Princess's Nine-Month Secret

‘That is a slight exaggeration.’ His mouth twitched; he was heartened to see even that little display of spirit. ‘But only slight.’

‘Of course.’

‘Perhaps I should put that on my business card. It’s quite catchy, as a title.’

Her mouth curved just a little. ‘You’re joking with me.’

‘Shouldn’t I?’

‘No, it’s just...’ Her smile faded. ‘I don’t know you, Rico, at all. And yet you’re the father of my child and soon you’re likely to be my husband.’

‘There’s no likely about it,’ Rico couldn’t keep from saying, his voice hardening, that moment of levity vanishing like morning mist.

Halina sighed and turned back to the window. ‘Exactly.’

Frustration boiled within him. Why could he never get this right? He wasn’t used to feeling wrong-footed, unsure, wanting something he couldn’t have. ‘So what is it you’d like to do today?’

She shrugged, her face still to the window. ‘I don’t care.’

He found he hated her apathy. ‘I’m giving you a choice, Halina—’

‘Oh, that’s right.’ She whirled to face him, a sudden and surprising fury lighting her eyes and twisting her features. ‘You’re giving me a choice. I suppose I should trip all over myself to say thank you for that unimaginable kindness.’ He opened his mouth to speak but found he had nothing to say. ‘And tomorrow, perhaps, you won’t give me a choice. Tomorrow I’ll be informed of our plans without any discussion and expected to fall in line immediately or else.’

‘You are talking about something that hasn’t happened yet.’

‘You don’t get it, do you?’ She shook her head in weary despair. ‘You never will. I tried to explain before, but you’re so used to ordering the universe you can’t imagine what it feels like to be the one ordered about. And as privileged as my life has been—and I’m not stupid... I know it has—it’s also always been ordered and arranged by someone else. So if you want to know what I want today, Rico, I’ll tell you. I want my freedom, and that is something you’ll never give me.’ She broke off, breathing heavily, turning back to the window as she struggled to compose herself.

Rico sat back, stunned speechless by her outburst. Yes, he understood her life had been restricted and that she resented that, but he hadn’t realised how bitterly she chafed against it, against him. How she now saw him as her captor, her commander. And he suddenly felt sympathy for her that was both overwhelming and inconvenient.

‘Actually,’ he said after a moment, keeping his voice mild, ‘I do know what that feels like.’

Halina let out a huff of disbelieving laughter, her face still turned firmly towards the window. ‘Yeah, right.’

‘As you said yourself just a few moments ago, you don’t actually know me. So how can you say whether I’ve felt something or not?’

She stayed silent for a long moment and then she turned towards him. Her face was still flushed, but that moment of furious rebellion had left her, and bizarrely Rico found he missed it. ‘Tell me, then.’

But did he actually want to tell her? This was all becoming a bit too...intimate. Rico hesitated, debating the pros and cons of admitting something of his past to her. Then he decided he could tell her. He just wouldn’t get emotional about it.

‘Well?’ Halina lifted her chin, a challenge in her dark gaze. ‘Are you going to tell me or not?’

CHAPTER NINE

HALINA SAW THE indecision flicker in Rico’s silvery eyes and knew he was regretting admitting even as little as he had to her. He didn’t want her to know him. Didn’t want to be known.

‘For all my childhood, I had little control,’ he said at last, his voice toneless. ‘Over anything.’

‘Most children have little control,’ Halina answered with a shrug, determined not to trip all over herself in eager gratitude now that he was sharing something with her. ‘Isn’t that the nature of childhood?’

‘I suppose it is.’ His jaw was tight, his eyes flinty. Perhaps she shouldn’t have been so dismissive simply because she was frustrated and feeling trapped. She did want to know more about the man she was going to marry, and if Rico was willing to open up even a little she wanted and needed to encourage that.

‘How was your childhood different, Rico?’ she asked in a gentler tone. ‘What was it like?’ She really did want to know, and she was sorry for her flippancy.

His lips compressed, his gaze turning distant. ‘As it happens,’ he remarked in a cool, matter-of-fact tone, ‘I never knew my mother. She was a waitress who had a fling with my father. She didn’t want the baby—me—and so she left me with my father when I was two weeks old.’

‘Oh.’ The word was a soft gasp of sorrow. She had assumed, she realised, that Rico was from as great a world of privilege as her own. He certainly acted as if he had always been entitled, had always expected obedience, or even obeisance. She’d had no idea that he’d been born in such lowly, unfortunate circumstances.

‘Yes, oh.’ His mouth twisted with wry grimness. ‘My father worked on the docks, and I don’t think he was best pleased to have a baby foisted on him, even his own.’