I’m not proud of what I’m doing, but I have little choice. If Gracie walks out of this building, there’s a very high possibility I’ll never see her again.
Her or my baby.
Holy fucking sheep shit.
My baby.
One minute, I’m grasping at straws for a way to break my betrothal, and the next it waltzes into my apartment.
Provided my father doesn’t kill me, of course. Might be wise to speak with the Thrusters’ lawyer tomorrow for a referral on having a will updated.
I override the elevator with an app on my phone and I stare at the bronze doors while I breathe and tell myself I’m doing the right thing.
My brain is on overload. Babies. Marriage. Sex. The crown. Inheritance. Heritage. Mistresses and bastards.
The king will insist on a paternity test. I should insist upon a paternity test as well, but I believe her. I eyeball the tiny gray dot on the slippery photo paper she brought, and then tuck it into my back pocket.
A baby.
Panic and pride duke it out in my stomach while duty and obligation override the threads of joy attempting to take root in my chest.
I’ve been trained from infancy to be wary of people demanding things of me. Thieves. Fortune seekers. Those who wish to take my family’s power. Those who wish to claim a crown or to be related to one.
Unless, of course, my grandfather has already promised said people my hand in marriage.
Stölland is a peaceful country—our military is small and purely ceremonial, which I’ve always found ironic considering our Viking heritage. It’s also beautiful and prosperous and rich in history and culture.
Wariness is a way of life.
But I know in the very pit of my soul that Gracie Diamonte is telling me the truth.
Perhaps I’m a fool.
Or perhaps I’m simply fucked.
My father will have my head, and then he’ll offer Gracie a settlement.
There’s never been a question that I would have no choice in my bride. My grandfather promised me to Elin Liefsson, daughter of the Earl of Austling, before I could lace my own skates and nearly before she’d even been born. Upon our marriage on my thirtieth birthday, I’m to receive a dukedom in the north of the country, soothing the ruffled wool of those who believe themselves neglected by the kingdom, and shall continue cultivating mead exports.
After I was caught kissing the prime minister’s daughter—yes, I knew exactly who she was, and I expect she knew who I was as well—at a party in the capital last spring, my father and I struck a deal.
I’d leave the country, let him smooth over my royal indiscretion, and when I return to Stölland, it’s time to marry and move to my new home.
Nowhere in that plan is space for me to indulge in being a father to a child born out of wedlock.
My gut clenches.
Truly, I’m possibly a dead man walking. I refuse to sire a bastard, and my father will tolerate a great many things—a son who would rather play hockey than take the requisite how to be a royal gentleman classes, who hid raw eel behind the tapestries in the royal dining room as makeshift stink bombs to protest all the bloody formal dinners, and who cheats at cards every time he plays the Duke of Kjörsten, the annoying bloke—but he will refuse to allow me out of my betrothal.
I know, because I’ve asked many a time, for many a reason, and the answer is always the same.
The deal is done, and my hands are tied.
The elevators doors slide open, and there Gracie is, tapping a toe and glaring at me.
I smile—I’m bloody good at fucking smiling—and pretend I’m happy to see her. Which I am.
Not that I should be, but she’s such a lovely specimen, with spirit and integrity and general pluck. It would be impossible to not be happy to see her.
Under any circumstances.
“Ah. You came back,” I say pleasantly.
“Are you trapping me here?”
Lightning flashes in her dark eyes and, swear on my honor as a gentleman—or perhaps on my honor as the descendant of Vikings—the electric spark shoots through her curly hair and out the tips to illuminate everything in the marble-and-slate entryway.
By the gods, she’s a beautiful woman.
I ignore her question, because I don’t happen to much like the answer myself. “Since you’ve returned, shall we step inside and discuss this over tea?”
“Since you won’t let me leave, shall I call my sister and see what she’d like your roommate to do to you?”
“Miss Diamonte. Surely you can threaten me bodily harm yourself rather than threatening to turn your homicidal monkey minions on me.”
Her nose twitches as though she’s attempting to tie it in a knot, and I wonder if I’ve struck a nerve. Though whether it’s because I insulted her loved ones or because I suggested she doesn’t have the bollocks to stand up to me herself is anyone’s guess.
And now I’m picturing her flinging herself at me in a rage, and damned if I’m not going hard.
“Do you know why my friends and family love me, your irritatingness?”
“I can’t imagine.” I can bloody well imagine about a thousand things, even when I’m flummoxed and agitated and barely holding the flood of emotions and questions in check.
I’m to be a father.
Holy bloody fucking sheep.
“They love me because everyone needs a friend who doesn’t know how or where to bury a body.”
She is without a doubt the most adorable creature ever put on this earth.
Which shouldn’t be so damned sexy, yet I’m achingly close to being hard as steel with each passing second.
“Pray tell, Miss Diamonte, when the press gets wind of your condition and my involvement in it, will your friends and family be offering to bury each and every reporter individually, or shall there be a mass execution?”
Her eyes flare, her lips part, and the rose in her cheeks fades from pink to stark white. “They won’t find out,” she says.
Though it’s more of a wobbled whisper.
And I’m not entirely certain if her concern is for herself and the baby, or for the reporters that would suffer at the hands of her friends and family.
“I’m afraid they would if you attempted to keep my child from me.” Yes, yes, I’m a first-class bastard. “But surely we can come to an amenable agreement before my father and the press need worry themselves over our situation. And my brothers, of course. We’re no Zeus Berger, but the three of us together are quite terrifying.”
“You’re being a dickhead.”
She’s quite right. “You’re carrying my child.”
“I’m carrying my child. You donated a single fucking cell. I—” She stops, and a loud, squeaky hiccup makes her chest puff as it escapes from between her lips and bounces around the antechamber. Her eyes bulge. She stomps out of the elevator. The doors swiftly shut behind her. The top of her head barely reaches my shoulders, but she shoves a finger into my chest as though she were a bloody giant. “I came here to tell you because it’s the right fucking thing to do, and now you’re making this all complicated and outlandish and all about you.”
And therein is the rub.
Any other woman—such as the woman to whom I’ve been promised—would’ve been using this situation to get money or a title or fifteen minutes of fame.
But not Gracie.
She came to tell me she’s pregnant with my heir and I can sod off.
Whether she likes it or not—whether anyone likes it or not—she’s not getting rid of me that easily.
This fascinating creature confessed to me beneath a starry sky two months ago that she’d once wanted to be a mermaid so she could live underwater with all the colorful fish she’d seen pictures of in a magazine, that her idea of paradise was an all-you-can-eat calorie-free bacon buffet, and that she found me ruggedly handsome and charming but she didn’t date hockey players because she had enough testosterone in her life after growing up with her sister.
And now our lives are undeniably intertwined.
What I wouldn’t give to be nothing more than a man who played hockey for a living.
“I don’t wish to make anything more difficult for you,” I tell her honestly as my brain begins to focus. “Fatherhood is…unexpected to say the least. However, I do wish to be a part of my child’s life, and by extension, yours as well.”
She studies me, those dark eyes piercing and questioning and quite exquisitely, unexpectedly arousing. “I’m not marrying you,” she informs me.
Thirty minutes ago, marriage was an inconvenience to be endured for the rest of my life.
Now, the idea of freeing myself from my commitments to become better acquainted with this spitfire is not nearly as unappealing as it should be.
“Ah, yes,” I say to Gracie. “Marrying me would be a fate worse than death, undoubtedly.”
Her cheeks puff out as another hiccup echoes in her chest, and she winces as though she’s bitten into mutton gone bad.
“A seltzer water, perhaps?” I offer.
Gone is the carefree woman who laughed in my arms a month ago, and in her place is a younger version of her sister. Stubborn, capable, in charge, and suspicious. “It’ll pass,” she says flatly.
“It would be my honor to host you this evening,” I say. “You flew? Or drove?”
“Joey doesn’t know.” Not the question I asked, but as her sister owns an airplane—and quite the airplane, at that—I can possibly see where the connection came from. She folds her arms and gives me one of those female looks that most likely means she knows I’m fishing for information and isn’t amused. For all that I enjoy the company of most women, I’m rather inept at understanding them.
“I assume you mean to reassure me that my building won’t come under attack this evening then?” I guess.
“And I’m not going to her to ask her to fly me to some obscure country to hide from you.”
She told me once she hated school and has come to terms with not being bright. The lady underestimates where her intelligence lies. “Also quite reassuring.”
“I’m getting back in that elevator. And I’m going to leave. And you’re going to let me.”
“Gracie—”
“No one knows, okay? No one but you and me. So the weirdos who like to kidnap princes’ babies aren’t going to steal me in the middle of the night and hold me hostage until they can drink royal baby blood.”
My smile’s slipping, because the idea of Gracie being in harm’s way because of me is rather unpleasant.
To put it mildly.
And heaven only knows what would happen if Elin were to find out about her situation.
I can face down a 350-pound brute on the ice, but my betrothed is rather terrifying.
“Would it be so great a burden to stay here tonight?”
She holds my gaze for a moment before her eyes drift lower. My lips ignite under her scrutiny. Goosebumps erupt across my bare chest as her eyes travel lower and linger on my exposed skin. And when her attention lands squarely below my belt, my royal member all but adds a salute to his already straining posture.
“Staying here is a bad idea,” she whispers.
“It suddenly seems the best of ideas to me.”
“Manning…” She blows out a sigh and wraps a curl around her finger. “Let’s not make this more complicated than it already is, okay?”
“I like you. You like me. We’re having a baby. What’s complicated about that?” Other than my betrothal, my title, the duties I’m to assume in a matter of months, and quite possibly every other aspect of this situation.
“Do you love me?” she asks.
Women. Dear god, women. “I don’t not love you.”
“Wrong answer. You’re a prince. I’m a baker who barely graduated high school. I have a home in Alabama. You’re traveling all over North America playing hockey until you fly away to your own country next summer. What’s not complicated about this?”
“Gracie—”
She puts a finger to my lips. “I’m leaving,” she repeats. “We can talk about this later.”
The hell with later. I settle my hands on her waist, because I can’t not touch her. “If you won’t stay, I’ll come with you.” It’s a terrible idea, but it leaps from my mouth all the same.
“No. I don’t need help. I just wanted you to know. Now you know, so I’m going.”
She pushes my chest and electric sparks flash over my skin at her touch. Her eyes widen as though she feels it too, and she pulls her hand back quickly to shove it in her pocket.
“May I propose an opportunity to get to know you then?” I say.
I’m nothing if not determined when it comes to my own downfall.
She suckles her lower lip and studies me with those captivating dark eyes. I would very much like the opportunity to get to know her better. Her mouth. Her exquisite curves. What makes her moan with pleasure. How she might taste on my tongue. What other fanciful notions she hides in her fascinating brain.
“I live in Alabama. You live here in Virginia. How would that even work?”
It’s not a no. “There’s always a way.”
“And then you go back to your country, and I stay here.”
“Or perhaps we find another compromise.”
Her lips flatten. “Until you have to go back to your country and I stay here,” she repeats.
“Surely we can meet on common ground.”
“For the sake of the baby. Because you think we’re your duty.”
“I have plenty of duty in my life, Miss Diamonte. You wouldn’t be a duty. You would be a pleasure.”
She inhales sharply, and I wonder if anyone has ever told her before that she’s a pleasure. That she’s a joy. That she’s captivating and fascinating and well worth the effort of the chase.
Even for a man who has no right to give chase.
“Do you believe in fate, my lovely lady?” I murmur.
“I can’t afford to believe in fate.”
“But what if you could?”
Her lips are mere inches from mine, her eyes a dark chocolate that I could drown in, her lips lush and parted. “There’s a price to everything.”
“Not everything.”
“Yes, everything.”
She’s right, of course. And I don’t care in the slightest. Because she’s so close, I can sniff her vanilla and peaches scent. I can see a small scar under her right eye. And I can feel the warmth of her body, tempting mine and taking me back to that night in the locker room. Her silky skin. Her tight, wet channel. Her carefree enthusiasm.
“And what if the price is worth it?” I’m stroking my fingers up her ribs. I can’t help myself. She draws me into her orbit by merely existing. I’ve been enchanted from the first moment I laid eyes on her. Her body beckons me. Her eyes bewitch me. Duty and responsibility fade away, and all that’s left is simple fascination for this woman unexpectedly carrying my child.
Fatherhood is nothing I’ve ever wished for. Yet the idea of a wee one tromping around the meadows with her dark eyes, hockey stick in hand, torturing the sheep and running and laughing—
It all takes my breath away and leaves the most natural rightness settling into my soul.
“I don’t belong in your world,” she whispers.
She has no idea how very correct she is.
She’s too bright. Too cheerful. Too naïve. “You’ve not even seen my world.”
She’s leaning into me as though she can no further resist me than I can resist her. This is what’s been missing from my life.
A woman who wants me because I’m a man. Not because the blood coursing through my veins is that of kings and Vikings. Nor because of my skills with a hockey stick and a puck. Not because of my name, my title, my money. But simply because something in her soul recognizes something in mine.
“Allow me to show you my world,” I whisper against her lips. “Let me know you.”
Her fingers glide to my neck and up into my hair, her eyelids grow heavy, and that worrisome line between her brows smooths. “You are so hard to resist.”
Her mouth touches mine, fire erupts in my veins, and I claim her. This is not why I came to America. There’s no part of royal duty in wanting this woman. She’s not incorrect.
But her body still feels so damn right molded against my chest and hips while her tongue tangles with mine. Even those spasms in her belly when she hiccups into the kiss are perfect.
Perfectly real. Not polished, not bred, not calculated.
Her fingernails rake down my neck and shoulders and around to my back. My cock surges, aching to get closer to her, and I angle my hands down her hips to squeeze her ass and hold her tighter while those delicious little noises in her throat urge me closer and harder and deeper into her spell.
Her nimble fingers continue their journey. Her touch against my bare skin is akin to the crackle of impending lightning, the currents between us growing thicker and heavier with invisible energy that will soon combust and split the very earth.
I’m eagerly finding the hem of her soft T-shirt when I dimly register the ding of my elevator coupled with the snick of the door to my penthouse opening.
“And not a moment too soon, I see,” a nasally feminine voice says in a clipped Stöllandic accent.
Gracie wrenches free before I can react. Viktor has appeared behind us, and standing before us is—
Fuck.
Fuck me with a ram’s horn.
“Do try to be more discreet with your dalliances, darling,” Elin Liefsson says. She’s in thick black tights, shiny shoes, a plaid skirt, and a wool coat undoubtedly covering a silk blouse and most likely a pendant to match her ruby earrings sparkling amidst her thick dark hair. She plucks her gloves off one finger at a time. “And perhaps have some taste next time.”
She looks down her long nose at Gracie while her emotional support monkey—yes, emotional support monkey—Loki chirps his disapproval as well. The bloody animal sits on Elin’s shoulder, eyes dark, its face surrounded by tufts of white fur, distracting from the six pieces of matching luggage still sitting in my elevator.
I thought Colden was joking about the emotional support monkey, but it appears my brother was telling the truth.
“Aw, Manning, did your cousin come to visit?” Gracie says, the drawl in her voice thickening in time with the blush overtaking her cheeks.
“Dear girl, don’t waste your breath. I will crush you.”
“Elin,” I interject, angling between the women and holding Gracie at arm’s length, “this is a surprise.”
“My father was right. You need to be kept on a shorter leash.” She pulls a biscuit from her pocket and hands it to Loki, then nods to Viktor. “Hugo. My bags. I assume this dreadful little flat has something that will do for a dressing room? Darling, get rid of your whore. You can find another tomorrow if you must, but I’m too tired to deal with this right now. And you’ll have to be more discreet.”
“Excuse you?” Gracie says as I growl, “Watch yourself,” to the woman my grandfather shackled me with. God curse his bloody soul.
Elin clucks her tongue and glares at Viktor. “Hugo. My bags.”
Viktor doesn’t blink at her insistence on calling him the wrong name. But when he moves toward the elevator, I block him with my free hand. “Unnecessary.”
“Your father would disagree, Your Highness.”
Fuck.
Gracie pinches my forearm hard enough that I have to stifle a yelp. And when I glance at her, I suddenly understand the meaning of the phrase in the doghouse, and most definitely wish I had one to tuck tail and hide in. “Your world, I assume?” she says through clenched teeth.
“I’m the prince’s fiancée,” Elin declares. “We’re to be married in June.”
Gracie goes stiff as a glacier and twice as white.
June.
When my child is due to arrive in this world.
“This isn’t what it appears,” I say to her, because I cannot possibly explain my betrothal without a map, a history book, a bottle of mead, and clenching my jaw tight enough to crack half my molars.
“It’s exactly as it appears,” Elin counters. “We’re to be wed, therefore you are my fiancé.” She flicks a ring-studded hand at Gracie. Among those rings is a ruby my grandfather gave to her father from the royal collection upon their agreement over our intended marriage, and the sight of it tonight makes my stomach turn.
“Run along now,” Elin says to Gracie. “Surely you can find another unsuspecting benefactor who can afford to keep you in rags and tatters.”
“That is enough, Elin.”
“Clearly not, as it is still here.”
“It would rather be poor than an asshole any day of the week,” Gracie chirps. “Viktor, while these two sort out their problems, would you please be a dear and let me down the elevator?”
“Gracie—” I start, but she pinches me again—and yes, I probably deserve that—and wrenches out of my grasp.
Viktor, because he answers to a power greater than me—possibly my father, possibly God—steps around me, gallantly guides Gracie to the elevator, and hits the secret code on the elevator panel to override my app and allow it down. When I say my father has me on a tight leash, I’m not joking.
Gracie isn’t looking at me when the elevator doors close.
“She took my luggage,” Elin gasps. “That bitch took my luggage. If she harms my luggage—”
“Then perhaps you deserve it.”
Royal breeding dictates I offer an invitation to the woman.
I’m rather tired of royal breeding.
I let myself into my penthouse without holding the door for her. Unfortunately, she’s quite adept at slipping in where she’s not wanted. “Your butler needs to be fired,” she says as she follows me into my home.
“I don’t employ a butler. Nor a chef, nor a daily housekeeper, nor a secretary.” The Thrusters maintain my schedule of public appearances, which works just fine for me.
“We’ll fix that immediately.”
Ares is in the long galley kitchen, tipping a bakery bag back into his mouth. He eyes me. Then Elin. And finally the monkey, chewing all the while.
“Dear god in heaven, what is that?” Elin screeches as she spots him.
“He’s called a friend,” I say as I search through my phone, hoping to avoid calling Ares’s brother if I can help it. Yet I find I don’t have any other contacts who might know Gracie. Who can check on her. Watch after her until I can escape my prison and explain the situation to her. “I dare say you may be unfamiliar with the concept of friends?”
“Don’t be ugly, Man,” she says.
Man.
God above, I despise this woman. No one expects faithfulness of you, my father said the last time we discussed Elin. But we do expect you to be discreet. Austling has been a great ally to the throne, and he’s determined to see his daughter a princess.
You’re the bloody king, I’d shot back. Just make her a bloody princess and leave me out of it.
Sylvie—my stepmother—had stepped into the room when she heard the shouting, my father had turned to a disgusting pile of smitten goo, and my problem was forgotten.
Or more likely, ignored.
Not that he was wrong. One can’t simply hand out princess titles, even if one is the king.
“It’s time for you to go home,” Elin tells Ares.
“Am home,” he says around a mouthful of cookies.
“Not anymore,” she declares.
Ares eyeballs her again as though he’s deciding if he’d rather toss her out by the scruff of her neck, the tie of her coat, or perhaps by gathering up a handful of her hair and swinging her about in a circle until he could launch her off the roof.
I believe I’d vote for the hair off the roof option.
He leans his palms on the wide island separating the kitchen from the living room, spreading his hands so that even as he bends down from his six-foot-nine height, he somehow appears even larger than he is. “Poor monkey.”
Elin reaches for Loki, but the monkey scampers off her shoulder, dashes across the rug, leaps onto a stool on the other side of the island, then scurries across the countertop to climb Ares’s shoulder and sit with his back to all of us.
Ares straightens and leaves the kitchen, heading to his bedroom.
“Give me back my monkey,” Elin gasps.
Ares pauses long enough to give me another look. You’re fucked. He continues down the short hall. I wait for the door to shut, but it doesn’t.
So the monkey can leave of its own free will, I assume.
“Make him give me back my monkey,” Elin orders. “And go fetch my luggage.”
“Elin,” I say calmly—and still with a smile, because I’ll be fucking damned before I let this woman think she’s getting to me, “you’ve clearly had a long day of traveling. I’ll have Viktor pull out the bed beneath the couch for you when he returns, and in the morning, my father’s secretary will be happy to help you in making arrangements for a hotel while you’re visiting Copper Valley. Plenty of wineries in the Blue Ridge foothills. The wine is hardly Stöllandic mead, but it’s passable. And the environmental museum downtown is lovely. If you’ll excuse me, I have commitments I must attend.”
I don’t wait for her to excuse me, and instead stroll to the spiral staircase in the corner leading up to the master suite of rooms. I’ve no idea how the furniture was moved into the suite on the second floor of the apartment, but tonight, I rather don’t care.
I have a phone call to make.
And a door to lock.
And probably several hours’ worth of stress relief to be had in the secret room off my office.
“We are not done,” Elin screeches.
She’s unfortunately correct.
But for tonight, I have a more pressing matter to attend to.
Several, in fact.
Starting with finding Gracie and ending with breaking the news to my father that there’s no way in bloody hell I’ll be marrying Elin.
Not when another woman is carrying my child.
