Secret Heir

I hadn’t even told my mom and dad about my condition yet.

And now here I was, not a pair of pants left to wear.

Clearly my condition wasn't just going to disappear, but I’d decided to do in Denmark what I’d come to do. Chase Vikings. Real ones. The ones that didn't talk anyway, not the tall and handsome ones with charming grins that could knock you up with a single glance.

I knew from experience.

I didn't know what I would say when I went home after a year abroad, baby in tow.

Hi mom and dad, long time no see, meet your Viking grand-baby!

I looped a hair tie through the button on my shorts, then slipped it through the buttonhole. The shorts clung tightly to my new curves, the baby growing big and healthy inside of me even though I’d admitted it’s existence to no one.

I remembered the stack of pregnancy tests I’d bought at the pharmacy on one of the rare day trips into Copenhagen for supplies.

I should have stopped to see Rome. I should have at least tried to tell him he would soon be a proud father, but there were always other students and staff around me from the Royal Academy. If they found out I was pregnant, I didn’t know what might happen. Could I lose my position on the field team? Maybe. I was too afraid to find out, and too afraid to go home to America and own up to my sins.

I’d even begun imagining a life here permanently. I’d come to love the Danish countryside, my time in the city short-lived as field work had started almost immediately after...well...after Rome and I had…

I gulped, pressing away the memories as I stepped out into the bright morning light.

“Good morning, beautiful.” A throaty voice halted me in my tracks.

“Oh. My. God. How did you find me?”

“This isn’t exactly the welcome I was expecting, Princess.”

“Don’t call me that.” I glared up at Rome, his big broad body towering over me.

“But you are—with me, anyway.”

I sighed, crossing my arms.

“You’re the sexiest nerd I’ve ever seen.”

I didn’t respond, anger brewing inside of me.

“Got something you want to say to me, Princess?”

“No, nothing. Wait a minute—you’re the creepy message guy?!”

“Creepy message?”

“The text about coming for you—I thought you were an internet creep.”

“Well, I’ve never been called a creep before.” I pondered her thoughtfully, taking her in before I grinned. “I know you’re not telling me something. Lying doesn’t look as cute on you as anger does. I’d rather tease you than drill you with twenty questions.”

“Lying?”

“I know you’re holding back, I like you angry, but only when you’re telling me a piece of your mind. So go on, what do you have to say to me? You wouldn’t have avoided me these last months if you didn’t have something on your mind.”

“Ugh, you’re just...infuriating.”

“And you’re so fucking sexy it hurts to look at you. How many men are in this camp with you? If I would have known you were camping out in the bush with these Neanderthals I woulda come a helluva lot sooner.”

“I-I didn’t want you to come. This is why I came to Denmark, I’m doing my job.”

“Your job?” He glanced around, a few tables set up to wash and process artifacts sat at the edge of a small grove of poplar trees. “Where are the students?”

I shuffled back and forth, weighing my options.

So many secrets. Could I really unveil all of them at once? He didn’t deserve the mountain of shit I was about to pile upon him, the least of which my age, considering he had to be at least a decade older than me.

“The students…” I lingered on the word, avoiding his eyes. I took a few steps down the path that led closer to the main campsite and field kitchen. I could smell the coffee, a piece of me craved it, but the baby I’d been incubating had rejected it completely. I’d become bitter without my morning brew. Thankfully, early morning dips in the nearby fjord left an adrenaline rush coursing through my bones that lasted well into the afternoon, so I’d made my peace.

“Where are the students, Pixie, are you lying to me—again?”

I frowned, wondering just how many lies he thought I’d told exactly. I was having trouble counting at this point.

“The students are—I am the students. I’m here on a special field study assignment with a half a dozen other study abroad students at the Royal Academy. We were scheduled to spend three months digging up bones, as they say—”

“Wait, wait. Hold on. You’re a student at the Royal Academy?” I couldn’t look at his face, I knew if he didn’t hate me before, he would now.

“Y-yes.” I turned, facing him squarely. One of my hands instinctively went to the soft swell of my stomach. A deep ache spun through me then that this was the first time the little guy or girl was meeting their daddy.