Page 22 of His Secretly Pregnant Cinderella

“I should think it’s quite obvious. I am here to claim my brother’s child.”

Morgan stared out of the crack, the door opened as wide as it could with the chain still on, utterly dumbfounded by what Constantine had just said.

His brother’s child.

But surely he knew...

She looked up at his face, and it was clear that he didn’t know. “My parents are overjoyed,” Constantine said. “So thrilled that Alex is to have a child. It does not matter what passed between us, Morgan. What matters is that you have given them hope. You have given them joy when I thought it would not be possible for them to ever experience it again. When my father saw the article...”

“An article?”

“It was in the tabloids just yesterday.”

“It was not!”

“It was,” he said.

“I didn’t see it.”

“Do you read tabloids?”

“Well no. But I would if I thought that I was going to be in them.”

“Open the door, Morgan. I will show you.”

“I am quite capable of doing an Internet search without your interference.” She closed the door, then went and grabbed her phone off the couch and did a quick search for her own name.

And there it was. In the bodega. And of course the picture they used was the one after she had put her sunglasses on, which was when she had become paranoid. She hadn’t gone out incognito, but they’d certainly made it sound like she had. Like she knew that she might be followed.

“Style icon...”

She zoomed in slightly on the photo, she supposed she did look quite cute. “This is very strange,” she shouted back.

“Irregular,” he said, as if agreeing. “Now open the door so that we might speak.

“Please come back with me,” he said. “My mother has not been this happy since Alex died. You cannot take this from them.”

Morgan hesitated, guilt turning through her.

Constantine clearly had no idea that she’d been a virgin when they’d slept together. He thought this was Alex’s child and... She had given him her virginity.

He’d been her first.

The only man she’d ever really wanted, and he had no idea. He had no real idea who she was at all.

How special their connection had been for her, and how unique it was. How it defied everything she’d ever known about herself before.

It doesn’t matter what he thinks. He won’t want the child. And maybe this is a way to...to give them some joy, while maintaining freedom.

It was clear that this was the narrative that Constantine wanted to believe.

Does it really surprise you?

No.

Because she knew how he felt about having children. A memory she’d buried because she couldn’t bear to unspool it. And she’d become very, very good at denial these last months.

Doing her best to turn that hot, glorious night with Constantine into a gauzy blur even though she remembered it all far too clearly.

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