Page 38 of Pregnant at the Palace Altar

She’d always thought she was the only one who noticed anything.

She dressed for dinner, though she didn’t feel particularly hungry. Instead she felt achy and unsteady, but she chalked this up to the emotional response to Diamandis somehow knowing her.

She did not need to verify that he could not have told her what Christos’s favorite color was, or what Marias’s food preferences were.

She walked out to the balcony where dinner was arranged. None of the dishes contained olives, though she knew Diamandis favored them and they were quite prevalent here.

At the center of the table was a bouquet. They were flowers from the wedding. On the day of, she hadn’t thought much of them, but now she thought about how every year on her birthday he had presented her with a bouquet.

This was not unusual. Every member of staff received a token on their birthday. But that first birthday in the palace, he had presented her with a bouquet of hibiscus flowers.

“My favorite. How did you know?”In the moment, her words had been a joke—at least to her. She’d assumed he’d had some staff member call the florist and asked for whatever the florist thought or knew were her favorite.

But now she noticed that her bouquet contained hibiscus blooms. She looked up at him as he settled himself onto a chair.

“Who made the flower arrangements for the wedding?” she asked, failing to sound casual.

His eyebrow rose. “Beg pardon?”

“I was curious.” She tried to smile, even though her heart pounded like she’d run a marathon. “Which staff member picked out the flowers for our wedding?”

“Portia ordered them, I believe. She sorted out most of the decor.”

“But did shechoosethem?”

He frowned at her. “I suppose I made the final choice.”

“Why?”

He shrugged, clearly finding her line of questioning bizarre. “No one else would do it.”

“But why did you choose hibiscus?”

Diamandis’s frown deepened. “I’m not sure I gave it much thought.” He stared at the flowers, like... Like maybe he was realizing the same thingsshewas realizing. All the things they’d paid attention to about each other without realizing why.

“They’re my favorite,” she said, with none of the humor she’d once used. This was a serious kind of confession. Almost as if it meant something...else.

He blinked. Once. An arrested kind of look swiftly flashed across his face before it was gone. “I’m sure Portia knew that.”

But it wasn’t Portia. It wasn’t anyone else.

It was him. He knew about the olives, the flowers. He hadn’t fired Christos because he’d been glad someone had taken care of her—no matter how furious he must have been at the way she’d left. He’d even gone so far as to have the man walk her down the aisle.

Heknewher, and over the years he had cared for her in a hundred small ways, just as she had done the same for him. She’d seen everything she’d done as merely her job as his assistant—knowing how he took his coffee, making sure seating charts did not force him to sit next to those he found insufferable, buying him birthday presents she knew he would like.

He’d always displayed what she gave him somewhere in his office.

This was not simplyassistantwork, no matter how often she’d told herself it was.

“Are you going to sit?” Diamandis asked, eyeing her speculatively. “Did you spend too much time in the sun?”

“No, I’m fine,” she said. She sat down on a chair and tried to breathe normally, but she was realizing too much at once for her to handle.

It didn’t surprise her to discover that she might be in love with him. That thought had plagued her for years, but it was the reality of loving him, of being married to him, of actually thinking he might love her back.

He would never say the words. She knew this as certainly as she knew the color of his eyes. And still...she had to tell him. She had to tell him here, now, as all their years together seemed to knit together and create an overwhelmingly beautiful tableau of two people who cared about each other, even when they pretended they didn’t.

“Diamandis.”

---