“Twins?” Sabrina blinks at me about a thousand times.
“Yes, sweetheart. Bellamy and I are going to have not one, but two babies. She’s pregnant and that means you’re going to have new brothers or sisters or one of each.”
Silence. We’re met with silence. And a lot of wide eyes.
“Yeesh. Tough crowd. Don’t all get excited at once,” Bellamy teases, but I know she’s worried. A point she proves as she gets down on her knees, staring at the children. “Do you understand what your papa is saying?” she questions.
“You have two babies in your tummy?” Phaedra stares at Bellamy’s belly, perplexed. “Why can’t I see them yet? Whenever a mama is pregnant in the movies, she has a big belly.”
“Well, it’s new,” I tell her, wishing I could take my kids ontomy lap. “In fact, it’s so new that we want to keep this just to us. A secret between the family for now.”
“Can we play with the babies when they come?” That’s Sabrina.
“And help name them?!” Phaedra. “I want to help name them.”
Zayer is too busy to care about babies or anything else now that he’s opened the box and torn open the plastic holding the Magna-Tiles captive. Clearly, not boring.
“Of course. You’re part of this,” I tell them.
“Well, this calls for a toast.” Althea stands, holding her glass of wine out as she beams at us. “To King Sebastian and future Queen Bellamy and all their children, present and future.”
“Cheers!” everyone cries.
“But wait,” Rowan says. “What are you going to do about the wedding if Bellamy has two buns in the oven? You’re on borrowed time now.”
Yes. That. What are we going to do about that?
2
SEBASTIAN
Two Months Later
“How didyou have this place and never use it?” Bellamy asks, her body elongated on a beach blanket like a cat, arms and legs stretched out, back slightly arched as she stretches out.
“Cursed,” is all I say because I’m too distracted by her gorgeous ass and supple tits in her red bikini to form a proper response. Still, the answer is no less true. My family has been cursed for centuries. Cursed practically since the inception of Messalina, back during the height of the Roman Empire. A curse that stole my sisters and father.
A curse that took Nora, my first queen.
It wasn’t until Bellamy and I fell in love that everything changed.
Our love is what finally broke the curse. At least according to my brother, Rowan.
Before Bellamy entered our lives as my children’s nanny, wewere destined for a life of heartbreak and loss. Though if you ask Bellamy, she’d say there was never a curse to begin with.
Regardless, she did more than save us. She brought me back to life. She made me believe in love when love was the last thing I ever imagined possible as both a man and a king. My father used to call it a weakness, a vulnerability to the throne.
I call it the missing piece that gives me the strength to lead, the heart to care, and the peace and happiness I never knew I didn’t have until she came along.
And now she’s pregnant with our twins.
“Well, it’s heaven,” she murmurs, her eyes closed, and a sweet, contented smile across her lips. “To have an island like this and not use it is a crime.”
“Plenty of people use it. It’s one of the largest tourist islands in the world. Just not for us. This honeymoon is the first time I’ve left mainland Messalina since Nora’s death.”
She frowns, her eyes slashing open only to squint against the blazing sun as she slides her sunglasses on top of her head. Her fingers glide along my chest, over the nearly healed scar Samil gave me, her smile twisting into a frown.
“It’s done,” I tell her.
