Page 5 of Pregnant at the Palace Altar

She had often been forthright with him in her position as his assistant—but she had known her place. She had been adept at using the appropriate tone. Usually. This was not forthright and it was not measured.

This was defiance. He looked around the hovel she had tried to make into a home, and he could not understand this game. “There is not one shred of evidence that a man lives here. There is no record of a marriage, and as we stand here and discuss it, no dutiful husband returns to make you dinner.”

“He works nights,” she returned with a sniff, still standing there by the door as if she might make a break for it.

Surely she knew there was no escape now?

“Does he? Then show me, Katerina. Prove this union to me.”

She stood there, her arm curved around her belly as though she held the weight of it in her hands. She said nothing.

Which was answer enough. “Ah, you cannot.” He shook his head. “You will return to Kalyva with me at once. If you continue to insist I am not the father, I am afraid a test must be done.”

“Why?” she demanded, something in her slumping, and Diamandis did not like watching how that fierce light of defiance seemed to dim. He had always admired her backbone. Her strength. She had never been afraid of him, even when he had wanted her to be.

“What do you meanwhy? We were together and reckless. I am sure you remember.”

She lifted her chin and looked at some point on the grimy wall behind him. “Not really,” she said loftily.

But the telltale flush that spread across her cheeks told another story, and it aroused him, when he could not afford such a distraction.

Ever again.

There was a child. His child. And he had to fix this problem before it became unfixable. “You lie, Katerina.”

She slumped again, leaning back against the door. She looked tired and her eyes were growing wet when her gaze met his again.

“You do not want children, Diamandis. You have always been very clear on your stance on that. Why take me back to Kalyva? Why run tests? You do not want this, even if you are the father.”

“Is this why you ran?” He knew it must be, in part. Or she would have run the night after they were together, not a few weeks later.

She did not answer. She just looked at him with a hopeless kind of expression that had his insides twisting into hard knots. He supposed it was some kind of guilt, though he could not see how he had done anything wrong.

Shehad not told him.Shehad not given him an opportunity to have a say in the matter. She’d simply fled. She did not get to make him feel guilty now.

“I could have you arrested. I could have you taken, forcefully, back to Kalyva.”

“I’m sure you could.”

She sounded so tired. She had likely worked all day at the daycare center that sent her monthly paychecks. She had walked up three flights of stairs all to rest her head in this cramped, uncomfortable space, and she would still refuse to return to Kalyva? Where she would be taken care of, regardless of his wants when it came to children?

She madenosense.

Still, while hecouldhave her arrested under Kalyva law thanks to a treaty with the Greek government, he much preferred a peaceful capitulation. “I am a fair man, Katerina. It does not have to be all about me.”

She snorted. “Since when?”

He ignored this derision. “What is it you desire? Surely not this sad little apartment, and a job that underpays and no doubt underappreciates you? Surely not a life in Athens when you could come home and—”

“And what? Be the butt of every joke? Be fodder for gossip? Watch my child grow to be whispered about and called the king’sbastard.” The fight, the fire was back in her eyes and in her posture. She radiated an anger he had not anticipated. “No, Diamandis. I will not sentence any of us to such a fate. Maybe this life is not as nice and fine as the one you are used to, but it is respectable. It will allow my chi—”

“Ourchild.”

She stopped at that. As if her words had dried up and she had nothing more to say. He struggled to find his own.

Ourchild. His child. An heir.

“I have no wish to return to Kalyva to gossip and cruelty,” Katerina said on little more than a whisper. “You do not wish to have a wife or a child. Let us leave it at that, Diamandis. I will ask you for nothing if you stay away from me. Surely this is fair to both of us.”

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