One Night Heir (By His Royal Decree 1)

Leaning back against the counter by the sink, she asked, “You didn’t live on campus?”

“The first year, yes, and that only meant I didn’t have to do my own cooking. My second year, I moved into an apartment with Demyan.”

“And you didn’t have a housekeeper?” She couldn’t imagine Demyan doing anything for himself, either, honestly.

“We both wanted our privacy.”

Young college men, sowing their wild oats? That was more understandable than she wanted it to be.

“It was good for you.”

“It was. Not everyone living in Volyarus is born in a palace. I need to understand the lives of my people if I am going to make decisions that best serve them.” He shrugged out of his suit jacket, hanging it over the back of the kitchen chair.

“You think living without servants for six years helped you do that?”

His tie followed, draped neatly over the top. “That and the time I have spent living with different families throughout Volyarus in the summers, each one with a different job from a different walk of life.”

“Wow. I wouldn’t have guessed.” Her voice went up an octave as he unbuttoned his shirt, exposing his snugly fitting undershirt. “I’m surprised your parents allowed it.”

“They insisted on it. My father did the same and his father before him.” He kept the shirt on, but there could be no question how he expected their evening to end.

She didn’t call him on it because she wasn’t entirely sure the confrontation would end up with a victory on her side.

So, she ignored his blatant gestures of intent. “That’s kind of amazing.”

“And may well be impossible for our own children. Security issues grow increasingly bleak.”

“The world is too connected.” In years past, a mostly unknown country and its monarchy would have found their first form of defense in their very anonymity.

The internet and a new level of paparazzi that catered to it ensured no one of any note remained entirely anonymous in today’s world.

“For the freedom we once knew in Volyarus, yes it is.” He leaned negligently against the wall beside the built-in desk where she paid her bills.

Feeling unsettled, she moved around the kitchen, rearranging things on the counter, checking the timer on the dishwasher, and avoiding his gaze if she could help it. “Now, you’re forced to live the life of a royal because if you don’t, you could be kidnapped.”

It was a disturbing thought and quickly morphed to the realization her child would be facing the same risks in the future.

“Or assassinated.”

A cold chill passed down her spine and Gillian stopped abruptly to face him. “Don’t say that.”

“Now you know how I feel when you make similar pronouncements about our baby.”

“I didn’t mean to upset you with the truth.”

“Nor I you.”

“Okay, fine. I get it. No more mentioning the possibility of miscarriage.”

“And marriage?” he asked, with a hopeful charm she found utterly irresistible, but then what about this man wasn’t to her?

“On a cruise ship?”

“If you don’t like the idea, we can come up with another.”

“No. I like it.” Too much.

“Ariston will be pleased.” Maks grinned, showing the man very pleased was himself.

“You’ve already approached him?”

“I’m an efficient man, Gillian. You know this.”

“Yes, but…”

“Ariston has had his own marital challenges. He is only too happy to help.”

Gillian wondered what a Greek shipping tycoon would consider “marital issues” but was too wrapped up in her own at the moment to ask.

“I want Nana and Papa there.”

“Absolutely.”

“The prenup isn’t going to be pretty.”

He tried to look all serious, but the grin lurking in his eyes and flirting with the corner of his lips was unmistakable. “Be aware that any assurances you ask for from me, I will demand from you as well.”

“No problem.”

He nodded, like he hadn’t expected any other answer.

She took a deep breath and gave in to the inevitable. “I’ll marry you.”

Because when it came down to it, she would not deny their child its birthright. But also because she loved him. Because he was committed to making their marriage work in a way a lot of men in love weren’t.

Because her future had too bleak a cast without him in it.

“Thank you.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the familiar blue box.

“You knew.”

He flipped open the box, revealing the ring so perfect for her. “I hoped, but I had a backup plan.”

“What was it?” Seduction probably.

“My mother.”

Gillian felt her eyes widen. Some backup plan. That was a woman who could and had been ruthless for the sake of her family and country.

“I’m glad it didn’t come to that.”

Maks laughed as he removed the ring and set the small blue box aside. “She’s not that bad.”

“She’s a heck of a lot scarier than Demyan.”

“I do not think so.” He smiled and reached for Gillian, his intention to put the ring on her finger clear.

She flinched back without thought, the inexplicable urge to avoid him overwhelming.

Maks looked gobsmacked. “I cannot touch you?”

“I…” She didn’t know why she’d shied from him this time.

His eyes narrowed. “You are not adverse to my touch.”

“I don’t think I am.”

He began moving forward, his expression predatory. “You are not.”

“But—”

He put his finger on her lips, pressing with gentle firmness. “No. Our separation has caused you to withdraw from me. Now I will bring you back into the sun.”

“You are not the sun.”

“But you are a flower about to bloom again.” The naughty look in his espresso dark eyes gave all sorts of connotations to his words.

“Stop trying to sound like a desert sheikh.”

He laughed. “I assure you, I am very content to be Volyarussian.”

Of that, she had absolutely no doubt.

No man was as proud of his heritage as Crown Prince Maksim of the House of Yurkovich. Part of her craved physical closeness with this dynamic man, and yet Gillian felt this inexplicable urge to push Maks away.

She tried to will her body to relax, but the muscles in her back and neck were rigid with no hope of releasing the tension.

Maks’s eyes narrowed and his hands landed very deliberately on her shoulders. Her body tightened, her first instinct to jerk away from him again, but she managed not to give in to it.

He advanced and she backed up, could not help doing so, until she was up against the refrigerator.

Her breath came out in short, near-panicked pants.

He trailed one finger down her throat until it rested over her rapidly beating pulse. “This reaction is excessive, don’t you think?”

“Yes.” She did; she just didn’t know how to fix it.

Their bodies were so close she could feel the heat coming off his. In the past, that heat had always excited or comforted her.

She’d loved it when he spent the night, thinking that he could have kept her warm on even the coldest nights in her Alaskan hometown.

Now, his hotter body temperature made her feel trapped, even marked by his nearness.

She did not understand it.

His fingertip brushed back and forth over her pulse point. “Your body shies from my touch and reacts with alarm to my nearness.”

“I don’t know why.” Only maybe she did.

His leaving had devastated her, left her hurting in a way even her parents’ ongoing rejections never had. Her atavistic reaction to him was that of one animal mauled by another.

Even if the mauli

ng had been purely emotional and equally unintentional, she understood that now it had left her entire being wary of this man.

He could not guess at the depths of her pain because he did not truly understand the terrible power of her love. He was right about one thing, though, that power had not been a positive force in her life yet.

And only she could change that.