Page 15 of Pregnant By the Wrong Prince

Rafael carried her over to the couch and deposited her on it—indeed, it was as comfortable as it looked. The staff member—an older woman with white-streaked black hair and dark eyes—had followed them to the door and Rafael spoke again in lilting Spanish.

The staff member nodded and disappeared. Rafael strode to one of the armchairs, picked up a soft throw of deep blue cashmere and carried it over to her, bending to methodically wrap her up in it.

She pulled away, his nearness suddenly too much for her.

His eyes narrowed. ‘You’re cold.’

‘Yes, but believe it or not I can wrap up warmly myself.’

He ignored that, his gaze dropping to her bridal gown, the skirts of which were now wet and clinging unpleasantly to her skin. ‘You will need clothing.’

‘I’m fine.’

‘You are not,’ he said in that irritatingly certain way of his. ‘You’re shivering.’

Annoyingly, he was right.

Lia grimaced and pulled the soft, warm wool tighter around her shoulders. ‘I’ll be all right in a few minutes.’

His hands fell away and slowly he rose to his full height. He didn’t say anything for a long moment, staring at her so intently she almost had to look away. ‘How are you feeling? I had reports that you weren’t well initially.’

‘Morning sickness. It passed.’ She felt suddenly very tired, the shock of the past hour starting to take its toll.

‘Why didn’t you come to me?’ His voice was flat, yet she could hear something vibrating beneath the words, a deeper emotion she couldn’t place.

She met his gaze, but his expression gave nothing away. Well, there was no reason not to tell him. She was too tired to argue right now anyway.

‘I told you. I was afraid. We shared one night together, Rafael. That’s all. And like you, I tried not to think about it, but then I started feeling sick and...’ She swallowed, remembering the fear that had gripped her, bone-deep and icy. ‘When the test was positive, I didn’t know what to do. I...couldn’t tell you. You were the Regent, the scandal if anyone found out would have been terrible, and I knew you would have hated that, so I... I thought keeping it secret was better.’

His silver eyes flickered, the lines of his starkly masculine face hardening. ‘And yet the secret came out anyway.’ There was no compromise in his voice. ‘You should have come to me. You could at least have told me that you were pregnant, given me the opportunity to help you.’

Her heart clenched tight in her chest. He was right, she should have. But she’d been too shocked, too upset and, fundamentally, too unsure of his reaction.

‘I know I should,’ she said. ‘But I didn’t. We never talked about anything personal those nights in Papa’s study and I didn’t know how you would feel about it.’

His expression was harsh. ‘I would have thought that at least you knew you could trust me.’

Her heart constricted even tighter. ‘How could I have known that? I didn’t know how you felt about anything.’ Unconsciously, her hand had dropped to her stomach in an instinctive, protective movement.

He noticed, the look on his face turning dark. ‘You think I’d hurt you? That I’d hurt our son or daughter?’

Pain curled through her. ‘No,’ she said quickly, because Rafael Navarro was many things, hard and cold and pitiless to the rest of the world, but she knew he would never harm a woman or a child, still less his own. ‘No, I know you wouldn’t.’

He was silent a minute. ‘Did you love him, Lia?’ he asked suddenly. ‘Did you want to be his wife so badly? Did you want to be his Queen?’

Everything in her ached. Because, no, she hadn’t been in love with Matias. And she hadn’t been in love with Matias because Rafael had appeared and thrown everything she knew about herself, everything she knew about her own feelings, into disarray.

She didn’t want to tell him that, but he might as well know the basic facts.

‘No,’ she said. ‘I didn’t love him. But, yes, I wanted to be his wife and I wanted to be Queen. That’s what I’ve spent my whole life training for and you know it. My parents worked so hard to give me that opportunity and I didn’t want to let them down.’

He said nothing, simply staring at her, and what he was thinking she had no idea.

You didn’t only let your parents down, but you lethimdown, too. He thought you’d come to him and you hadn’t...

Lia swallowed and then went on, forcing out the painful truth. ‘This baby is...my fault, Rafael. If I hadn’t got so angry, I wouldn’t have gone to find Matias. I wouldn’t have come to you and so all of this wouldn’t have happened. It’s not your responsibility to fix this.’

Still he said nothing.

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