His Two Royal Secrets

“What a shock.”

“I am next in line to the throne. Any legitimate child of mine would ascend that throne after me. In the absence of children, a line of succession would move on. Either to any children my father’s second wife produces, or to my cousin. If any children I have are illegitimate, they would precede my father’s second round of children only if my father had girls.”

“That is a fascinating history lesson. Thank you.” She smiled at him still, though it felt more...fixed, somehow. “An alternative would be for you to go away. And never tell anyone. I will do the same. And we will never again talk about issue.”

Or anything else, she thought stoutly. And waited to feel relief rush in.

But instead, she felt something far more bittersweet flood her, though she couldn’t quite name it.

“I’m afraid it is much too late for that, Pia,” Ares said, with that quiet power of his that shook through her no matter how solid she told herself she was. “Because speculation already exists. Reporters clamor outside even now. What they cannot learn for certain, they will make up to suit themselves.”

“You must know the folly of living your life by what the tabloids say,” she chided him. Gently.

“I never have.”

“Wonderful.” She smiled. “Then no need to start now.”

“You said yourself that you have never appeared in the tabloids before. There is no reason to throw yourself in the midst of a nasty little scrum of them, like a bone to pick.”

If Pia didn’t know better, she might have been tempted to think he was trying to protect her.

“More than that, there were reporters who heard you make your claim,” Ares said. He shook his head. “Do you know nothing of the history of this planet? Wars have been fought for much less than a claim to a throne.”

“You talk about war a lot,” she said, and felt herself flush when his gaze turned considering. “In case you were unaware.”

“I am a prince. One of my main roles in this life is preventing wars from ever taking place. One way to do that is to conduct my private affairs in private.” He inclined his head, though Pia was aware it was a command and not a sign of obedience or surrender. “My car awaits.”

“And if I refuse to get into it with you?”

“I have a security detail who will put you in the vehicle, no matter your protests. But you know this.” Again, that dark, considering look that seemed to peel her open. “Is that what you want? Plausible deniability?”

For a moment, Pia didn’t know what she wanted. She felt the way she had when her doctor had come into the exam room and told her the news. Pia had been fairly certain she was dying of something. All those strange cramps. The fact that she kept getting sick. She was certain something was eating her away from the inside out.

It had never occurred to her that she could be pregnant. The word itself hadn’t made sense.

She’d made the doctor repeat herself three times.

Looking at Ares, here in the library of Combe Manor where she had spent so much of her childhood, was much the same.

That train kept jumping the tracks and hurtling away into the messy night, no matter how still she stood or how gracefully she tried to hold herself together.

But she could hear her brother’s clipped tone from the other side of the door, issuing his own orders. She’d seen that scrum of ravenous reporters out in front of the house, clamoring for a comment and ready to pounce.

“Let me tell you what sort of life you will lead,” her mother had said in the days following her graduation from finishing school, right here in this very same manor house, stuffed full of pictures of all the battle-hardened Combes who had charged out of their circumstances and had made something of themselves, no matter what.

Pia knew she was meant to feel deeply proud of them all. When instead, all that desperate clawing for purchase made her feel...tired. And unequal to the task.

“Am I supposed to know what to do with my life?” Pia had asked. “I can’t seem to make up my mind.”

“It’s not for you to decide, dear girl,” said her mother, who only called Pia dear when she was in one of her less affectionate moods. Pia had sat straighter, waiting for the inevitable other shoe to fall. “Your father has gone to a tremendous amount of trouble to make you into the perfect heiress. Biddable and sweet enough. Reasonably accomplished in the classic sense of the term. And very, very wealthy, of course.”

It had seemed wiser not to say anything. Pia had sat there at the breakfast table off the kitchen where her mother drank her hot water and lemon, murmured about how refreshed she felt with each sip, and raised her brows at Pia’s slice of toast with a bit of creamery butter.