Page 15 of Pregnant With His Majesty's Heir

‘Talk to me.’

She frowned. ‘I’ve told you. I’m going to have a baby. There’s nothing else to tell you.’

Of course there was. Lucien wanted to hear how she’d found out. How she felt about it. How she was faring.

Except she was right. He wasn’t simply Lucien, talking to a one-time lover. He was a king faced with news that could wreak havoc in his kingdom. Like it or not he had other priorities he couldn’t ignore.

‘Have you been to a doctor? Had a test?’

‘Yes and yes. I’m two months pregnant and so far everything is going normally.’

His gaze dropped to her bright red pullover. There was no sign of a bulge. But maybe it was too early for that. Lucien knew next to nothing about pregnant women.

Or babies.

Like a brick thrown through plate glass, reality smashed into him. In seven months there was going to be a living, breathing baby. A squirming, squalling bundle needing care and love. Not just in seven months but in all the years that followed.

Lucien sat back, his spine colliding with unyielding wood, his breath escaping in a whoosh of air.

‘What’s so funny?’

‘Funny?’ Then he realised his mouth had curled up at the edges. It must look to her like a smile but in fact it was a grimace of shock.

Was there anything else fate could throw at him?

He’d lost his family. The only people he truly loved in the world. He’d been forced to give up the career he’d worked so hard at and reinvent himself as a royal. He’d even agreed to take on a wife he didn’t love in a marriage he didn’t want.

Now it seemed he was going to be a father.

He shook his head. He doubted Aurélie would sympathise. She had her own problems.

‘Nothing at all.’ He drew a slow breath and fixed his gaze on hers. ‘You say it’s my baby?’

Her response was instant, as if a bolt of lightning shot through her. She stiffened, nostrils flaring and eyes narrowing. The hands in her lap clenched hard. ‘I wouldn’t be here if there was any doubt.’

It confirmed Lucien’s instincts about her.

Yet, it pained him to admit it, his new position changed things.

Lucien the private individual might be satisfied with Aurélie’s word, but now he was Lucien the leader of a nation, and he had a duty to be careful. Especially as he recalled his cousin Justin fielding two separate paternity claims from women who’d liked the idea of becoming Queen. One had been a complete stranger who’d never met Justin. The other an ex-lover whose baby was conceived months after they’d split.

‘So you won’t object to investigators looking into your recent past, to check for other lovers?’

Her warm brown eyes turned chilly and her skin seemed to shrink back against her bones, making her look starkly fragile.

‘I do object but I suspect I have no choice if that’s what you plan to do.’

Guilt eddied inside. But no matter his personal inclinations, Lucien had to do this. If he didn’t, others would. He didn’t want anyone else interrogating Aurélie.

‘And you’ll agree to a paternity test?’

She shot to her feet, pacing across the small space then spinning on the ball of her foot and stalking back to stand before him, hands on hips and breasts heaving as she struggled to contain her emotions.

She looked magnificent. An embodiment of pure energy. And, he admitted, spontaneous sexuality. A few strands of her glorious hair had escaped to frame her face. Her pallor was banished by a flush of what he guessed was fury and her eyes sparkled.

Lucien curled his hands into fists on his thighs as temptation assailed him. He wanted to touch her, try to connect with all that sizzle and snapping electricity.

‘You’re calling me a liar?’

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