Because you know.
And the test confirmed all her suspicions.
After a year of desperately trying and havingnoluck, they’d engaged in reckless, angry sex in his office and conceived a child.
She leaned against the sink, eyes closed, emotion swamping her. How could thisbe? Why couldn’t it have happened months ago? Everything would be different.Everything.
Jonet tapped on the door and then opened it. She stepped in, looked at the test on the sink, then nodded.
“Would you like to call Alexandre?” Jonet asked gently.
“God no.” Ines couldn’t imagine explaining this to him over the phone. Or at all. Not in this moment, anyway.
“Return to the palace?”
Ines shook her head. Go back there? With this news? After he’d… He didn’t want a child. He didn’t wantthis.
“Then what, Ines?”
“I don’t know.” A baby. Finally. This thing she’d wanted for so long, and now it was here at the worst possible time. She slid a hand over her flat stomach. She was elation and joy and dread and disappointment, all in one body.
She swallowed at the wave of nausea. Proof there was ababy. A babyshewanted, even if he didn’t. The thing she’d left him over. How could she listen to any of the negative thoughts when this was everything she wanted?
“I will need a doctor,” she said, finding some strength in the idea of a baby, a child. Hers.Hers.Yes, Alexandre’s too, but he’d rejected this possibility. Which meant it washers. Hers to decide. Hers to protect. Hers to considereverythingfor.
“Yes,” Jonet agreed.
“There’s no point in letting Alexandre in on this until I know for sure,” she said. “Until I have a medical opinion. Until…”
“Until you decide whatyouwant.”
Ines blinked at Jonet. Yes…yes. Whatshewanted. For herself. For her baby. She would have to tell him, but she got to decide how and when. It didn’t have to be right away. She had a right to determine howshewanted to handle this before she involved someone who’d made it clear they didn’t want this.
Ines nodded. “Yes, I’ll tell him once I have figured everything out. For right now, though, we’ll just…stay put. Okay?”
Ines ignored the questions and indecision on Jonet’s face and took her cousin’sOkayat face value.
Chapter Five
THE FIRST TIMEGabriel informed Alexandre that a man had visited Ines and Jonet’s cabin—and said man was a doctor—Alexandre had felt a panic unlike anything he’d ever felt before.
He thought of his mother. Of blood. Screams. The doctor at a loss while everything crashed and died around him.
He had not given in to the panic, the memories though. If he gave in to panic now, everything in his kingdom would unravel. And, since no one was taken from the cabin in some kind of emergency vehicle, no bodies emerged, Alexandre knew that whatever waswrongwas…fine.
The second time, a month later, he might have flown off the handle if Gabriel hadn’t pointed out it was exactly a month from the first appointment—down to the date and time, so likely some kind of follow-up. Nothing new to be concerned about. Not an emergency of any kind.
The third time… Well, he might have stormed over to Italy that very second if Evelyne had not delivered a calm, direct question.
“Is there any way she could be pregnant?”
He had stared at her sister, sitting on the floor with baby Gabri, who seemed to grow at an exponential rate, all the while remaining impossibly small.
Sometimes Evelyne handed him to Alexandre, and Alex felt like he was five years old again, holding baby Evelyne because Father refused to let the nursemaidscoddleher.
He didn’t care for the reminder of such a helpless feeling—knowing he needed to be strong for Evelyne, for his lost mother. And not having a clue as tohow.
But this question, thispossibilitythat Ines might…
