He nodded and returned to the chair where he’d sat during the procedure. ‘About what?’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘You’re lying.’
‘I’m not,’ she denied. ‘But I am hungry. I think I’ll call down for something. Would you like anything?’
‘No.’ He waited for her to call the kitchen and then asked, ‘How often do you have these dreams?’
‘On and off.’
‘About the same thing?’
‘I told you—I don’t remember what it was about,’ she said, and he saw a muscle jump in her brow. Knowing that she needed to avoid stress, he didn’t push.
‘How are you feeling?’
‘Fine.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, really. You can leave now, if you want.’
‘Do you want me to leave?’
Her eyes told him that she didn’t, and he felt warmth creep into his heart. But she only said, ‘It’s completely up to you, Xavier.’
‘Then I think I’ll stay.’
He wasn’t sure why he wanted to, especially after his resolution the night before. Especially after what had transpired that afternoon. But the arrival of her food distracted him from pondering it. His mouth watered, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten since that morning.
‘Would you like me to call down for something for you, too?’ Leyna asked, her eyes lit with dull amusement. ‘Before you drool all over my food?’
‘No, thank you. I’m fine.’
‘When was the last time you ate anything?’
‘This morning. But I’m not hungry.’
A tight ache in his stomach cursed him for lying, and a moment later Leyna leaned over to the phone beside the bed and called the kitchen for something to be sent up for him as well.
‘You didn’t have to do that.’
‘I know, but you were lying. And being the proud man that you are, you wouldn’t have said anything even though your eyes have already eaten my meal in the minutes we’ve been discussing this.’
He refused the smile that threatened. ‘Thank you.’
She nodded, and then intertwined her fingers.
He frowned. ‘You should start eating. Before your soup gets cold.’
‘It’s a bit too hot at the moment, so it needs to get cold.’
‘You’re waiting for me, though, aren’t you?’
When she lifted her shoulders—exactly how did she manage to make the action look graceful?—he shook his head.
‘You’re a stubborn woman, Leyna.’
‘We always used to have that in common,’ she replied.
Silence followed her words, and he wondered if this was how their future together was going to be. Stilted small talk, never about anything personal, only dealing with necessities. But sometimes—like when she’d panicked about the procedure, like when she’d been so emotional it had led her to tears—things were so personal between them that both of them had to ignore it.
It complicated matters that she might be carrying his child. His heart beat so hard in his chest at that thought—one he hadn’t allowed himself right until that moment. Why did the prospect make him so happy? Was it because this was Leyna? Or was it because he was getting another chance at having the child he’d always wanted?
Both options made him feel ill, because it felt like betraying Erika. But he’d always known he must have a child. He had to have an heir. There was no other option. But he’d wanted a child with his wife. And he felt as if he’d failed her because that hadn’t happened for them.
He still felt as if he’d failed her, because now it was a possibility for him and Leyna.
He told himself that it was for the good of his kingdom. And reminded himself that with marriage and a baby on the way, his mother and grandmother would finally stop nagging him to marry again. He’d listened to them the first time and, because his father had added weight to it, he’d married Erika.
But the heartbreak following her death had given him a reason to resist the next relationship his mother and grandmother had attempted to push him into. And now, with marriage and a possible child in his future, he would finally be free of the pressure from his family—to produce an heir for the sake of the crown. To prevent him from falling short of the legacy of the men in his family.
He hadn’t thought about any of it until that moment, sitting across from Leyna, waiting for his food to arrive.
A sigh of relief released from his lungs when it did, and he busied himself with the meal, ignoring the look Leyna had given him at the sound. They ate in silence but it was woefully short and, before he knew it, Leyna was arranging for their food to be taken away.
‘Thank you,’ she said when they were alone.
‘For what?’
‘For allowing this to happen on Aidara.’
‘Were you afraid I would insist that this intensely personal procedure be done on Mattan?’
‘Maybe,’ she said with a small smile. ‘Perhaps irrationally. In my fear about all of this.’ She paused. ‘It helped, to have it done here in my home.’ When she looked at him there was something so vulnerable in her expression that it had the feelings he’d tried to banish the night before stirring again. ‘After dealing with something like this... It’s nice to be somewhere familiar.’
‘Of course,’ he said softly. ‘Is that what you felt earlier? Fear?’
‘The dream?’ He shook his head. ‘Oh, you mean the panic. And the tears.’ She looked down at her hands. ‘I suppose so. Yes.’ Seconds passed in silence but he didn’t reply, knowing she wasn’t done. ‘This is scary.’
‘I know it is.’
‘Are you scared?’
He wanted to take her hand again but he only said, ‘You know I am.’
‘So you feel like a coward, too?’ Now he heard the anguish in her voice. ‘Like we shouldn’t be questioning this because it’s something we’re doing for our people. To protect them.’
He took a moment before he replied. ‘We’re still human, Leyna. We both have fears, and anxieties. Especially about this.’ He fell silent when he thought about his own fears, his own anxieties, but then pushed on. ‘But we can’t let them keep us from doing what we need to do for our people. To protect them.’
She nodded, and there was a long pause before she spoke again. ‘Do you know how long it’s been since I last cried? Years,’ she said, answering his silent head-shake.
‘What did you cry about?’
‘My life falling apart.’ She bit her lip as though she’d said too much, and then she turned her head to face him. ‘It was after I found out my mother had left, after...after I’d ended things with you.’ She looked away at that. ‘I’d lost everyone I cared about. All I had left was an uninterested grandmother and responsibility for the lives of millions of people.’
‘So you told yourself you couldn’t waste time grieving and focused instead on running your kingdom.’
‘Exactly.’ Her lips curved. ‘We’re still so alike, aren’t we?’
‘More than either of us want, I’m guessing.’
She laughed. ‘You wouldn’t be wrong.’
There was silence again and then she asked, ‘Is that how you felt after Erika died?’
He felt something tighten inside him, but he answered, ‘Yes.’
‘And you feel guilty about it.’
It wasn’t a question, and it made him snap his next words. ‘Do you?’
She didn’t seem upset by his reaction, only shaking her head. ‘I did grieve for my father. But I was allowed to. Expected to. But the others... Well, one of them was because I’d chosen it, and so I kept those feelings to myself and never let them influence the way I ran the kingdom. The other...’ She trailed off and took a breath. ‘My mother left me with only a note saying goodbye. I didn’t think she deser
ved me mourning her.’
Again, he found himself wanting to reach out and take her hand. To comfort her, to ask how she’d coped with the loss of both her parents so close together. There was a part of him that felt as though he should have been there for her. That accused him of abandoning her when she’d needed him the most.
But a bigger part reminded him that he couldn’t have been there for her. It would have killed him to go back to being just friends with her. It didn’t ease the guilt or the regret, though it did make him wonder, again, whether things would have been different if he’d just given it some time. If he’d just ignored his father’s reminder of the need to do his duty.
‘Erika’s death was so unexpected,’ he said suddenly. It took him a moment to realise he’d said it to remind himself of the pact he’d made the night before. ‘I woke up early that morning to do something—I can’t even remember what it was now—and when I got back to the room she was gone.’
She reached for his hand immediately, squeezing. ‘I’m so sorry, Xavier.’
He nodded. ‘It was some time after her funeral that I realised I couldn’t go on in that state. So I told myself that living would be my way of celebrating her, and her life.’
‘It’s an honourable way of looking at it,’ she said quietly, her hand lifting from his. ‘Beautiful, too. Though I’m not surprised. You both always had so much light together.’
His heart stalled. ‘You thought that?’
‘Yes. I thought it the moment I saw you look at each other on your wedding day.’
His world swirled, and then straightened almost abruptly.
‘You weren’t at the wedding. You were meeting with the South African president about the trade deals between their country and the Isles.’
‘I came back. Just to see the ceremony.’ She paused. ‘You didn’t think I would miss my best friend’s wedding, did you?’
There was a teasing glint in her eyes, but he saw a lot more there.
Regret. Longing.
A ball of tension began bouncing in his chest.
‘We weren’t best friends then, though. We weren’t anything.’
‘Maybe,’ she allowed. ‘But I still cared about you. You can’t just switch off twenty years of caring,’ she added, as though he didn’t know that himself. ‘I wanted to share one of the most important days in your life, even if it was just in the form of an obscured view from the crowd. But because I wasn’t supposed to be there, I made sure no one saw me. Of course, Jacob helped with that.’
Xavier sifted through his memories of that day, trying to recall whether he’d seen her bodyguard there. He knew he hadn’t seen her. He’d never forgotten the relief he’d felt because of it. But it wasn’t a surprise that he didn’t remember seeing Jacob. He’d taken care to ensure his eyes were only on his bride that day. He hadn’t wanted to give any grounds to the speculation in the media. He was marrying Erika because he wanted to. Not because he couldn’t have Leyna.
But that wasn’t quite true, was it?
He closed his eyes.
‘I’ve upset you. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to.’
‘You haven’t upset me.’ He opened his eyes again, his heart trembling at the angst he saw in hers. ‘I suppose it was just that I didn’t think you cared enough to attend.’
‘I know that’s my fault. And I completely accept that it is. But I told you I mistook my love for you as a friend for romantic love.’ She lifted a shoulder. ‘Even in that I was still telling you I loved you.’
He didn’t have an answer to that. To him, her words had meant she’d felt nothing for him. Her actions had supported that, too. Was he now supposed to believe she’d loved him as a friend all along, even when she’d treated him so poorly? Caring about someone meant caring about their feelings, too. It had been clear to him then that she hadn’t cared about his feelings, or else she’d never have done what she did.
‘So, we’ll try again if we don’t fall pregnant this time,’ he said, focusing instead on the future. On parts of the future that he could control.
‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘But there’s no reason for us not to.’ She held up a hand when he opened his mouth to protest. ‘I know what I said earlier. As I told you, I was scared. I still am. But we have to focus on the positives if we want to get through this. And the positive here is that there’s no medical reason for us not to fall pregnant. We have to trust in that. If not... Well, like you said, we’ll deal with it then.’
He wasn’t as prepared for this response as he’d been for her first one. Not when suddenly he was thinking about how differently Erika had approached things. Even after she’d had the chance to process.
It made his next words come out more harshly than he’d intended. ‘And if we never fall pregnant? What then?’
He watched her struggle for words, and then she said, ‘We’ll adopt. One child from your kingdom, one from mine. We’ll be open about our struggle. We’ll be human. And our children will fill the same role.’
‘That’s unprecedented.’
‘And not something we have to think about yet,’ she told him. ‘But we have options.’
He watched her. Wondered at her. ‘Are children really that important to you?’
‘Yes,’ she said simply. ‘I need to make sure Aidara is taken care of. You have your sisters, Xavier, and a nephew to take over from you should anything happen. You’ll have even more assurances once Nalini marries. I, on the other hand, only have distant cousins who live in the luxury of being royal but would never survive serving their kingdom. Not the way it deserves. So, I have to make sure that my people are taken care of. The only way I can do that is if I raise their future ruler myself.’ She took a breath. ‘If it means changing the law—if it means breaking tradition—I will.’
Respect—fierce and solid—erupted in him. ‘Your people are lucky to have you, Leyna.’
Her face changed into a charming expression of surprise, and her cheeks coloured slightly. ‘As are yours. For a king, I mean.’
He smiled but shook his head. ‘I don’t think we’re on the same level.’ Before he could stop himself, his deepest fear spilled out. ‘Sometimes I think they deserve more.’
‘Why?’
And now that he’d started, he couldn’t seem to stop. ‘Because they’ve had more. The kings before me...they were better. They didn’t make mistakes.’
‘What mistakes have you made?’
He let out a short bark of laughter ‘What mistakes haven’t I made?’
‘Fine then. Tell me why you think they were better.’
‘Because...’ He frowned, wondering why he couldn’t come up with one specific reason for that belief.
‘Because that’s what you’ve been told for the whole of your life.’ His gaze caught hers and he felt as if she could see right through him.
‘No, there are reasons.’
‘Because you believe you’ve made mistakes they wouldn’t have made?’
‘Yes!’ he exclaimed, almost grateful she’d given him a reason.
‘But you can’t name one mistake you’ve made.’
‘Leyna, all of this is beside the point.’
‘What is the point, Xavier?’ she asked. ‘Because I’d really like to know how you could convince yourself that your people deserve more than a king who’d sacrifice his entire personal life to make sure they were protected.’
Again, he couldn’t find the words to speak.
‘I know exactly how you feel, Xavier,’ she said softly, her hand finding his again. This time, he found his own hand turning over and his fingers sliding through hers. ‘That uncertainty? It’s part of what we are, of who we are. And, yes, it’s worse because we have families who constantly point out what they believe are our failures. But we can’t give in to that, or to that little voice that tells us they’re right.’
This was why he’d fallen so hard, he realised. He’d spent his entire youth seeking the light she brought into his life, which had been filled with condemnation but for her. Her positivity, her strength, her spirit—they were things he’d tried to forget.
But they were exactly the things that had made that task almost impossible.
When he leaned in for the kiss this time, he watched her eyes widen and then spark with pleasure. And then they closed, as did his, and he sank into the kiss.
It was slow and sweet, filled with an emotion he knew they’d never speak of. The warmth of it rippled through him, unsettling the walls and guards behind which he’d hidden his feelings for her. His free hand lifted to cup her cheek, and then lowered over the curve of her breast—pausing briefly there—and then settled on her waist. He knew that if he’d let himself explore how her body had changed—if he let himself explore the full softness of her breast—the tone of the kiss would change.
And if the tone of the kiss changed, he might not be able to stop himself from making love to her.
The prospect had him edging away, but she moaned in protest and pulled him towards her. He climbed onto the bed, his body mirroring hers, and let himself take more. Desire stirred from where he’d tried to hide it after their first kiss those few days ago, and he heard its demands in the pounding of his blood in his ears.
‘Leyna,’ he whispered hoarsely, drawing back. ‘We can’t do this.’
‘Why not?’
He couldn’t think of a single reason. He sucked in air and then shook his head. ‘You didn’t want it to happen like this.’
‘I also didn’t want it to happen when I was thirty. But it is what it is.’ She inched closer.
‘Can you honestly tell me you won’t regret it?’ he asked desperately now. ‘It happening like this?’
She hesitated briefly and then said, ‘It’s just sex.’
‘It’s not just sex.’ He pushed up from the bed now, set his feet on the ground. ‘It’ll never be just sex. Not for us.’
‘Maybe not when we were younger. But we might have just made a baby together, for heaven’s sake. Why not try it like this, too?’
United by Their Royal Baby Page 7