Everything could be as it should. It was arelief. The panic eased, but something else swept into its place. Because it struck him then, wholly and painfully. If she’d had a doctor come out three different times, she’d known.
She’d known and stayed away. Purposely. Not just for a few days of adjusting to the information. She’d stayed away on purpose, knowing this truth, formonths.
Why hadn’t she come back? If the annulment request was just about having a child, and now she would have one, why would she stay away?
He rubbed at the pain in his chest and forced it down with the rest of his feelings. Deep under a wall of reason. Sense.Action.
It didn’t matter why she’d stayed away. Because now it was time for her to come home.
Whether she wanted to or not. Whether he wanted her to or not. Everything would go back to the way it was, to the way he’d planned.
And that was that.
Ines had decided to wait for the second trimester. If the pregnancy was in good shape then, she would call Alexandre and inform him. She would lay out a plan where she stayed here. He didn’t have to give her an annulment if that was a no go. He just had to let herbe.
Because that was what she wanted. Or needed. Or something. She refused to allow herself to hope for some…change of heart from him just because she was pregnant. Because he did not want this, andshedid.
So.
She made it into the second trimester in the sweet little cabin, enjoying the quiet days with Jonet, even if she was a bit bored without all her royal commitments. But she still replied to emails and sometimes even attended virtual meetings for some of her responsibilities. She missed going to meetings, visiting the orphanage and the children’s hospital, the adaptive park she’d helped spearhead.
She tried not to think about Alexandre or the future and instead focused on caring for her changing body, her new home and her cousin.
When the doctor arrived for her four-month appointment, he went through the exam in the cabin as he had the past few times. They listened to the baby’s heartbeat. He assured her everything was well.
Every time an appointment came, motherhood felt real and impending, and then the doctor would leave, and everything would feel like a dream again. Like she made it up.
But she was firmly in the second trimester of her pregnancy, which meant she needed to start planning for what happened on theotherside of pregnancy. Which meant she needed to tell Alexandre, as she’d promised herself.
But she did not call Alexandre that night. She did not make plans to return to the palace. She knew it was wrong. Guilt swamped her every time she thought of him.
But so did fear. And anger. And a million other emotions.
When Ines crawled out of bed the next morning, tired and still vaguely nauseous, she figured she could give herself another month. Just to feel steadier. She didn’t want to approach Alexandre when nausea still seemed to rule her life. She needed more…traction. Physically. Telling him in a month would be fair.
There was nothing he could do as a king or as a father at this stage in her pregnancy, so it wasn’twrong.
And if she still felt as emotionally confused and wrung out as she did now when the physical symptoms settled? Well, she would cross that bridge when she came to it.
She went into the kitchen hoping for some breakfast to soothe the unsteady feeling in her stomach, but Jonet stood in the living room, peering out the window.
She glanced at Ines over her shoulder. Grimaced. “Ines, we have a problem.”
“What’s that?” Ines moved over to the window, expecting to find some kind of wildlife conundrum. Instead, she saw a car parked in front of their cottage. It was black, sleek andexpensive. It was certainly not the physician’s car—their only visitor out all this way.
Then a familiar figure stepped out of the driver’s side. He was dressed as casually as she’deverseen him, like he was trying to fit in with thecommoners. Jeans and a sweatshirt. Boots befitting the forest around them.
But there was nothing common about him. So tall. Sosevere. That preternatural control in everything he did—including striding toward the front door. Like he knew exactly what was on the other side.
He didn’tlookangry, but she knew he would have to be. If he was here, if he’d left his precious kingdom behind for even a moment… Yes, he was angry.
She had convinced herself if the king of Alis had not found her in all these months, he was not trying to find her. Had she been wrong? Had Jonet done such a good job of making them disappear that it had really taken him all this time to track her down?
She didn’t know what to do with that thought, even if her heart fluttered a bit. She didn’t know what to do withanyof this.
“Ines. Do you think he knows?”
Ines shook her head. If he knew, he’d… No, how could he possibly know if he was just showing up here now? “No. And he…he doesn’t have to know,” Ines heard herself say. Her body had changedsome, but not much. He certainly wouldn’t notice any thickening by the baggy clothes she wore.
