Page 9 of His Hidden Royal Heirs

She looked so different—dark hair, green eyes. And yet the same—the slope of her nose, the point of her chin. That regal way she held herself that he’d noted and dismissed in his sexual haze.

Except in the here and now, she seemed softer. More...

Everything inside him dropped out as his gaze lowered. He heard nothing but a high buzzing in his ears. He saw nothing now but a very rounded belly underneath a fuzzy sweater that could not hide it.

Apregnantbelly.

“You had better come inside,” she said in that voice he remembered all too well. Like she was all too used to ordering people around. “It’s very cold.”

He didn’t feel the cold at all. Hadn’t, since he’d seen her in that window. And he had no desire to step inside what seemed a cozy enough little cabin out here on this tundra. He wanted to stay rooted to this spot. Or rewind time.Something. But he was a man of action.

He had to be.

He stepped inside, let her close the door behind him. It was certainly warmer in here, out of the bitter wind, but he wasn’t sure it was warm enough for her...condition. He stared at it now, too many things inside him jostling for space when he’d long ago learned that every feeling, thought, and action had an ordered space within.

She’d jumbled it all up almost seven months ago. Now, again.Seven months.“What is this?” he demanded, his voice too rough.

“Perhaps you should tell me why you’re here first,” she said, with a kind of businesslike demeanor that infuriated him beyond reason.

Fury is just fear with a target.

He wanted to growl at his internal monologue, but he didn’t.

“Were you...looking for me?” she asked carefully. There was a neutral look on her face, but he saw something he didn’t like in her eyes. A kind of hope.

For a moment, he was rendered perfectly frozen by it.Hope. When he had settledhopefirmly behind him long, long ago. When he’d realized would always be the only person looking out for his own good. When he’d realized he had to take a stand against the forces who wanted him to be nothing more than ananecdote trotted out when they were trying to hide their more sordid truths.

Uncle Gregio found with his pants around his ankles in a young woman’s room? Let’s run an in-depth story on the poor orphaned child of a princess and an actor, raised benevolently by the grieving family—ha!—left behind. Pictures. Of him. Of his parents’ crash. All of it dragged out again.

No, hope was useless, but he had learned it could be a weapon.

It felt like he’d been assaulted. A child. Achildgrowing inside this beautiful woman. Aroyalchild.

Still, he needed a weapon to fight all this. So he could lie. Get under all her defenses and get all the information he desired in seconds flat with said lie, no doubt. Let her believe in that hope until he’d gotten every answer he needed to know how to move forward, and then do whatever needed to be done to fix...this.

But he’d made promises to himself long ago about what kind of man he wanted to be. What kind of legacy he would leave his parents’ memories.

And since he was the only one he trusted to make that legacy, he gave Zia the truth.

“My name is Cristhian Sterling. I was hired by your father to track you down. When he gave me the details of your disappearance early this week, I saw a photograph and this is when I recognized you. He did not mention...” Cristhian waved a hand at her stomach.

“My father’s men have been looking for me for months. He hired youthis week?”

“I am a finder, Zia. I would have found you months ago if he’d come to me.”

Something about the wordfindermust have struck her, because she tilted her head and studied him. “Cristhian Sterling.I know that name.” Her eyebrows drew together as though she were thinking.

There was some strange relief in her having not known who he was either those months ago. That, if nothing else, the night they had shared had been honest. True.

But a tense, coiling dread at the idea sheknewanything about him now that she knew his identity wiped away any relief.

“You...you tracked down Lady Lina Sorenson,” she said after a while. “A friend of mine. Years ago. We were fourteen.”

He immediately remembered the name, because it had been one of the first cases he’d taken on as an official job, on his own, after helping a few of his mother’s relatives track down people.

“You saved her, actually,” Zia continued. “She was in quite a dire situation.”

Cristhian shrugged, remembering all too well how close the young teen had been to being left to the whims of a group of very dangerous gentleman. “This is my job.”

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