Married for the Sheikh's Duty(34)

She hadn’t made him wait long after that. The next night she’d made him her first, and she’d already been spinning fantasies about him being the only.

Then...well, then he’d turned out to be a frog. Except he was actually a prince. Which was just insane.

“Of course I remember,” she snapped.

“Then you remember that you were the one who laughed at me, and said, ‘You aren’t a pharmaceutical rep or something, are you?’ And I did not correct you. In fact, you will find, Bailey, that a great many of the things you think about me you created.”

“So now you’re gaslighting me? You’re making this whole thing about what I chose to believe? And somehow, you think that will make me want you back. Not as a girlfriend, or anything like that, just as your little Colorado-based... Tell me, Raphael, where do your other women live?”

“I never thought of you that way,” he said, his tone fierce. “Never.”

“Actions speak louder than words and all of that. You treated me like one. You’re still treating me like one. Get out of my apartment, Your Majesty,” she spat.

“I am not in the habit of taking orders, you will find. I was all right playing your game before, but now you know. I am a prince, cara mia. And what I want, I have.”

“Well,” she said, flinging her arms out wide, “you don’t get this.”

He reached out, cupping the back of her head and drawing her forward. “You don’t mean that.”

“Oh, but I do.” She pressed her hands flat against his chest—the better to shove him backward—only then he felt...so much like home. Like everything brilliant and perfect that she’d been missing while her life had been upended.

It was easy to forget he was the one who’d upended it.

He curved one arm around her waist, drawing her body flush against his. And then he frowned.

And she came back to reality, hard.

“Don’t touch me,” she hissed, pulling away and straightening her coat a little bit frantically.

She didn’t want him to see that she was pregnant because...

Because she didn’t know why. She’d resigned herself to her fate as a single mother because he was supposed to be married to someone else. Because the text she’d sent out to him after the fact saying she needed to talk to him had gone unreturned.

But he was here now. And he was a prince, damn it all.

Her own father had never been around, and she and her mother had suffered financially for it. Raphael could support their child. Could make sure they didn’t struggle.

She flicked the top button of her coat open, her heart pounding. “I’m not going to be your lover, Raphael,” she said, her voice trembling as she continued undoing buttons. She let her coat fall free and revealed the bump that was only just now visible beneath her tight-fitting sweater. “But whether you want to be or not, you are the father of my baby.”