by Karina Halle
Except there are some very big, very real consequences right here beside me.
“I know it’s a lot to take,” she eventually says, keeping her focus on the horizon. “I’ve had a hell of a week trying to figure things out and I’m not sure if it’s ever going to feel . . . real.” She quickly glances at me, her brows knitting together. “Aksel insisted I tell you. Said it was the right thing to do, even if I hadn’t figured out what direction I was going to go in.”
“Well, I’m glad you did,” I admit.
“Even if I end up getting an abortion?” she asks. “Though I suppose that would be the easiest for both of us. You wouldn’t end up with bastard heir and I wouldn’t be trying to raise another kid alone. I could have not told you and you would have never known.”
“I’m glad you told me,” I tell her again. “If anything, it’s just nice to see you again.”
She lets out a sharp laugh. “Right. Well, these aren’t the best circumstances.”
“So are you . . . you know, not keeping it?” She raises her brows and I quickly add. “Keep in mind, I will support you no matter what your choice is. And I one hundred percent understand that it’s your choice here, not mine. I mean that.”
She rubs her lips together and nods, her expression wary. “Good. Thank you.”
“Take all the time you need to decide, and I’ll be here for you.”
“I’ve already decided.”
I sit up straighter. “Oh.”
“I’m keeping it,” she says. “I’ve decided to keep the baby. Can’t really explain why but this is just the way it’s going to be. I don’t expect you to be involved and, for your sake, I won’t ever reveal who the father is.”
This is all so much to take, I don’t even have the thoughts or the words, though I know I don’t like the idea of having a child who will never know me as a father.
“I want to be involved,” I say, when I’ve finally found my balls. “I really do.”
“Your life is complicated as it is, Orlando. You don’t need this. I didn’t even think you’d be this supportive, and the fact that you are, just saying that you’re okay with this decision, that’s all I need.” She closes her eyes to the sun, tilting her head back, and lets out a deep breath. “This is so weird. With Anya it was so different. She was such a struggle, you know. I have endometriosis, which means it’s hard to get pregnant, among other things. It’s why I was on the pill to begin with. To think that not only did the pill fail me but I got pregnant on top of it . . .”
“It’s like it was fate,” I fill in. “It was meant to be.”
She opens her eyes and squints at me. “Do you believe in fate?”
I never did. But here, now, with this bombshell that’s been dropped in my lap, I feel like I should start believing in something.
Chapter 9
Stella
I wasn’t sure what to expect from Orlando. I figured he would have freaked the fuck out, probably blamed me or something. I know that didn’t seem in character with the man I slept with, but I’ve heard more than enough stories from women about how the man completely changes when they find out their partner is pregnant. They’re usually so quick to leave.
But Orlando didn’t act that way. He was shocked, for sure, and I could tell he was scared. Can’t blame him for that. Yet, the way he told me that he’d support me no matter what I chose, it was so damn sincere that I knew he meant it. Especially when I told him my decision.
To be honest, I had been on the fence about it for days. I was sort of waiting until I met with Orlando to find out how I truly felt. I thought maybe I would have changed my mind once I saw him. Maybe he would have tried to convince me one way or another.
And yet, even before he had a chance to react, I knew.
I saw him coming up the stairs to the house, the sun glinting off his hair, the concern in his azure eyes, the beads of sweat on his determined brow, and I knew that I wanted his baby. Maybe it was something as primal as the way his shirt clung to him, seeing those muscles again, his height and strength, some cavewoman response to a caveman who she knows will provide for her and protect her.
Either way, if I’m the cavewoman, then that caveman is the baby daddy.
Prince Orlando.
“So, what now?” he asks me. We’ve been sitting out on the terrace for hours it seems like. Not saying all that much. He’s asked me a lot about technical things, medical things, and seems genuinely interested. I only have my pregnancy with Anya as a comparison, but I tell him everything that we should expect.
We. Sounds funny, doesn’t it. Other than me and Anya, there hasn’t been a ‘we’ in my mind for a very long time.
“I guess we wait,” I say.
“For?”
I glance at him and shrug. “I don’t know. I didn’t plan this far.”
"To be fair, I don't think any of this was planned," he says. "What I mean is, tonight. Did you want me to go back to Monaco? The plane is still at the airport . . ."
Oh. Right. "Sure," I tell him. "I guess it was kind of silly to make you come all this way, but I felt like I had to do it in person. I don't think things like this should be done on the phone."
"When are you going back?" he asks.
"I'm not sure," I say slowly, gnawing on my bottom lip. "It's hot as stink here but it's beautiful. I might just need to clear my head." She pauses. "Then again, I should go back to be with my daughter. I hate leaving her."
"And I hate leaving you," he says. "You shouldn't be here alone. And I have no place to be."
He actually wants to stay? I look at him curiously. "You don't have any public engagements with Zoya?"
He shakes his head. "No. She's gone to Paris to be with Emily. She won't be back for a week." He twists in his chair to face me and I'm struck by how beautiful he is. It's going to be one hell of a good-looking baby. "Let me stay with you."
I tense up automatically. "What do you mean, stay?"
He gestures to the sea, to the pool, to the house. "Here. With you. In Cyrpus. What isn't there to get?"
"I'm not sure that's a good idea," I say after a moment.
I'm speaking the truth. As much as I actually like the idea of him staying, of not being alone, I also know that things are going to get infinitely more complicated with him here. I'm still attracted to him like bees to honey. I don't trust myself around him, not with that cocky smirk and those dangerous hands and those muscles that can go all night. I'm afraid that if he stays, I'll fall back into bed with him and the whole situation will do a number on my heart.
That's the one thing left I have left to protect. Being pregnant, I've never felt more vulnerable and insecure in my life. I feel like I'm barely tethered to this world as it is and that all he has to do is cut a few strings and I'll never be grounded again.
This man, this gorgeous prince, he could break my heart. He seems like the type who does it in his sleep.
Just because he stays, doesn't mean you're going to fall in love with him, I remind myself. You can have sex without feelings involved.
But I know that's just my wild hormones trying to play tricks on me. They got me in trouble last time. They can't be trusted.
"Is anything a good idea?" he asks me. He gives me a charming wink. "I promise to keep my hands to myself."
And what about my hands?
"You'll have to sleep in one of the guest rooms," I tell him, sitting up straighter and clearing my throat. Time to start being on my best behaviour.
Starting now.
"That's fine with me. I can sleep on the couch if you want. You just tell me what to do.”
"Okay," I say. I hold back a smile and look at the sea instead.
Since it's fairly early in the day still, I show him to his room, which is down the hall and as far away from my room as possible, then we decide to go out to get something to eat. These plans were so last minute that I had no time to arrange for any staff for the place. There's just Cristos, the driver, and that's it. And
even if Cristos happens to be an amazing cook, there's no way I'd ask him. Every time I try to talk to him I just get grunts and one word answers. I know he speaks English, but apparently he just doesn't want to speak it to me.
Or to Orlando either. When we get in the car and have Cristos drive us into the town of Paphos for dinner, Orlando starts playing a version of twenty questions with him and every single question he answers with either a yes or a no or a grunt.
"Sure is Mr. Personality Plus, isn't he?" Orlando asks me, as we walk away from the car and start strolling along the boardwalk along Paphos Harbor, looking for a place to eat.
"Pretty sure he works for the mob," I admit. "But at least we'll be protected."
"Hey, I can do a pretty good job of protecting you," he says, and then shows off his bicep which pops nicely against his black t-shirt. "Remember these muscles?"
"I remember," I say softly. I look away, keeping my focus on the passing shops so he doesn't see the flush on my cheeks. I don't know if it's because I'm pregnant or because the memories are that ingrained, but I still can't help but fantasize about him. Every night. It's been frustrating to say the least, yet another reason why I know I have to keep my distance from him.
I automatically put an extra foot of space between us as we walk.
"Do I smell?" Orlando asks, raising his armpit and taking a sniff.
"You smell good," I tell him. Too good. "But just in case there is paparazzi around, I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea. Especially now."
I'm actually not too worried about that. Aksel and Aurora were just here, and they didn't have any sort of photos taken of them and they hadn't appeared in any magazines either. To be safe, both Orlando and I are wearing dark sunglasses and hats and are extremely dressed down. He's got his black t-shirt, jeans and a newsboy cap, I'm wearing jean shorts and a plain white tank top with a mustard-colored ball cap that says Cyprus on it. We seem to fit in with everyone else.
We keep walking along the promenade, watching the sun go down on the horizon, pausing every now and then to read the menu of a restaurant or watch the paddleboats come in for the day.
"Hey, look at that cat," he says, pointing at a cat on the side of the path eating some cat food that's been strewn on the ground. Guess someone fed him. "And that cat," he says, as another cat comes and joins the other one. "Maybe they're the neighborhood pets."
Except as we keep walking past all the big hotels, we keep seeing more and more and more cats. Literally, everywhere you look, there's a cat.
"This is heaven," he says, staring in awe at the copious amounts of scrawny wild felines.
"Heaven?" I repeat. "You're a cat person?"
"I'm a dog person, too," he says defensively. "But yeah. All my youth I always had a cat. I just love how they don't give a fuck."
"I can see why you'd relate to them."
He shrugs. "It's true. They follow their own rules, they do their own thing. They're independent and when they love you, you know it's love. You know you've earned it."
"Well, I hate cats."
He gasps, over dramatic. "No."
"Yes. I'm allergic."
"Doesn't mean you hate them though."
"Uh, yes it does. It means when I'm around them I sneeze and turn into a miserable, snippy bitch."
He cocks a brow.
I point at him accusingly. "And don't you dare finish that thought."
He grins at me. "I don't know what you're talking about. But anyway, you could just take a pill for that."
"You sound just like Anya," I grumble.
"She wants a cat too?"
"Yes. All day long, that's all she talks about. A cat or a horse and, honestly, I think a horse would be so much better. I wouldn't have to see the horse at all, it could live at a stable far away and someone else can take care of it."
"Geez, you're starting to sound like an animal hater," he says.
"I'm pregnant," I tell him. "I'm starting to hate everything."
"I guess I should be pretty grateful you're not hating on me right now."
"Right at this moment? No. As the pregnancy moves along? I'm going to be cursing your name all day long."
"I'm looking forward to it," he says.
"I'm sure you are."
"I mean that, by the way," he says, stopping on the path so I come to a halt along with him. "I hope you know that about me at this point. I mean what I say."
"And you keep your promises."
“That I do. And I promise you, Stella, you're not going to be alone through any of this. You might hate me, you might push me away, but I'm always going to be there for you."
My heart does a little skip in my chest.
The emotion behind his words, the sincerity in his eyes, tells me he means it in a big way.
Keep your head on straight, I remind myself. Don't start falling for pretty lines.
But I'm not so sure it's a line.
Then again, I'm not so sure of anything these days.
"We should find a place to eat," I say after a moment, gesturing for us to keep walking. "I'm getting tired."
He watches me for a second and then nods. "Sure."
I can tell it's bothering him, the way I'm shrugging off his words like this. Part of me wants to reach out and grab his hand and tell him that I'm grateful he's being supportive. Tell him that it means a lot to me.
The other part of me is scared. Scared of being pregnant, scared that he's the father, scared that in the end, even after all the kind words and promises, he'll just break his promise to me in order to keep a promise to someone else. I just can't trust him, not with the pregnancy, not with my body, not with my heart.
I can only hope I keep my wits about me.
The sun has now dipped beneath the horizon, bathing the sky in the most magical colors I've ever seen. Lilac and pink and tangerine reflecting off the dark metallic blue of the sea. We stop and watch the color spread from the horizon to the clouds, just as everyone else has seemed to. It’s like the entire world has paused for just this moment, to take it all in. To connect. I take my phone out and snap a few pics. It's so vibrant in real life that it actually shows up in the photo.
"That was something else," he says to me, after the last cotton candy cloud fades to blue. He turns to face me. "You're something else, too."
"What did I say about trying to hit on me?"
He rolls his eyes and folds his massive arms across his wide chest and, wow, that's such a look. "Okay, you've never said anything about me hitting on you. And also, I wasn't hitting on you." I stare at him. "What? I wasn't. I was trying to pay the mother of my child a compliment."
I scrunch up my nose.
"Oh no," he says. "That was weird, wasn't it? Too soon?"
I nod. It was too soon and weird and yet it also felt right.
Have I mentioned yet how complicated this all is?
"Let's just get some food," I say, for what feels like the millionth time.
We end up eschewing the restaurants in favor of a little surf shack bar by the sea. There's nothing but French fries to eat, but they have good non-alcoholic mojitos, so I'm happy. I also like that it feels so absolutely normal to be doing this. We could be tourists from anywhere, just having a drink after sunset on a sandy beach.
"This must be what it's like to be normal," Orlando comments, taking a French fry and putting it underneath the table.
"You read my mind," I tell him.
"I have to admit, it feels good." He takes another fry, this time breaking it into a few small mushy pieces and then does the same again. “Slumming it and all.”
"What are you doing?" I ask, looking down to see a pile of fries by his feet and a tabby kitten happily munching away on them.
"Oh my god, you're not."
"I am," he says smugly. "And I'd like to point out that you haven't sneezed once."
"That's because I'm outside. I don't have a problem with outdoor cats."
“Good,” he says, as I take a sip
of my drink. “Because I’d like to take this cat back to the house.”
I stare at him for a moment, the mojito straw dangling from my lips. “Hvad?” I say, reverting to Danish.
“This cat,” he says, leaning over to scoop up the kitten and place him on top of the table. “I’ve named him Mokey.”
“Mokey? When the hell did you manage to give him a name?”
“Just now,” he says. “Look at the way his hair stands out behind his ears. He kind of looks like Mokey from Fraggle Rock.”
“Fraggle what?”
“It was an American show. Like the Muppets.”
“Orlando, you can’t just bring a cat back to the house.”
“Why not?”
“It’s not your house! It’s technically a palace!”
“What makes it a palace?”
“I don’t know, but it is. And it’s not even my palace, it’s my brother’s.”
“You know what I think you need?” he asks, smiling at the cat as it explores the table.
I clutch my drink to my chest. “Please don’t say a cat.”
“You need a place of your own.”
“I have a house.”
“But is it a palace? You’re a princess. A pregnant princess. You deserve your own palace. The palace of Princess Stella.”
“Listen, I’ve got enough on my plate right now, I’m not going palace shopping.”
“But you could. You have the money. You are royalty. Really. You are. I get the feeling that you don’t believe it half the time.”
He’s not wrong about that.
“I think it’s better to believe you’re lesser than you are than it is to believe you’re more than you are,” I admit.
He bursts out laughing, which makes the cat jump into his lap. He scoops him up and holds him to his chest and, while it’s extremely cute, seeing the little orange cat buried in his muscles, I can’t help but think about fleas. Thank god he’s not sleeping in my room tonight.
“What’s so funny?” I finally ask.
“I just can’t believe you said that,” he says.
“Why?”
“There’s humble and then there is just stupid. You’re not stupid Stella, so don’t act like it.”