The Queen's New Year Secret

“You’re making an awfully big assumption.”

He slammed his hands down on the counter by the exam table. “Do not toy with me, Tabitha. We both know it’s my child.”

“Except that you don’t. Because you can’t know that. You haven’t seen me in weeks. I didn’t go to your bed for months before our last time together.” Heartbreak made her cruel. She’d had no idea. She’d never been heartbroken before him.

“I am the only man you have ever been with. You and I both know that. You were a virgin when I had you the first time. I sincerely doubt you went out and found the first lover available to you just after leaving my arms.”

She swallowed hard, her hands trembling. “You say that as though you know me. We both know that you don’t. We both know that you feel nothing for me.”

“In this moment, I find I feel quite a lot.”

“I’ve only just found out. It isn’t as though I was keeping a secret from you. Where exactly do you get off coming in here, playing the part of caveman?”

“You were going to keep it from me. The doctor called me. If you knew you were coming to the doctor to get a pregnancy test, why didn’t you include me?”

“Because,” she said, looking at the wall beyond him, “that’s the beauty of divorce. I don’t have to include you in my life. I get to go on as an individual. Not as one half of the world’s most dysfunctional couple. I would have told you. I was hardly going to keep this from you. If for no other reason than that the press would never let me.”

“How very honorable of you. You would let me in on my impending fatherhood based on what the media would allow you to keep secret. Tell me, would you allow them to announce it to me via headline?”

“That sounds about right considering the level of communication we’ve always had. Honestly, I haven’t much noticed the absence of you in the past four weeks. It was pretty much standard to our entire marriage. Sex once a month with no talking in between.”

“Still your poisonous tongue for a moment, my queen. We have a serious issue to deal with here.”

“There is no issue,” she said, her hand going protectively to her stomach. “And there is no dealing with it. What’s done is done.”

“What exactly did you think I was suggesting?” His dark features contorted with horror. With anger. “You cannot seriously think I would suggest you get rid of our child. Just because you and I are experiencing difficult circumstances at the moment—”

“No. That isn’t what I thought you meant. And what do you mean difficult circumstances? We are not undergoing difficult circumstances. If anything, we’re experiencing some of the best circumstances we’ve had in years. We aren’t together anymore, Kairos. That’s what we both need.”

“Not now. There will be no discussion of it.”

She stood up, feeling dizzy. “The hell there won’t be. I am not your property. I can divorce you if I choose, discussion or not.”

“Can you? I am king of Petras.”

“And I am an American citizen.”

“In addition to being a citizen of Petras.”

“I will happily chuck my Petran passport into the river. As long as it will get you off my back.”

“We are not having this discussion here,” he said through clenched teeth. “Get dressed. We’re leaving.”

“I have a car.”

“Oh, yes, my driver that you’re still using. From the house that I own that you are currently living in.”

“I will sort things out later,” she said, stinging heat lashing her cheekbones. It was humiliating to have him bring up the fact she was dependent on him to not be homeless at the moment. Particularly since she had made such a big deal out of knowing she would get nothing from him after the divorce. But still, he wasn’t using his apartment in town, nor was he using the car and driver that were headquartered there. So he could hardly deny her the use of them. Well, he could. But he wasn’t, so she was taking advantage.

“Oh, I sent your driver home. The only driver currently here is mine. You are leaving with me. Now.”

He stood there, his arms folded across his broad chest, his dark eyes glued to her.

“Don’t look at me. I have to get dressed.”

“It is nothing I haven’t seen, agape.”

She treated him to her iciest glare. “Rarely.”

The biting word hung between them and she felt some guilt over it. Truly, the state of their sex life was partly her fault. If not mostly her fault. But having him touch her out of duty... It had certainly started to wear on her.

Eventually, it was just easier to lie back and think of Petras. To close her eyes and think of other things. Hope that it would be over quickly. To not allow herself to feel a connection with him. To shut walls around her heart, and around her body. The less she felt during sex, the less pain she felt when it was over. The less disappointment each time he got up and left immediately after, each time the pregnancy test was negative. The less distress she felt over the fact that any intimacy between them was all for the purpose of producing a child. That it was completely void of any kind of emotion between the two of them.

Yes, the fast, disappointing sex in the dark was mainly her fault.

“As you wish, my queen.” He turned away from her, his broad back filling her vision. And, damn him, she felt bad. Guilty. He did not deserve her guilt.

She kept her eyes on him as she stripped off the hospital gown she was wearing. On the way the perfectly cut lines of his suit molded to his physique. He was a handsome man. There was no denying it. He was also a bastard.

She finished dressing, then cleared her throat.

Kairos turned, the fierceness in his expression wavering for a moment. An emotion there that she couldn’t quite put a name to.

“Let’s go,” he said.

“Where are you taking me?”

“To the palace.” He hesitated. “We have some things to discuss.”

“I don’t want to discuss this right now. I’ve only just found out I’m pregnant. I believe you had to know before I did.”

“You at least had a suspicion.”

“You think that makes it easier? Do you think that makes any of this...?” Her voice broke, her entire body shaking. “I should not be devastated in this moment. I hate you for this too. I was supposed to be happy when I finally conceived. You’ve stolen that for me.”

“Who stole it, Tabitha? I was not the one who asked for a divorce.”

“Maybe not. But you made your feelings for me perfectly clear. It’s poison now, already working its way through my system. You can’t fix it.”

He said nothing as they walked out of the exam room and continued down the long vacant hallway toward a back entrance. His car was waiting there, not one driven by a chauffeur. One of his sports cars that he got great enjoyment out of driving.

He was a low-key man, her husband. Responsible, levelheaded. Serious.

But he liked cars. And he very much enjoyed driving them. Much too fast for her taste. But he never asked her opinion.

“I’m not especially in the mood to deal with your Formula 1 fantasies,” she said, crossing her arms and tapping her foot, giving him her best withering expression.

“Funny. I’m not particularly in the mood to put up with your attitude, and yet, here we are.”

“You have earned every bit of my attitude, Your Highness.”

“So angry with me, Tabitha, when you spent so many years with so little to say.”

“What have I said, my lord?”

He made a scoffing sound in the back of his throat. “My lord. As if you are ever so deferential.”

She arched her brow. “As if you ever deserved it.” She breezed past him and got inside the car, slamming the door shut behind her and setting about to buckling her seat belt while he got in and started the engine.

“What happened, Tabitha? What happened?”

“There was nothing. Like you said. Nothing. And I can’t live that way anymore.”

“You’re having my baby. I don’t see you have an option now. Clearly the divorce is off.”

He revved the engine, pressing the gas and pulling the car away from the curb.

“The divorce is no such thing,” she said, panic clawing at her insides. “The divorce is absolutely on. You might be royalty, but you can’t pull endless weight with me. I am not simply another subject in your country. I have rights.”

“Oh, really? And with what money will you hire a lawyer to defend those rights? Everything you have is mine, Tabitha, and we both know it.”

“I will find a way.” She didn’t know if she would. He wasn’t wrong. She was nothing. Nothing from nowhere. She had climbed her way up from the bottom. From a poor household on the wrong side of the tracks with parents who would spend every night screaming at each other, throwing things. Her mother hurling heavy objects at her stepfather’s head whenever the mood struck her.

And that was before everything had gone horribly wrong.

There had been no money in her household. Not enough food. All there had been was anger. And that was an endless well. One that her parents drew from at every possible opportunity. That was her legacy. It was all she had. It was why she had vowed to find something different for herself. Something better.

What she had found was that sometimes everything that filled the quiet spaces, everything that went unsaid, was more cutting, more painful than a dinner plate being hurled at your head.

Kairos said nothing but simply kept driving. It took a while for her to realize they weren’t heading back to the palace, but when she did, a cold sense of dread filled her. She realized then that she honestly couldn’t predict what he might be doing. Because she didn’t know him. Five years she had been married to this man and she knew even less about him today than she had on the day they had married. Impossible, seemingly.

She’d spent three years as his PA prior to them getting engaged and married. Three years where she had cultivated a silly, childish crush on him. He had smiled easier then, laughed with her sometimes.

But that was before his father had died. Before the weight of the nation had fallen on his shoulders. Before his arranged engagement was destroyed by his impetuous younger brother. Before he had been forced to take on a replacement wife that he had never wanted, much less loved.

Those years spent as his PA had been like standing on the outside of a forest. She had looked on him and thought, I recognize him. He’s a forest. Being his wife was like walking through it. Discovering new dangers, discovering that it was so dark, she could barely see in front of her. Discovering she had no idea where the trees might end, and where she might find her freedom. Yes, the deeper she walked, the less she knew.

“You aren’t planning on driving your car into a river or something dramatic, are you?” she asked, only half joking.

“Don’t be silly. We spent years trying for an heir, I’m not going to compromise anything now that we have one on the way.”

“Oh, but otherwise you would be aiming for a cliff. Good to know.”

“And leave Andres to rule? Don’t be ridiculous.”

It occurred to her suddenly, exactly where they were heading. Unease stole over her, her scalp prickling. “What are you planning?”

“Me? Perhaps I’m not planning anything. Perhaps I’m being spontaneous.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“You’re so convinced that I don’t know you, and yet, you think you know me, agape? How fair is that?”

She didn’t think she knew him. But she wasn’t about to admit that now. “You’re a man, Kairos. Moreover, you’re a distinctly predictable one.”

“If I cared about your opinion at all I would be tempted to feel wounded. Alas, I don’t.”

He turned onto the private airfield used by the royal family and her heart sank. Her suspicions were very much confirmed. “What is it you think you’re doing?”

“Oh, I don’t think I’m doing anything. This is the situation, my darling bride, either you come with me now or we do this here in Petras.”

“Do what, exactly?”

“Come to an agreement on exactly what we will do now that we are to be parents. And by come to an agreement, I mean what I will decide. Do not forget that I am the king. Whatever laws might govern the rest of the people do not apply to me.”

Rage filled her, flooded her. “Since when? You’ve never been the most flexible of men, but you’ve never been a dictator.”

“I’ve never been a father before either. Neither have I ever been in the position of having my wife threaten to leave me.”

“I didn’t threaten to leave you, Kairos. I left you. There is a difference.”

“Regardless. Come with me, and we will have a discussion. If you refuse, then I will ensure that I get full custody of our child, and you will never see him. I give you my word on that. And unlike you, when I make a vow, I keep it.”

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