Her mouth opened slightly, and he could see the yes taking shape on her lips when a shrill ringing sound disturbed the moment.
Regina shook her head, pulling her phone from her pocket. “This is my sister. I’ve gotta go.”
She stood up, quickly hurrying toward the door.
“What about my proposition, Regina?”
“What about it? It’s the most absurd thing anyone has ever said to me. No, I will not marry you and have your baby. This isn’t some sort of rom-com where two quirky strangers agree to something this ridiculous and it all works out. Life doesn’t work that way. My life doesn’t work that way.”
She yanked the door open and ran into the hallway, leaving him to watch her retreat to safety.
As he watched the elevator doors close, he smiled.
“You can run, Regina…for now.”
Regina went directly home from Aléx’s hotel. She knew she should’ve gone back to her sister’s, but she was too raw to do it. Aléx’s proposal, on its face, was unthinkable. There was no way she could agree to marry this man and have his child. He was a king. This wasn’t how monarchies worked, was it? Wasn’t there some sort of vetting process when it came to becoming a monarch’s intended? It couldn’t be as simple as a handshake and a deal. Could it?
She shook her head as she stepped off the elevator and walked to the door of her penthouse apartment. Her brain was firing on all cylinders as it tried to make sense of Aléx’s proposal. No matter how she tried, there was no sense to be made, and so she did the next best thing. She dropped her things on the fronttable, grabbed her iPad Pro off the charging dock she’d left it on this morning, and sat down in her armchair with all the fluffy pillows a scientist could want.
Calm began to settle in her mind and in her bones as she twirled the Apple Pencil now in her hand. She drew a tightly coiled strand of African American hair, attaching notes on the opposite side of the image on what Black hair needs to thrive.
Moisture retention
Gentle yet effective cleansing
Deep conditioning with effective detangling
Styling products that provide moisture but don’t weigh the hair down
Styling products that decrease frizz, provide hold, and prevent dryness and breakage
Gentle fragrance
She continued jotting notes down, getting lost in her work, trying her best to ignore the ache that had flared up inside her since Aléx made his offer. Having a family had always been a priority for Regina. It was probably selfish, considering how terrible her parents were at loving Regina and her sister. What made her confident she wouldn’t ruin a child the way her parents had almost ruined her?
A different ache in her chest blossomed as the warmth of love and the bitterness of grief commingled like never-ending vines. Ace Devereaux, her great-uncle, the man who had taught both Regina and Reigna what it felt like to be loved. That man had swept in and filled those two affection-starved little girls with so much love, at times they’d thought they might burst from it. That abundance of love was what lit the fire inside her to love her future children that way. Her ultimate dream had been to have a child while Ace was still with them, allow him to seehow powerful his love had been. That hadn’t been in God’s plan, however. He’d called Ace home six months earlier.
Losing Ace had ripped a hole in her soul. And since he’d been gone, that ache for a family of her own had begun to resurface. Once Reigna had announced her pregnancy, the thought wouldn’t turn her loose.
She took a breath, forcing her thoughts back onto the work in front of her. Life didn’t give her what she wanted. It never had; there was no reason to think if she reached for what she wanted now, it would finally come true.
Defeated, she laid the tablet down on the coffee table next to her and pulled her phone from her pocket to call her sister. Better to get this over with now or her sister would more than likely wake her up at the ass crack of dawn for a follow-up on her conversation with Aléx.
“How did it go?”
No hello or greeting of any kind: her sister just got straight to the point. It was a clear sign that she’d reached her limit when it came to patience. Regina couldn’t blame her. It wasn’t every day that one twin’s poor judgment could lead to actual war between two countries.
“I told him the truth. He wasn’t happy about it, but he accepted it. He now knows there’s no possible way that he fathered your baby.”
Her sister was quiet as she took in Regina’s words, as if she were letting the relief bleed through her. Her problems were over now. Too bad Regina couldn’t say the same.
“He’s an obnoxious ass. Did he say or do anything to you that’s gonna make me want to pop him in his mouth the next time I see him?”
Regina took comfort in knowing her sister would still defend her, even though it was Regina’s fault they’d ended up in this mess to begin with.
“Like I said, he was upset. But he wasn’t mean.”
“That bastard is always mean. Every time I attended one of his galas, he pretty much just scowled the entire time, barely sparing a kind word for any of the vendors that bring revenue to his country.” Reigna’s words scraped against Regina’s nerves, and she couldn’t tell why. It wasn’t like she and Aléx were besties. But somehow, she still felt the need to defend him.
