Marry. Gabriel. She should be appalled, she knew. He wasn’t marrying her out of anything but a sense of duty or whatever to Alexandre. He did notlikeher, and she needed to really accept that. She did not want her child growing up knowing his father did not like his mother. A forced marriage certainly wasn’t going to make that fixable.
“Gabriel. Alis might be a bit old-fashioned and traditional, but perhaps this is an opportunity to usher in some modern ideas. Like, I don’t know, not making each other miserable with a marriage neither of us want.”
It was a lie. She did kind of want it. Because she likedhim. But that was pathetic, and even ifshedidn’t mind being a bit pathetic here and there, she now had a child to concern herself with.
She would not be pathetic for him. She would be strong and right and true. She would be an example of love and…and goodness. No matter the effort it took.
Gabriel looked at her, eyebrow raised in cool disdain. “Do you really think the time around your brother’s coronation is the time to introducemodernideas? Particularly when you have an entire army moving from a war-hungry king to one who will promote peace, and well they all know it.”
Fear gripped her. She’d thought the danger died with her father, but… “Do you think he’s in danger?”
“No,” Gabriel said, with a certainty that eased some of her concerns. “Alex knows how to handle things. I’m only saying, I will not be adding to the things he has to handle. Any more than I already have.”
Right. Because she did not just get to gohome. She had to bring home a complication. She rubbed the swell of her stomach, chewing on her bottom lip. Should she take her child back to Alis with all this hanging over them?
But she thought of Alexandre. Of the palace. Ofhome. Even if her father had made her childhood hell, there was so much she yearned for back in the place she’d been raised. She wanted her son to have family. She wanted her son to have…
She studied Gabriel. She had not allowed herself to consider him as a father. Asthefather. She had spent considerable time just focusing on her and the baby. What she had, not what she wanted.
Now he was here. He was taking her home. He was talking aboutmarriage. And it wouldn’t be the kind of marriage she wanted, she knew that, but what if…
She shook her head. No. She couldn’t introduce fantasies she’d avoided for six months just because he was here. She moved over to him though, peered over his shoulder at what he was working on.
It took her a while of watching him to fully understand what was happening. He was…working to forge some kind of marriage record.
For six months ago. As though they had marriedfirst. A legitimate child under law. She wrinkled her nose, trying to work through how she felt about it. An unnecessary lie—she wouldneverallow her son to feelillegitimatejust because of how he’d been conceived. But this was something that would make Alexandre’s life easier. And probably her son’s, if she was being realistic.
But there was something under the practicalities. The war of truth and best choices.
“Ah, so we are notactuallygetting married.” She refused to sound disappointed. She wasamused. Damn it.
“There may be no ceremony, the date might be fudged, but it will beactuallyfor all intents and purposes,” he replied, without looking up at her. “From here on out.”
It wasn’t romance at all, and still her heart fluttered. They would be married.From here on out.And what did that mean to him?
“We will be husband and wife to everyone who knows us,” he said, returning to his all-important computer.
“Will you share my bed then?”
His fingers fumbled on the keys, but he did not look at her. “That is hardly a concern right now.”
“It is one of my concerns.”
“You have a one-track mind,” he muttered, typing away again.
“No, it has many tracks, actually. Some more enjoyable than others. For instance, I like to wonder what he’ll look like, or plan the nursery, rather than read, think orimaginelabor.” She shuddered at the thought. There were so many worries, and she’d had to step away from them or get lost in them.
But there was one inevitability. This baby would come out of her one way or another. And the bigger he got, the bigger she got, the more impossible and inevitable it seemed.
She thought she could endure that inevitable if she was home. If she had the familiar, without her father’s overbearing evil.
She thought—and knew it was wrong to think it—if she had Gabriel by her side to be her husband and this child’s father, she might endure it just fine. Even if he didn’t love her or like her.
Haven’t you had enough of that in your life?
But Gabriel, for all his faults, was not her father. He was notcruel. His dedication to Alexandre no doubt meant he would be dedicated to their child.
Didn’t it?
