by Heidi Rice
But he stayed awake for hours, thinking of the young girl, left destitute by an alcoholic mother. And the boy, who might once have been able to open his heart to her—but had been lost long ago.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
JUNO WOKE THE next morning, her body aching, but her heart hurting more. The bed was empty beside her.
She closed her eyes as the pulse of pain wrenched a hole in her chest.
She’d risked everything, and it hadn’t been enough. When would she ever learn?
She was going to miss Leo. So much. And this beautiful Christmas. But it had always been a fantasy, a time out from reality, a moment she couldn’t trust.
We can’t have any more. I thought you understood.
Leo was a forceful man, and every inch a king, was it really any surprise it wasn’t her he wanted?
He had so much love to give, she was sure of it, trapped inside him with that little boy, but she wasn’t the one who could find it. And she had to accept that now, or she would end up like her mother, pining after a man who could never love her back.
She stretched, her body protesting slightly.
As if conjured by her thoughts, Leo appeared in the doorway carrying a tray laden with something that smelled delicious and her aching heart leapt painfully into her throat.
‘Good morning, Princess,’ he said.
Wearing nothing but boxer shorts, his hair ruffled, the scruff on his cheeks having turned into the beginnings of a very sexy beard, he looked like a man instead of a king.
She forced a bright smile to her lips. Maybe she couldn’t have him always but now, today, this morning, he was hers and no one else’s.
‘Good morning, Your Majesty,’ she said, dragging herself into a sitting position, and holding the sheet to her breasts, strangely shy as his gaze dipped to her cleavage.
He set the tray down on the bed beside her.
‘Mmm...’ She took a deep breath in of the aromas, trying not to let on that the last thing she wanted right now was food, her stomach too jumpy and unsettled. ‘It smells really good. You’re obviously a natural.’
But as she lifted the napkin he’d placed by the plate, she spotted the plastic stick in clear wrapping resting beside it.
Her jumpy stomach somersaulted up to her throat.
‘I thought we could do the test after breakfast,’ he said, matter-of-factly, as her stomach went into freefall.
How could she have forgotten this had always been the plan? And why did the thought of the pregnancy test feel fraught with so many more problems now than it had yesterday, before she’d blurted out how she felt?
‘The instructions suggest it is best to do it first thing in the morning, when the hormone levels are strongest.’
She put the fork back down on the tray, her fingers trembling.
Maybe, if she were pregnant, he would want her? But as soon as the thought struck, she hated herself for it. A baby couldn’t make him love her. And even thinking that would just make her more pathetic.
‘If you don’t wish to eat, I will understand,’ he said with his typical pragmatism.
Why did the easiness with which he read her only make the yearning worse?
She nodded. He lifted the tray off and placed it on the side, then handed her a robe as she climbed off the bed.
She wrapped the robe around herself as he passed her the pregnancy test.
But as she reached for it, instead of releasing it, he pulled her close and cupped her cheek. His gaze roamed over her face, the affection, the desire, so bold and unabashed it only made her feel sadder and more inadequate.
‘Whatever the result, we will deal with it together,’ he said, his voice steady, his eyes kind. ‘Okay?’
She nodded, and he placed a kiss on her forehead, then let her go.
It was the honourable thing to say. And she knew that he meant it, because he was an honourable man. But as she walked into the bathroom alone, the pregnancy test burning a hole in her palm, she knew that, whatever the result, it couldn’t alter the fact he hadn’t known who she was when they had made love without protection.
And he could never love her, even if he had.
Leo had never believed that one’s heart could actually get lodged in one’s throat, but something was definitely beating heavily there and threatening to strangle him as he waited for Juno to come back out of the bathroom.
He had tried not to think about the possibility of a pregnancy, had certainly not gone so far as to imagine himself and Juno parenting a baby. But as he showered in one of the lodge’s other bathrooms and got dressed, he found himself imagining Juno’s slender frame ripe with his child, and the tidal wave of possessiveness, protectiveness, was unmistakeable.
He tried to even his breathing as he waited on the bed they had shared twenty minutes later, the door to the bathroom still closed.
He heard the tap running, then cutting off. At last the door opened.
She stepped into the bedroom, still wearing the silk robe he had given her what felt like a lifetime ago, tightly knotted around her waist, the stick swaddled in toilet tissue in her hand.
Her head lifted and he could see the shattered shock in her eyes.
‘It’s positive?’ he asked, but it wasn’t really a question.
Her head bobbed. ‘I... I think so. I reread the instructions several times.’
He strode across the room and lifted the stick from her trembling fingers. She looked so fragile, so he slung a steadying arm around her shoulder as he read the result for himself.
The wave of possessiveness peaked as he stared at the two clear blue lines.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I read the instructions several times myself,’ he admitted as he handed the stick back to her. ‘Have you decided if you wish to have the child?’ he asked.
Say yes.
He wanted to watch her grow heavy with his child, wanted to hold her and support her as she gave birth. But most of all, he wanted the chance to keep her by his side—warm, compassionate, honest, funny, forthright. Why had it never occurred to him that this could be a solution, not a problem?
He had wanted a queen. Why could that queen not be Juno?
She moved away from him and stood staring out into the snowy landscape beyond the bedroom. With her arms clasped tightly around her midriff, and her shoulders slightly hunched, he sensed her battle to hold in the swell of emotion too.
She seemed smaller somehow, and so young. This was a huge step for both of them, and something that had been forced on them by accident.
‘You don’t have to decide yet,’ he murmured, his heart threatening to choke him as he waited for her answer.
She looked over her shoulder. ‘I... I want to have it,’ she said.
Even as relief washed through him, he could see the fear in her eyes.
He wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her into his arms, ignoring it.
‘Juno, I’m overjoyed,’ he said.
Her eyes widened. The flush of stunned pleasure on her cheeks when he put her back on her feet made his heart stutter.
‘Really, you’re not angry?’
‘Why would I be angry? We are to be parents. And Severene will have an heir. We must be married as soon as possible,’ he said. He held her waist, the smile he knew was plastered all over his face echoing in his heart as her gaze met his, still uncertain, still wary. He touched her chin. ‘Don’t look so worried, this is excellent news,’ he said, the possibilities suddenly endless.
He hadn’t considered such an outcome, but now it all seemed so obvious.
‘I will release a press statement first thing tomorrow. I expect there will be something of a diplomatic incident when we reveal the truth of your identity—and my chief of staff will have a cow when he realises he is going to have to arrange a state wedding in a matter of weeks ins
tead of months. But when they hear about the child...’ He pressed his palm to her flat stomach, marvelling at the thought of the child that already grew inside her. His child.
He wondered feverishly when she would start to show, when he would be able to feel his child kick.
‘They will be overjoyed,’ he said, stroking her stomach. ‘There is no better press for the monarchy than a royal baby. Really, I could not have hoped for a better outcome. Once we have—’
‘Stop, Leo.’ Her hands covered his on her stomach. And he was forced to raise his head. What he saw shocked him. The flush of pleasure was gone from her face to be replaced by sadness, and pain, the same grinding pain he had seen the previous evening—when he had been forced to tell her the truth, about what he could give her, and what he could not.
‘We can’t... We can’t be married. You must understand that?’
‘What?’ The word came out on a broken huff of breath.
Surely he could not have heard that right? She was refusing him? Now? Why?
‘Because nothing has changed,’ she said.
‘Everything has changed,’ he said. ‘You are having the royal heir, Juno. The future King or Queen of Severene. Surely you can see there is no other option now but for us to be married, so I can offer you and our child the full protection of the Crown.’
She stepped back, and his hand dropped from her stomach. ‘It’s not a king or a queen. Or an heir. It’s just a baby. Our baby.’
‘And as such it has a birthright,’ he snapped, the anger surging to protect him from the pain. She didn’t want him? When she had professed to love him? ‘A birthright I will not allow you to deny.’
‘What are you saying...?’ She pressed a hand to her forehead, her distress so clear at the prospect it only hurt him more. ‘That you’ll take this baby away from me if I refuse to marry you?’
‘Of course not,’ he said. She was twisting his words, twisting everything around, making him into a villain, when he was simply trying to do what was right, for her and his child. ‘But that doesn’t alter the fact this child is the heir to the Severene throne. You might wish to shirk your duty and pretend you can be free from responsibility, but that isn’t an option any more.’ Frustration and fury rose up inside him, but beneath it lurked the empty space in his stomach, which told him without duty, he was nothing.
The pregnancy had forced his hand, and hers—and if she couldn’t see that he would have to show her.
‘Is that all this means to you? Duty? I don’t want that for me or my child,’ she said frantically. ‘You told me yesterday you could never love me, can’t you see that—’
‘Stop it.’ He gripped her arm, dragged her back to him. ‘Stop being so damn selfish,’ he said, his fear now almost as huge as his fury. ‘You’re talking nonsense. Naïve romantic nonsense. This isn’t about that any more.’
‘Please, Leo, let me go,’ she said, her voice breaking on the word.
He dropped her arm, the sheen of moisture in her eyes like a bolt to his heart. He thrust his fingers through his hair.
‘Please, could you leave me alone, while I get dressed and pack?’ she said, her voice so small and exhausted the bolt twisted.
He hesitated. He wanted to push the point, wanted more than anything to make her see how foolish she was being, but she still looked so fragile, so wary, he knew now was not the time. She was still in shock from the result of the pregnancy test. She needed time to come to terms with the reality of what this all meant. She was being rash and unpredictable and impulsive. Perhaps the pregnancy hormones were already affecting her reasoning? Who knew? This did not have to be decided right here and right now.
So he nodded. And tried to force himself to relax. Now was not the time to demand and insist. He could do that later, if he had to.
What he wanted to do was pick her up and cradle her against his chest. Make love to her again the way he had last night. But that would have to wait too.
‘Okay, Juno. Once you’re ready we can head back to Severene. We can discuss things on the way,’ he said, determined to make her see reason. ‘There are many things about this situation I don’t think you understand.’ Things he would make her understand calmly and sensibly, once she’d digested the news.
She wrapped her arms around her midriff, as if she were shielding herself from him, and nodded. ‘Thank you.’
It was hardly an agreement, but it would have to be enough, for now. Calling her names and losing his temper weren’t going to make this situation any less volatile or easy to control.
Even though it was one of the hardest things he had ever had to do, he turned and left the room.
He headed straight to the lodge’s study, to contact Severene’s flight control centre so he could plot a flight path back to the palace. The sooner they got back, the sooner he could get Juno to accept—by whatever means necessary—that the only solution now was for her to become his Queen.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
TEN MINUTES LATER, Juno crunched through the snow towards the back of the lodge. She shoved open the door to the garage. Her hands shook and her breath misted the air as she lifted the hood on the snowmobile Leo had used earlier in the week and ripped out the belt drive.
She pressed a hand to her abdomen, cocooned in the snowsuit.
A child grew inside her. A child who she could love. A child who would love her even if Leo could not.
What she had to do now was go home. Back to Monrova—which was less than fifteen miles across the border. And then back to New York. Back to her real life.
Her Cinderella story was over. He didn’t love her, had told her he could never love her, and being pregnant with his child couldn’t change that.
She hid the belt drive under a tarp at the back of the garage. Then she mounted the snowmobile parked nearer the entrance.
Frozen air filled her lungs as she drove the cumbersome machine out of the garage and hit the freshly fallen snow.
She headed past her family of snowmen and into the drifts that had fallen the day before—as she and Leo had made a Christmas feast together. And thought of that moment when she’d thought she could have it all, just by asking. What a fool she’d been.
She heard a shout from behind her. But refused to look back.
‘Juno? Come back here. What the...?’
The curse words were muffled as the snowmobile headed into the trees and she revved the throttle to increase her speed.
What else could she do but run? She couldn’t give him the power to destroy her. The way her father had destroyed her mother. Especially not when her child was at stake.
But as she sped into the forest, took the path towards the border, the tears fell freely down her face, chapping the exposed skin.
And she mourned, for a future that might have been real.
If only he’d been able to love her the way she loved him.
Leo swore loudly as he slammed down the snowmobile’s hood. The words Juno had left for him on a notepad in the bedroom still echoing in his head.
Please don’t follow me, Leo. I will be in touch. But I can’t be your Queen. I’m so sorry.
J
‘Damn it, Juno. What have you done?’
He ran into the house, the fury he had tried to keep at bay earlier, when they’d argued, starting to consume him. But beneath it was the black, agonising, all-consuming wave of fear.
How the hell was she going to navigate her way to Monrova, which was surely where she was headed? She didn’t know the terrain, and she was pregnant, damn it.
Was the thought of being his Queen, of having his heir, really so terrible?
Grabbing the satellite phone kept in the lodge’s office in case of emergency, he stabbed in the number for his chief of staff at the palace.
‘André, we need to send out search-and-rescue helicopters to the area
on the Monrova-Severene border along the Aberglast pass. And deploy a ground team, too. Also, get in touch with the authorities in Monrova. We need to coordinate our efforts.’
‘Your Majesty?’ André sounded confused.
‘You heard me. Princess Juno has run away and we need to find her.’
‘Princess Juno, sire? Surely you mean Queen Jade?’
‘No, I mean Princess Juno.’
‘But, Your Majesty—’
‘Juno has been posing as her twin sister for two weeks,’ he interrupted the man’s conversation. He didn’t have time to explain this mess. None of that mattered now, if it ever had. ‘Inform all the relevant parties of her true identity,’ he said, his head starting to explode with the logistics of finding her.
‘What about the media, Your Majesty?’ the man said.
How ironic, Leo thought, that averting a scandal had once been his main concern. When it was the last damn thing he cared about now.
‘I don’t want them informed, yet,’ he said. ‘They’ll only get in the way. The important thing right now is that we find her. She’s pregnant with my child.’
But even as he said the words he knew the child was an abstract concept at this point. He had been overjoyed at the news of Juno’s pregnancy less than an hour ago.
But suddenly, the child, its future, the monarchy’s future didn’t seem all that significant. None of that mattered any more. What mattered was Juno. And getting her back. Safe.
Didn’t I pass this clearing an hour ago?
Juno brought the snowmobile to a juddering halt and assessed the terrain. The trees had all begun to look the same hours ago, but as she stared at the long shadows falling over the snow, she knew she’d been through this section of forest before.
Her hands ached and her arms were so heavy they felt like lead weights attached to her shoulders. She fisted her fingers, the cramps making the numbness painful. The cold had seeped into her bones hours ago.