The Queen's Baby Scandal Read online

  He was like a Viking. His eyes the color of ice, his hair blond. His beard a darker gold that gave him a roguish appearance the press waxed poetic about.

  The Viking Prince.

  He was also her very best friend in the entire world, in spite of the fact that he was a massive pain. Latika saw him only as a pain, that much was clear. The feeling, it often seemed, was mutual.

  “I have not underestimated anything. And I’m prepared for a fight. But there is a reason that I could let no one know before I made my announcement public. I also made sure that every media outlet was aware of the law in Bjornland. The one that protects the queen should she need to claim an heir as solely hers. Well, Latika ensured that made its way out to everyone.”

  “Did you?” Gunnar asked. “Just how involved with all of this were you?”

  “Latika does what I ask her to,” Astrid said.

  Latika held up a hand and arched her dark brow. “It’s all right. I don’t need you to protect me from him. I have done my duty by my queen. And by this country. I may not be a citizen by birth, but I swear my allegiance, and you well know it.”

  “For now. Until you go back to America. And then, all of these problems will be ours and ours alone.”

  “Problems that I willingly took on,” she said, her tone firm. “I am a queen, I am not a child.”

  “Your Majesty.” One of her guards rushed into the room, his expression harried. “It seems that we have an uninvited guest at the palace, and while we had thought to shoot him on sight, he is quite famous.”

  Astrid blinked. “I’m not sure I understand.”

  “A man has walked into the palace without permission,” the guard clarified.

  “Then why didn’t you shoot him?” Gunnar asked.

  “The fame,” the other man said. “We would be liable to create an international incident.”

  “Who is it?” Astrid asked.

  “Mauro Bianchi.”

  Astrid’s stomach clenched, the blood in her veins turning to ice. There was no way. No possible way that he could know. She just didn’t give him that much credit. That he would recognize her. That he would care.

  “What does he want?”

  “He wishes to see you.”

  “Now I really don’t like this,” Gunnar said. “Please tell me that this man was not involved in the creation of your child.”

  “Define involved,” Astrid said.

  “You know exactly what I mean. Don’t play coy, particularly if you don’t want to be treated like a child.”

  “The child is mine,” Astrid repeated. “And mine alone.”

  “Please speak to him?”

  “Yes,” Astrid said. “I will speak to him.”

  “And I shall accompany you,” Gunnar said.

  “No,” Astrid said. “I will speak to him alone.”

  “You’re not my queen,” Gunnar pointed out.

  “I was unaware that you had become an expat of our beloved country, my dear brother.”

  “You are my sister,” he said. “And that takes precedence over any title.”

  “Then as my brother I ask you to respect my wishes. The fact that men would not respect my wishes is the reason this is happening.”

  “I understand,” he said. “I understand full well why you feel you had to do this, Astrid. But you’re not alone. You have my support, and you will have my protection.”

  “I don’t need it,” Astrid said. “I possess the power to command that he be shot on sight. Frankly, I could ask the same of you.”

  “Were you... Issuing an order?” her guard asked.

  “Not yet.” Astrid flicked a glance between her brother and Latika. “Will you please keep an eye on him?”

  “I don’t get paid to babysit,” Latika pointed out.

  “And I receive no compensation for spending time in the company of a snarling American,” Gunnar bit out. “But here we are.”

  Astrid left, muttering about how she wouldn’t have to have him shot on sight, as he and Latika were just as likely to kill each other during her absence.

  She made her way out into the antechamber of the Royal Palace, her heels clicking on the marble floor. When she saw him, her stomach dropped. His impact had not been diminished by their time apart. Not in the least. In fact, if anything, her response to him was even deeper. More visceral. Possibly because she knew exactly what he could make her feel now.

  “May I help you?” she asked.

  He stopped and reached into his jacket, and all of the guards in the room put their hands on their weapons.

  “Stand down,” Astrid said. “He isn’t going to shoot me.”

  “Not at all,” he responded. Instead, when he pulled his hand out, he was holding a shoe. Her shoe.

  “I had thought that you might possess its partner.”

  “I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about.”

  “Is that so? Alice.”

  She stiffened, straightening her shoulders. “I am Queen Astrid von Bjornland. And I do not know anyone by that name. You are mistaken, sir.”

  “And I am not blind. Your hair down, a bit more makeup and a bit more skin is hardly a convincing disguise, my Queen. If you wished to truly fool me you will have to try much harder than that.”

  Irritation crept up her spine, irritation that he was not minding what he said in front of her guards. Irritation that he was here at all.

  “Leave us,” she said, gesturing toward the guards.

  The room cleared, every man leaving at her behest. At least she commanded authority over her own guards. There was that.

  “Does every man in your life defer to you in such a manner?”

  She met him full on, making her expression as imperious as possible. “Not just the men.”

  “I am no one’s puppet,” he said.

  “I did not need you to be a puppet.”

  There was no point in lying to him. He wasn’t stupid. It was entirely too clear that they had met before. And there was something... Something between them, an electricity that arced across the space. There was no pretending anymore. She simply had to find out what he wanted and provide him with that, and try to end this encounter as quickly as possible.

  “I need my freedom,” she said. “I am queen, and there are a great many people who don’t respect my position. I did what had to be done.”

  “You tricked me into getting you pregnant.”

  “I seduced you. I didn’t trick you. You went along with everything happily.”

  “You said everything was all right. You said it was fine to have sex without a condom.”

  “I said it was fine. And for my purposes it was. I sincerely hope that you don’t treat every hookup in such a casual manner when it comes to protection.”

  “I don’t,” he said, the words gritted out through his teeth.

  “Just with me, then. But still. I did not trick you. The fact that you assumed fine meant what you wanted it to mean and went along with it speaks to how foolish men are where sex is concerned.”

  As if she would have been capable of making a more rational decision in the moment.

  “I want my child,” he said.

  “It’s my child.” Hers. Her child to love and to raise as she saw fit. To support and protect. And give all the things her parents never had. “By law. I can declare my child fatherless, and I have done so.”

  “That might be a law, Queen Astrid, but it is not reality. I am the father of your child whether you speak it or not. And I am not one of your citizens.”

  “No. But you are in my country. Which is where my child will be born. And my child is one of my citizens.”

  “You underestimate me. You are so arrogant because of your position. You have no idea who you are dealing with. You feel that you face opposition? Do you
truly understand what opposition is? It is not a disgruntled cough during a meeting that makes you feel as if someone might be challenging you. No. I will give you so much more than that. If you would like to learn about opposition, I will give you a study in it.”

  “You should know that I don’t respond well to threats,” she said, her tone like ice. “Indeed, I don’t respond to them at all.”

  “You don’t respond to empty threats. Because that is all the red-faced, posturing men that you’ve dealt with in the past have ever issued. But I will tell you, my Queen, my threats are never idle. They are very real. I might be a bastard of ignoble birth, but the power that I possess is very real indeed. What will the public think if I were to claim my child?”

  “Why?” she asked. “It is my understanding that a man in your position will want nothing to do with the child. And that is one reason I selected you, lest you think that I meant you any harm or wanted anything from you.”

  “You assumed you knew what manner of man I was based on the press and what they had written about me, and that was your first mistake. Tell me, Astrid, what does the press say about you? How true is it?”

  “The press has never had occasion to write about a scandal of mine. And I knew full well going into this that I was inviting that. You cannot scare me.”

  “You have imagined the wrong sorts of headlines, I think. I doubt what you want is a long-term custody battle looming over your head. The problem here is that you imagined me as a prop. A means to an end, but what you failed to see as you read all of those headlines, as you examine all those photos of me in the articles and imagine me touching you. Imagine me claiming that body of yours, and we both know you imagined it. That you got wet thinking of it late at night in your bed. You forgot what I am.”

  Astrid drew back, her heart thundering. Because he was so close to the truth, it cut her close to the heart. He wasn’t wrong. She had imagined him as a chess piece. Capable of strategy, certainly, but she had also imagined that she could see ahead to every move he might make. That she understood what sort of man he was, and what he might want. But his standing here had proved already that he was not anything like she had anticipated.

  She had thought of him as a barbarian, as a conqueror so many times. But in a vague, fantastical sense. In a sexual one. She had not thought in concrete terms about what it would mean to go up against this man.

  Because she had not imagined he would oppose her. On that score, he was correct. She had imagined nothing like this.

  She had underestimated him. And it galled her to admit it.

  “What else could you want?” she said. “Anything else. I know you don’t need money, and I will not insult you with such an offer. There are business opportunities to be had in Bjornland, and I am more than willing to facilitate easing the way for you. Whatever it is you want, I will give it. Only don’t ask me to sacrifice this. This is what I need to claim the throne, and I will not...”

  “I will not be managed. I want nothing less than what I have demanded. I want my child.”

  “Why?”

  “Because as a boy I sat back and watched my father live in excess while my mother earned her meager pay in ways that cost. A man with money who does not care for his own is not a man at all. He is weak. Vile. The lowest form of being to ever walk the earth. If indeed you can call what he does walking. He would be better suited to crawling on his belly. I am not that man. And I will be damned if I will allow you to manipulate me. To think that I can be bought.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “I suggest shared custody, my Queen. But I imagine that’s going to damage the optics of your little kingdom.”

  She blinked, not entirely certain how that would work. “There is no way that I can do that. You have to either be out of the picture entirely, the secret to the world, or you must...” Her stomach rolled. “You would have to marry me.”

  “Why not?” He shrugged a shoulder. “You had no intention of marrying, clearly.”

  “I had no intention of being maneuvered into a political marriage that wasn’t of my choosing. That isn’t quite the same thing.”

  “And yet I find in this moment the end result could likely be the same. There would be no downside to a marriage between the two of us. You can consolidate the power as you see fit, you will not be forced to marry a man chosen by this council that you’re so opposed to, and I certainly have no interest in meddling in the affairs of your country.”

  “And you are a prime candidate for marriage?”

  “Not at all. But aren’t games of infidelity stock standard for royals?”

  “It would require a bit more discretion than you seem capable of exhibiting.”

  “I can be very discreet when I choose. Tell me, my Queen. Have you seen a single headline about my sexual exploits with a virginal redhead in my private suites? No, I don’t think you have. Had I wanted a headline there would have been one.” He stepped forward, and tossed her shoe on the ground in front of her, the crystalline material glimmering in the light. “It seems I was able to find you without resorting to such tactics. Or trying this on any of the feet of all the eligible maidens in the country.”

  She thought suddenly so clearly. The queen was in check. The king had her cornered.

  She could not see a way out.

  “What is a queen without a king, after all?”

  “According to the history of the world, more powerful.”

  “Not if the queen has been shamed and disgraced in the media.”

  Panic tightened around her throat, and as he advanced on her, shamefully, something other than panic took hold of her. A sense of shameful, heated desire that she despised.

  “I have no designs on your kingdom. What I want is to give my son or daughter validity. To ensure that they have all that is rightfully theirs. And if I benefit from having my name attached to Bjornland, and to royalty, then so be it.”

  “Is that what this is to you? A game?”

  “That’s what it was to you. The fact that you don’t like the outcome of that game is not my concern. You played with me.”

  “Whether you think so or not, I wasn’t playing with you. I was helping myself.”

  His expression shifted, a deadly light in those dark eyes. “Do you know what a child who was born in the gutter dreams of? What it must look like from the very top. When you are born looking up, it concerns you greatly. How it must feel to look down. I know the answer to that now. And yet, any real sense of belonging in high society escapes me. I am looked upon as a trinket often, to women who wish to slum it. A bit of rough on the side. And surely, you must know that, as you did not see me any differently. In fact, I would suggest that you thought I wasn’t smart enough to find out what you had done.”

  He began to circle her, a wolf, a predator now, looking at her as if she was a sheep. “Did you think that somehow my impoverished, low-born eyes would not be able to recognize you when you went from common club slut to queen? What you, and all of your kind, would do well to remember is that the odds are greatly stacked against someone born in my position, and if I make it to where I am, the chances are I am much smarter than you’ve ever had to be. Much more determined. My patience undoubtedly greatly exceeds yours. And that means that on this score I will win. My ruthlessness exceeds yours too. Yours is all theoretical. You have no idea the things I’ve done to get where I am. And I don’t regret a single one.”

  Her heart was thundering. A sick feeling invading her body. Because what could she do? He was correct. He could flay her in the media.

  Expose what they had done as something seedy. Call it a one-night stand, expose the parentage of her child, and the origins of it. Or, she could take hold of it now. Say the two of them had fallen in love. Yes. A love match. She could control the narrative. She could find a way to spin it.

  “You must pretend to be in love wit
h me,” she commanded.

  “You’ve already suggested to the entire world that your child had no father. How do you profess to shift that now?”

  “I will say that we had a whirlwind romance. But that I was not brave. And I was afraid that you might be rejected by the council, by my people. But in the end, you came after me, and my heart won. I will say that I trust that my people will honor what I want in my heart. We will live separate lives. We will be married only in the eyes of the law. You may conduct your affairs as you see fit as long as you do it quietly. And as long as you wait.”

  “Wait?”

  “You will remain celibate for the first two years of our marriage. If anyone were to get wind of the fact that you are having affairs so soon after our child was born, and so soon after I professed that the two of us had fallen in love, it would cast everything into doubt. Already having you as my husband will be an incredibly difficult thing for the nation to accept.”

  “More difficult than you staking your claim as an unwed mother?”

  “Possibly not. But I was prepared for that fight. Because this position is one that I was born to be in. And I must fight for it daily because of my sex. And you tell me what you would have done in my situation.”

  “Likely exactly what you did. Though, I would have chosen someone with transparency, and paid for their silence.”

  She could have done that. She had thought about it. But the fact of the matter was she had seen him and become captivated. It was something that she had a difficult time admitting, because it made it clear that there was a personal element to what had occurred. That was something she didn’t really wish for him to know.

  That when he’d said she had thought of him at night, thought of him and become aroused, he wasn’t wrong.