“I was with Christine, your cousin. She posted pictures online of us and the other girls, wearing bikinis. I didn’t appear pregnant in the slightest, and I dare you to say that I did, Pierre.”
One side of Pierre’s mouth lifted in the smallest of wry grins, and a dark twinkle infiltrated his eyes. “I would never say that, my darling. Even if you had been, I’m sure you would have been as royally svelte as ever, and everyone would have been shocked that you had somehow produced a child.”
He was trying to charm her.
In the past, it might have worked.
Flicka allowed her smile to warma bit. “I assure you, I was definitely not pregnant. There is ample photographic evidence to the contrary.”
Pierre’s eyebrow twitched. “Photoshop. My own public relations department makes me look unreasonably good in every photo we release. I have been informed that they can work miracles with Spandex and whalebones these days for personal appearances.”
“I was only gone for a month. I ask youthis: Did I ever look heavily pregnant or immediately postpartum?”
Pierre should know what a woman’s body looked like when she was in the later stages of pregnancy and afterward because his other wife, Abigai Caillemotte, had given birth to four children for him. He had been there for every one of their births.
He frowned. “No. You didn’t.”
Flicka still shook her head. “We dated during thattime. We were intimate. I never lookedpregnant.”
He bobbed his head. “That’s true, I suppose.”
She might kill him for thatI supposelater, but right now, she needed to convince him that Alina was not her offspring and thus was not a means for leverage over her, so that he would send the child someplace safe.
From behind Pierre, Quentin Sault cleared his throat. “Her Serene Highness assuredme that Alina was her biological daughter from a secret relationship with her bodyguard. She said the bodyguard and his infertile wife privately adopted the child.”
Flicka refrained from stabbing Quentin with a pen from the set on the front of Pierre’s desk, the one right by her knees and well within reach. “Alina is the daughter of my bodyguard and his very fertile wife. He got her pregnantduring our affair and married her immediately. I seem to have a problem with falling in love with men who are already producing families with other women.”
The slight movement of Pierre’s eyebrows was a subtle flinch, but he had damned well deserved that.
She continued, “In any case, I assure you that Alina is not my biological child. I did have a relationship with my previous bodyguard, andI ate my way through the breakup depression afterward. You know how it is, Pierre, working with a hot guy all day.” She waved her hand at Quentin Sault, standing in the morning sunlight from the windows. “Sometimes, you slip.”
Pierre’s expression didn’t change much—one groomed eyebrow raised a smidgen in amusement, not anger—but Quentin startled. His head popped up, and he threw a sharp glanceat Pierre. The overall impression was as if Quentin had demanded,What in the hell have you been telling people?
Flicka smiled. She’d distracted both Pierre and Quentin with the suggestion that the two of them were sleeping together. She didn’t think they were, really. Pierre was bisexual only in casual encounters. He preferred women as partners for anything longer than a quick dick suck in thecoat closet, though he’d sometimes dabbled with men for the fun of it. She’d heard he liked to sexually dominate men more than to have sex with them.
The angry flush on Quentin’s cheeks looked like he didn’t like the insinuation of sexual relations between him and Pierre at all. His pale eyes widened in furious dismay.
Quentin knew Pierre too well to become involved with him. Plus, Quentin seemedrigorously heterosexual and loyal to his wife, and his ethics probably would have prevented him from getting involved with his principal protection target, no matter what his tastes were.
Quentin growled, “The child does uncannily resemble Her Serene Highness. That’s what convinced me to disobey orders, change the plan, risk our men, and retrieve the child, too.”
Pierre said, “Sault is correct.The child does resemble you.”
Flicka shrugged. “My bodyguard is blond and has gray eyes. The child’s eyes are green-gray, not the brightly colored eyes that run in the Hannover line.”
This was true. Her older brother’s eyes were the dark blue of star sapphires, and her own eyes were a bright, dark green that had made her wonder if she might really be a living, glass-eyed doll when she was achild. Other odd traits ran in the Hannover family, too: an exceptional memory for numbers, insomnia, hemophilia, the Hapsburg jaw bone malformation, an occasional descent into madness, and serial or mass murder. Just your run-of-the-mill royal family genes.
Considering those, Pierre really shouldn’t make her angry.
Pierre sighed. “Eye color has very complex inheritance. We can’t rely on thatas evidence. But you’ve taken to the child, yes?”
“Rather,” Flicka said. “I think anyone would. She’s a sweet little girl.”
Pierre smiled, still trying to charm her. “I didn’t think you were the type to be a mother. That’s what you always said.”
No, Flicka had said she didn’t want to have children with Pierre. “I’m as surprised as you are.”
Pierre said, “In the meantime, she’s certainly welcomehere. We’ll say she’s your ward.”
