Page 73 of Pregnant With His Majesty's Heir

‘Because I want to spend my life with you, of course. I love you, Aurélie.’

There, he’d said it. Revealed what had finally become clear to him.

Lucien surveyed her closely, hope fighting fear.

She didn’t smile back.

The chill spread, icing his bones.

‘You can’t. It’s just sex and sharing this baby.’

A dreadful plummeting sensation stole his breath. Was that all she felt? He’d hoped for more. Surely that way she made love, and itwasmaking love, not just slaking physical desire, proved Aurélie felt more.

He gathered his voice. ‘That’s all you feel for me?’

‘I’m talking aboutyou. I know you enjoy sex.’ She said it briskly as if she’d never felt that phenomenal shared ecstasy, and something gave way inside him. ‘The only reason we’re together is because I got pregnant. I even had to prove it was yours with a paternity test. You didn’t trust my word. Hardly the action of a man in love.’

As she said it, Aurélie knew how unfair that was. Any man in Lucien’s situation would want proof. Clearly he now knew the child was his. He was pretending he loved her to keep her and the baby here.

Aurélie blinked and concentrated on not giving in to futile tears.

‘There was no paternity test.’

Their gazes locked. She told herself he was deliberately using her weakness for him, trying to cajole her into believing him. But it wouldn’t work.

‘Of course there was. The doctor took my blood the first morning I was here.’

Lucien looked back from under lowered brows, his bright eyes somehow dimmed. ‘Yes. But when she approached me about a DNA swab I refused. It felt wrong. I didn’t need a test because I knew you were telling the truth.’

‘You knew...?’ Aurélie had to be hearing things. ‘How could you know?’

Those straight shoulders rose. ‘I have no idea. Just like I don’t understand how I trusted you that first night or why you took the risk of inviting me into your home when you knew nothing about me.’ He looked down at her hand, dwarfed between his. ‘From the first there’s been something between us that defied logic. Connection. Trust. A link. Whatever it is, it’s real and I trust it.’

Lucien breathed deep, his chest expanding mightily, and Aurélie felt her own lungs swell on an in-caught breath. The hair at her nape rose. So often she’d pondered the link she’d felt to a man she barely knew. Now she knew him better she understood she’d fallen in love but—

‘You really don’t know for sure if this is your baby?’

‘Oh, I know, Aurélie. It’s ours. Because you say so. You’d never pass off another man’s child as mine.’

He lifted her hands to his mouth and kissed first one then the other and tendrils of need blossomed, despite her determination to hold strong.

‘I hope with everything I am that our baby survives and we can all grow together as a family. But even if the worst happens, I want you with me, as my wife. Not because I want a queen but because I love you.’

Her heart fluttered as if it was about to burst out of her ribcage and escape.

His expression. The look in his eyes. The hammering pulse at his throat. The way his hands shook as they held hers. All chipped away at her certainty that this was a ruse.

‘We only met three months ago—’

‘I know. I’m asking a lot of you and I’ll understand if you don’t feel the same way about me yet, but give me time, Aurélie. Stay with me and—’

‘I don’t want time.’

Before her blurring eyes Lucien’s proud face paled. His serious expression turned sombre, as if he’d heard grievous news.

She hurried on. ‘You really love me?’ Even now it didn’t seem possible.

He swallowed hard then nodded.

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