The Queen's Baby Scandal Read online

  But now... Now that his profile had been raised, and now that he was royalty by marriage, his father had made the connection, and more than that, had seen his opportunity to use the connection. Money... The old man had that. This was something more, and obviously he wished to use it.

  “So, you’re not a commoner,” Astrid said when they were settled into his awaiting sports car and driving through the winding streets.

  “I might as well be. I’m a bastard. Dukes and bastards are a time-honored tradition, in every culture, I should think. I am not royalty. Not by any real standard. But there are any number of people clearly willing to use this connection, and I would have told you he would be the last person to do it, out of a sense of self-preservation. But I suppose this is the problem with aging enemies. They figure perhaps they only have a certain number of years to even concern themselves with answering for the consequences of their actions. Why not see what happens?”

  “All fine for him. But he’s playing with your life.”

  “Though, in this case there is nothing for me to be ashamed of. Though I would suppose that vicious commentary about my mother will follow. Thankfully, she’s dead. And none of this will be her problem.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I had no idea... When I chose you I miscalculated in more ways than I realized.”

  “I imagine you didn’t wish to choose the bastard son of a twisted old man who also moonlighted as a gigolo to be the father of your baby.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” she said quickly. “I only meant that I didn’t know how much the media would be able to discover. And how much they would use against you. They can be brutal and vicious, my mother instructed me on that early on.”

  “It doesn’t affect me much,” he said. “I have been brutal and vicious to myself in the public sphere for years. I found self-deprecation to be the best defense. But, it’s not exactly a good look for the queen of a nation I don’t suppose.”

  “Possibly not,” she said.

  “Did you always know who your father was?”

  “I can’t remember exactly when I truly became aware of who he was and what that meant. Yes. It was never a secret. Not for me. I think my mother wanted me to be aware. I think she wanted me to know that there was a certain amount of injustice at play. She wanted me to understand. Something that I appreciate greatly. Because it helped to shape me into what I was. It helped me understand where power came from. There are titles. And then there is money. And both bring their own kind of power. It’s certainly better to have them together. One can be earned, and one cannot be. I decided never to waste my time caring about something that I could never go out and earn for myself. And so, I simply decided to work at getting money. Because I would be damned if the last word on who I was came from a man who didn’t care whether or not I lived or died.”

  “I understand,” she said. “I mean, I really understand now why you won’t abandon your child. Why it means something to you. I’m sorry. It was so... I was only thinking of myself and my goals. Sometimes I get so focused on this idea of the greater good, and I remove the humanity from it. In this case, I decided that the greater good was something that I wanted. And I truly didn’t think of you.”

  “It doesn’t matter. What matters is that I won’t be like my father. Ever.”

  “I believe it.” She looked out the window, at the buildings that closed in around them, tall and brick, rebelling against the age that was beginning to crack at the foundation.

  The farther on they went, the more faded the glory of the buildings around them. It did not appear that they were headed in a direction where Mauro would live, or have a club.

  “Where are we going?”

  He was questioning that himself. Questioning it because he had decided that he would take her to see, so that she had the whole story, but it was one thing to think it, and quite another to do it. He imagined that Astrid had never been near a slum in her life.

  “It’s the whole story. So that there are no more surprises. I think that is important to see.”

  Astrid was quiet after that, and he maneuvered the sleek car around the corner, until they reached a sparse, wasteland of an area that contained a crumbling apartment building, and tarp set up as tents around the property.

  “If you’re lucky, you live in there,” he said.

  “Oh,” she said, her eyes wide as she took in the sprawl of humanity around them. “This is where you’re from?”

  “Yes.” He cleared his throat. “I imagine you have not had an exposure to such things.”

  “No, I have. I’ve been involved in quite a few outreaches worldwide where I went and distributed medical supplies and food. But... It’s not the same as living in it. It’s not the same as... Growing up this way.”

  “This is what I am. I have no shame in it, and I never have. The press is going to attempt to make it a shameful thing, and I’m sure that there are only more lurid details of my sexual exploits to come. There will likely be women who spent wild nights with me in my club eager to tell their story. For all I know, more of my... Clients from my early years. These things will continue to happen. As long as there is money or fame to be extorted, it will occur. It was one thing when I was selling sin. It’s quite another in this position.”

  “It’s all right,” she said. “I... I did this to escape from the hold that the men on my father’s council had over me. I did this to gain independence. What good is independence if I’m still held hostage by a desperate need to make myself look better than I actually am? My desperate need to be something I’m not. Whatever the true nature of our relationship is... We are having a baby.”

  There was one last place. His house, if it still stood.

  “Just a little bit farther,” he said.

  Their home was at the wall of a dead end, beneath an office building that he had never imagined housed businesses that were terribly legitimate. The place looked abandoned now, the windows boarded up, a notice posted on the side.

  “This is where we lived,” he said.

  “This is your house?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where does your father live?”

  He turned toward the vast mountain that rose up above the buildings around them.

  “There. He lives there. And he has a view of the whole city, down to the slums. While we had a view of those mansions up on the hill. And I knew that the man who fathered me was there. Somewhere. That he was there looking down on that very house, this very spot, and feeling nothing. It was motivating. And I...”

  He parked the car suddenly and got out, looking around to make sure there was no one loitering nearby.

  He had no doubt that he was well able to handle any attacker who might come out from behind the shadows. He had learned to defend himself against grown men when he was just a boy. Maturity, and years of hard labor in the gym, had only honed his physique further.

  Plus, he was ruthless. He had learned to fight, not in arenas, but in situations that could very well have turned into life or death. That meant when he was under threat, he gave no quarter.

  And should anyone step forward to threaten Astrid—to threaten his child—he would not hesitate to do what needed to be done. He took a breath of the air, stale down here, and warmer, boxed in by these tall, narrow buildings. And it reminded him of what it meant to be a boy. To be trapped here.

  To be helpless.

  He loosened his tie, feeling as if he was choking on the air around them.

  He felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to see Astrid standing there. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. I haven’t been back here, not since I left my mother’s home. After that I went off to find my way, and once I had acquired enough, I sent for her. I bought her a house. One up there on the hill. So that she could look down on everything here, the same as he had done all those years. So
much hard living. She did not last long after. I blame him. I always will.”

  “I don’t blame you.”

  “I met him once. My mother told me which house was his, and I climbed the hill. I walked right up to that house, and I stood there on the front porch, full of the bravado of a young boy, just barely more than thirteen. Convinced I was a man. I knocked on the door, and I asked to see him. I thought they were going to send me away, but he heard me. He heard me and he came to the door. I thought that if I explained to him what our situation was... What my mother was forced to do...” That moment, that sick humiliation and shame, that deep, unmet need all seemed close to the surface now, rolling through his stomach like an angry ball of fire.

  “He knew. And what’s more, he made it very clear to me that my mother had not turned to prostitution as a desperate single mother. But rather, that was how she had found him.”

  “How vile,” Astrid said. “How could he speak to you like that?”

  “Oh, he took great joy in it. In making sure that I knew that I was never going to be seen the way that he saw my half brothers and sisters. That my mother’s blood made me unsuitable. But you know... It’s his. It’s his blood that I regret the most, not the blood of the woman who did what she had to, to allow us both to survive. Who cared for me, even when it was hard. No, I don’t feel shame over carrying her blood. But when I think too deeply of his, I can feel my skin crawl. After that, I decided I would never covet what I could not have, not again. I took great pains to make sure that I could have whatever it was I pleased. I started making plans. I thought about all the places people went when they had money, and I figured that what I would want was a way to take the money of those people. Which is what I’ve done. Hotels. Clubs. Resorts and destination vacation spots. I appeal to those who have money to invest in fantasy. And with that I’ve built something real. With that, I will make a life for my child far and away what my mother was able to do for me, in spite of how hard she tried.”

  “Your father is a disgusting, opportunistic animal. We will give him no satisfaction with what he’s trying to do.”

  “Oh, the press will give him plenty, I have no concerns about that.”

  “How unfair,” she said. “How unfair that they all want to give you attention now.”

  “Let them,” he said. “It makes no difference to me. It only proves that suddenly I have something that they want. Now my father can use me. How novel. All those years I could have used him. Well, fortunes of change.”

  He stepped away from the old house. From the tightness in his chest.

  “I shall take you to my offices.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Yes,” he said decisively. “I have spent a great deal of time in your domain, my Queen. It’s time you came to mine.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  MAURO’S OFFICES WERE impressive indeed. The contrast of the brilliant, steel-and-glass-framed building when juxtaposed against the slums they had just visited struck Astrid particularly hard as he ushered her into his office, paneless glass windows making up the entirety of the walls, overlooking Rome. Overlooking even the houses on the hills.

  And she understood it. What it meant. Why it mattered. She understood what had shaped him.

  And she felt...

  It was a strange thing, to have this man let her in that way. She couldn’t say that she knew very many people in such a deep way that she did him.

  She knew no one in such an intimate fashion.

  But his showing her the slums... The house. Talking about his father.

  It was all new. This feeling for another person. This feeling like she knew him. Like she could feel the things he felt.

  He pressed his hand to her lower back as he led her deeper into his office, and somehow as he did that, she felt as if he had wrapped his hand around her heart and squeezed it tight.

  “These are the corporate offices. As you can see, I have a few.”

  “Yes. You do.” It wasn’t just a stark contrast to the slums, but to the palace and Bjornland, which was gilded and old-fashioned in every way. “The clutter of the palace must drive you crazy,” she observed.

  “I was thinking the same about you,” he said. “You enjoy that restaurant we went to the night we got engaged. And it’s quite spare. You also seem particularly fond of the ring I bought you.”

  She squeezed her hand into a fist, feeling embarrassed that he had seen through her so easily. “It is very pretty. Yes, I suppose the rooms in the palace are not necessarily to my taste.”

  “You should have them redone.”

  “That’s simple?”

  “Why not?”

  “Because of tradition, and things. It’s hardly... It’s hardly appropriate to go changing everything right when you’re crowned.”

  “Is it not?” he asked.

  “I wouldn’t think.”

  “You’ve been queen for two years.”

  “Yes,” she agreed. “I have been.”

  “If you’re not afraid to take control of your own destiny, you should be able to take control of your bedroom decor.”

  “Fair enough,” she replied. “Perhaps I will do a bit of a redesign when we get back.” She frowned. “If we... Are you coming back with me?”

  It was such a vulnerable statement. So very silly. She didn’t know why she was exposing herself to potential rejection like that. Especially considering he wasn’t supposed to matter. But then, he wasn’t supposed to have revealed such intimate and crushing things about himself either. He wasn’t supposed to be human. That was the crux of the problem. The longer she was around this beautiful, god of a man, the more she saw his humanity. And that was dangerous in a particular way nothing else had ever been.

  “I will be back intermittently,” he said.

  “I see.”

  “Though, I should make one thing very clear,” he said.

  “What is that?”

  “That the idea that you might spend time in other men’s beds is now off the table.”

  “Is it?” She tried to sound surprised, or maybe even mildly annoyed about his heavy-handed proclamation, but instead, she was certain that some of her hopefulness had broken through.

  “After what happened on our wedding night... I should think that was quite obvious.”

  “What happened?”

  “The explosion between us.”

  “It is as it ever was,” she said, trying to sound casual. “Is it different than the first time? Is it different than it normally is?”

  Of course, that last question revealed just how much she didn’t know.

  “It is never like that. Not with anyone else. And if you cannot feel how it was different than our first time...”

  “I do,” she said.

  “Then surely you must know that this is a fact. There will be no one else.”

  “What about for you?”

  “I don’t want anyone else.”

  “And if you did?”

  “I suspect we would have a discussion about it before anything occurred. I am nothing if not honest.”

  “So, should I wish to sleep with another man, we will have a discussion?”

  “There will be no discussion. I would separate the man’s head from his body.”

  “Well, that doesn’t seem equitable.”

  “I didn’t say that it was.”

  “I’m a queen,” she said. “The rightful queen of Bjornland. You marrying me does not make you a king.”

  “But we are in my kingdom now,” he said, a smile spreading slowly across his chiseled face. “And that is one reason I took you to see the slums that I grew up in. So you would understand. You think that you know because you have read articles. You think that you know because you have spent time in my bed. But unless you have seen where I was. You will not understand what it m
eans that I am here.”

  So, he hadn’t been showing her out of any desire to connect with her emotionally. She didn’t know why, but that made her feel... She didn’t like it. She wanted something more from him, and she hated that she did. She wanted something more from him, and the very idea of it made her feel uncomfortable. And also needy and vulnerable in ways that she didn’t want to confront.

  “I’m very impressed,” she returned.

  “I don’t require that you be impressed. But you should understand. I am a man who sees no obstacle that he cannot overcome. If you think that you might win with me, cara, you are sadly mistaken.”

  The feelings that rolled through her body were tumultuous. She had no idea how to parse them all. On the one hand, his stubbornness, the fact that he was not intimidated at all by who she was, made her feel like she was adrift. She was accustomed to subtle challenges, not open ones. It also made her feel alive. Alive and particularly invigorated. That she could step into this place that was his, only his, as she had done that first night, and to be consumed by his world. By him. Even if only for a moment.

  She wished that she could spend more time with him here. And maybe she would. There was no reason she couldn’t split her time between Bjornland and Italy. Her ability to govern was not impacted by whether or not she was directly in residence in the palace.

  But he hadn’t said that he wanted her to. Instead, he had simply said that he would be staying here.

  “There is a gala tonight,” he said suddenly.

  “Oh?”

  “Not the sort of thing I usually bother myself with. In fact, I usually take great joy in turning down the invitations.”

  “All right.”

  “But we are in a different position now, are we not?”

  “You are,” she said. “I attend galas the world over, as a representative of my country.”

  “And I tend to sink deeper into debauchery at my clubs.”