAPTER 18
HAILEY
She couldn’t face him. She could feel the weight of his presence behind her — so much heavier, somehow, than that of the king at the head of the room.
I should have told him right away.
“I don’t understand.” Enzo’s voice sounded hollow. “You’re pregnant?”
“I just found out. I was going to tell you, Enzo.”
“But you didn’t.”
“I was— I was thinking about how to do it…”I was thinking of how to let you know that I’ve been working with your father all this time.
“How does this magazine know before I do?” he asked. “If you didn’t tell me, who did you tell?”
“No one! I didn’t tell anybody, Enzo. You have to believe me. I would never have done that.” She shook her head. “I don’t know how they found out.”
“You were seen buying a pregnancy test,” the king spoke up. “Seen by someone who had seen you checking into a hotel with my son.”
“I wasn’t checking in with him. He was checking me in.”
“The palace contacted the source,” the king told her. “Apparently the two of you seemed very close. Your behavior was suspicious enough that he began to have you followed. He must have thought there would be something to find, and there was.” He looked at Enzo. “You may not have checked into the hotel room with her, but you stayed there last night. That’s in the article. You were seen going into her hotel room last night, and you never left. That was how I knew where to find you this morning. That was how the source knew that you were the father of her child.”
“But how could they have known the test was positive?” Hailey stammered. “I didn’t take it until late last night.”
“With a story this salacious, no one would wait for proof,” the king said darkly. “The rumor was enough to go to print.” He sighed. “And now I hear you tell me that it’s true.”
Enzo looked from Hailey to his father and back again, clearly making up his mind about something.
Then he took a step in his father’s direction. “All right,” he said. “I confess, Father. Is that what you want to hear? I’ve fallen in love with this woman.”
In love?
They hadn’t said those words to one another yet. But seeing Enzo stand so boldly before the king and say it — this man who was famous for never taking anything seriously — Hailey knewat once that she felt the same way. She loved him. He was more important to her than anything else in this horrible, mixed-up situation. How could she have spent all this time worrying about professional consequences? She could handle whatever came professionally, but the thought of losing him was heartbreaking.
She saw the king’s expression harden. “Enzo, I’ll deal with you later,” he said.
“There’s nodealing with mefor you to do! You’ve made it clear that you don’t want me to spend my days fooling around at bars, wasting time with people I don’t feel any sense of commitment to. You don’t want me to have flings with random women. Fine. I can understand that, even though I’ve taken issue with how much you want to control. But, Father, you can’t possibly also say that you don’t want me to have serious feelings for a woman. I know that I should have screened her first, allowed the palace to determine whether there was anything unsavory about her, but I trust Hailey. Do whatever investigations you feel you need to do. I’m sure you won’t turn up anything unpleasant about her.
Hailey felt queasy and panicked. She wanted to run. She wanted to leave and take Enzo with her, before he could hear what his father would say next. And she knew there was no way for that to happen.
It was inevitable now — it was already happening. She could only watch in agony as the truth came out.
When the king spoke, it wasn’t to Enzo at all. It was to Hailey.
“This wasn’t what you were paid for,” he said.
She stood frozen, unable to react.
“I was going to give you a royal commendation,” he said. “I brought you here just yesterday to congratulate you on the job you had done. You must have known this then. And you did nothing. You said nothing. You had already betrayed the crown, and you stood there and allowed me to congratulate you for it.”
