She had waited so long to come to the doctor because she was often late. Her period never started on time. For years upon years every time she had been late she’d held out hope. Hope that this time it wasn’t just her cycle being fickle. Hope that it might actually be a baby.
It was never a baby. Never.
But it had been a full week, and still nothing. And she couldn’t overlook the fact that she and Kairos had had unprotected sex.
Nothing unusual there, though. They always had. For five years they’d had unprotected sex, and there had been no baby. The universe was not that cruel. How could God ignore her prayers for five long years, and answer them at the worst possible moment?
It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be.
For the first time, when the doctor walked back into the room, her expression unreadable, Tabitha hoped for the no. She needed it. Needed to hear that the test was negative.
She knew now that she couldn’t live with Kairos. It was confirmed. She couldn’t make it work with him. He didn’t care for her. And she...she felt far too much for him. She could not live like that. She simply couldn’t.
“Queen Tabitha,” Dr. Anderson said, her words slow. “I had hoped that King Kairos might have accompanied you today.”
“If you read the paper at all, then you know that he and I are going through a divorce. I saw no reason to include him in this visit.” The doctor looked down and Tabitha’s stomach sank. A no was an easy answer to give. A no certainly didn’t require Kairos’s presence.
“Yes, I do know about the divorce,” the doctor said. “All members of royal staff had been briefed, of course.”
“Then you know why he isn’t here.”
“Forgive me for asking, my queen,” the doctor said. “But if you are in fact carrying a child, is it his?”
“If I am? You’ve seen the test results. Don’t play this game with me. Do not play games with me. I’ve had enough.”
“It’s just that...”
“This is my test. It has nothing to do with him. My entire life does not revolve around him.” Tabitha knew she was beginning to get a bit hysterical. “I left him. I left him so that he wasn’t at the center of everything I did. We don’t need to bring him into this.”
“The test is positive, my queen. I feel that under other circumstances congratulations would be in order,” Dr. Anderson said, her tone void of expression.
Before this, before the divorce proceedings, Dr. Anderson had always been friendly, warm. She was decidedly cool now.
A King Kairos loyalist, clearly. But Dr. Anderson didn’t have to live with him.
“Oh.” Tabitha felt light-headed. She felt like she was going to collapse. She was thankful for the table she was seated on. Had she been standing, she would have slipped from consciousness immediately.
“Based on the dates you have given me I would estimate that you are...”
“I know exactly how far along I am,” Tabitha said.
Flashes of that night burst into her mind’s eye. Kairos putting her up on the desk, thrusting into her hard and fast. Spilling himself inside of her as they both lost themselves to their pleasure. Yes, there was no doubt in her mind as to when she had conceived. January 1.
The beginning of the New Year. What was supposed to be the start of her new beginning.
And all she had was a chain shackling her to Kairos now that she had finally decided to walk out the door and take her freedom.
Of course this was happening now. When she’d released hold of her control. Her inhibitions. There were reasons she’d kept herself on a short leash for so many years. She’d always suspected she couldn’t be trusted. That she would break things if she was ever allowed to act without careful thought and consideration.
She’d been right to distrust herself.
She balled her hands into fists and pressed them against her eyes.
“Are you all right?” Dr. Anderson asked.
“Does it look like I’m all right?” Tabitha asked.
“It’s only that...is it the king’s baby?”
Rage fired through Tabitha then. “It is my baby. That’s about all I can process at the moment.”
Dr. Anderson hesitated. “It’s only that I want to be certain that I didn’t overstep.”
As those words left the doctor’s mouth, the door to the exam room burst open. Tabitha looked up, her heart slamming hard against her sternum. There was Kairos. Standing in the doorway, looking like a fallen angel, rage emanating from him.
“Leave us,” he said to the doctor.
“Of course, Your Highness.”
The doctor scurried out of the room, eagerly doing Kairos’s bidding. Tabitha could only sit there, dazed. She supposed that there was no such thing as doctor-patient confidentiality when the king was involved.
She turned to face her nearly ex-husband—who was looking at her as though she were the lowest and vilest of creatures. As if he had any right. As if he had the right to judge her. After what he had said. After what he had done.
“What’s the matter, Kairos?” she asked, schooling her expression into one of absolute calm and stillness. It was her specialty. After years of hiding her true feelings behind a mask for public consumption, she went about it with as much ease as breathing.
“It seems I’m about to be a father.” He moved nearer to her, his dark eyes blazing. Any blankness, any calm he had presented the night she had left him standing in his office was gone now. He was all emotion now. He was vibrating with it.
“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.