His Forbidden Pregnant Princess Page 7

  But she couldn’t.

  Because what if he stopped it all then? What if that was the only reason?

  How could she live with herself after that? How could she live with him?

  Suddenly, the door to her little sanctuary burst open. His hands clenched into fists, his expression unreadable.

  Luca.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  RAGE ROLLED THROUGH Luca like a thunderstorm. There she was. His duplicitous stepsister. Her expression obscured by a veil, her figure a stunning tease in that virginal-looking gown.

  They both knew she wasn’t a virgin.

  He had been the one to ruin that, to ruin her. He was well aware.

  And then there was the other bit of evidence that she was not as innocent as she currently appeared to be.

  “Are you here to give me away?” she asked, her tone maddeningly calm.

  “Is that what you want? You want me to march you out of here and pass you off from my arm to his? Fair enough, as you seem to have gone from my bed and straight into his.”

  He waited for her to correct him on that. But she did not.

  “It’s a bit late to be acting possessive, fratello.”

  The word brother stabbed into him. Sharp. Enraging. The reason she was here prepared to marry another man in the first place.

  “Is it now?” It did not feel too late. It felt altogether like just the right time.

  She took a step back, stammering. Wondering if she had overplayed her hand. “I’m in a wedding gown. The guests have all arrived. I assume there is a priest.”

  “You know as well as I do that there is.”

  “Then unless you intend to give me to my groom, symbolically, of course, I suggest you step aside.”

  He crossed his arms, standing between Sophia and the door. “Absolutely not.”

  “I need to go, Luca,” she said, her tone pleading with him.

  “Answer me one question first,” he said, taking a step toward her. His heart was pushing the limits of what a man could endure, he was certain, his stomach twisted.

  “What question?” she asked.

  “Have you slept with him?” He asked the question through gritted teeth, his entire body tense.

  She turned to the side, the veil a cascade of white and bland separation, concealing her expression from him. “I don’t see how that’s any concern of yours.”

  “It is my concern if I say it is,” Luca returned. “Answer the question, Sophia. And if you lie to me, I will find out.”

  Suddenly, her posture changed. She came alive. As though she’d been shocked with a live wire.

  “Oh, no,” she said, delicate hands balled into fists. “I haven’t slept with him. But I intend to do so tonight. I would show you the lingerie I selected, but that would be a bit embarrassing. After all, you are only my very concerned stepbrother.”

  A red haze lowered itself over Luca’s vision.

  Anger was like a living thing inside him, roaring, tearing him to pieces. He had no idea what answer he would have preferred. One that proved she had been touched by another man, but might not be attempting to deceive them both...or this.

  She was doing exactly what he had suspected. And by admitting that, she had also confirmed what he had suspected, his heart raging, when those lab results had come across his desk only an hour ago.

  He had imagined...

  He had imagined that she would come to him if the news was relevant to him.

  She had not. But there was a chance. He had known that. Even if she had slept with Erik the day after she had been with him, there would be a chance.

  And here, she had made it very clear, that there was only one possibility.

  Still, she hadn’t come to him. As if on some level she knew. Knew she should not bind herself to him. As if she could see the cracks in his soul.

  If he were a good man, if any of his outward demonstrations of royal piety were deeper than skin, he would let her be.

  Would let her go off and marry Erik.

  But he had reached an end. An end to the show he had lived for the past two decades.

  An end to anything remotely resembling good.

  “We will have to send our regards to Erik,” he said, taking a step forward.

  “Why is that?”

  “Because I...” He reached forward, grabbing the end of her veil, lifting it and drawing it over her head, revealing that impossibly lovely face that had called to him for years now. That was his constant torment. His constant desire. “I am about to kiss his bride for him.”

  Luca drew her into his arms; she was his now. There was no denying it. There was no other alternative.

  When they parted, she was staring at him, wide eyed.

  “And he,” Luca continued, his voice rough, “is about to find himself without a wife.”

  Then he lifted her up and threw her over his shoulder, ignoring the indignant squeak that exited her lips.

  “What are you doing?” She pounded a fist against his back.

  They were turning into a bad farce of a classic film. And he didn’t care. Not one bit.

  “Well,” he said, continuing to hold her fast. “It seems that we have skipped a few steps. Here you are, in a wedding dress, but our relationship has already been consummated. And it appears that you are pregnant with my child.”

  “Luca!”

  “Did you think I wouldn’t find out?” He carried her out of the chapel and across the lawn. It was private back here; paparazzi and guests both barred from coming into this section of the grounds, where the bride might be disturbed. And here, Luca had a private plane waiting.

  Just in case.

  Just in case of this exact moment.

  It felt like madness. Like something that had overcome him in the moment. Strong enough he’d had to pick her up and haul her off.

  But obviously some of his madness was premeditated.

  Though he had not envisioned this exact scenario, it was clear to him now there had never been another possible outcome.

  “Forgive me,” he said, not meaning at all. “But I feel as though at this moment in time a wedding ceremony is a bit redundant. We are headed off on our honeymoon.”

  “We can’t,” she protested, beating against him again with one closed, impotent fist.

  A rather limp, ineffective protest, all in all. When the poor creature could scarcely move.

  “I am the king, sorellina. And I can do whatever I want.”

  Yes. He was king. And he could do whatever the hell he wanted. He had been far too caught up in being honorable. In being dutiful to his country. In doing as his father had asked. In doing as his country expected.

  In protecting Sophia. Making sure she had the life that would best suit her, not the one that would best please him.

  What the hell was the point of being king if you didn’t take everything that you desired?

  And he desired his stepsister. She was also carrying his heir.

  That meant that she would be his.

  Regardless of what anyone thought.

  It was all clear and bright now. As if the sun had come out from behind the clouds.

  “What if I refuse?” she asked.

  He carried her up the steps, onto the plane, holding her still while his staff secured the cabin. None of them daring to question him. “You’re not in a position to refuse,” he said as he placed her in one of the leather seats and solicitously fastened her seat belt. “You are only in a position to obey.”

  She didn’t speak to him for the entirety of the flight. He supposed on some level that was understandable.

  She simply sat there and looked at him, radiating rage and tulle, resembling an indignant cake topper. Disheveled, from his carrying her out across the lawn and onto the plane, her hot eyes bright and angry,
that lovely lace wedding gown making her look the perfect picture of a bride.

  She would need a new wedding gown for when they married. As beautiful as she looked now he would be damned if she walked down the aisle toward him in a dress she had meant for someone else.

  That was not something he could endure. He found that he was quickly getting to the end of his endurance where she was concerned.

  Scandal was something to be avoided at all costs. It was something his mother had drilled into his head even after she had known...

  She had protected the reputation of the family.

  And now he was about to destroy that. Then it called into question a great many things.

  But here was the point where he had to break from his desire to prevent scandal.

  Because if there was one thing, one bitter shard of anger that existed in his chest that cut deeper than all the others, it was the fact that his mother had prized reputation over protecting her son.

  Over pursuing retribution for him.

  She had cared more for her marriage. More for her paramour.

  He would not care more for a clean slate than for this child that Sophia carried. He had needed to marry. Had needed to produce an heir, and it seemed that he was halfway there already. Why should he preserve the nation, their sensibilities, and ignore the fact that this was a moment to seize on something that would be an important asset. Truly, he could not have planned this better.

  Because there was only one way that he would be able to justify claiming Sophia as his own. Only one way he would be able to justify having her in his bed for life.

  The child.

  That, no one would be able to argue with. And yes, it would come at the cost of an ugly scandal. The things that would be written about them...

  They would not be kind.

  Those headlines would exist, and it was something that their child would have to contend with. Something they would have to contend with.

  But in the end, the memory would fade, and they would be husband and wife longer than they had ever been stepbrother and stepsister.

  In the end, it would work.

  Because it had to.

  He was not in the mood to allow the world to defy him. He was not in the mood to think in terms of limits.

  He had, for far too long.

  He was a king, after all.

  And for too long he had allowed that to limit him.

  No more.

  “Do you want to know where we’re going?” he asked, leaning back in his seat and eyeing the bar that sat across the cabin.

  “I don’t wish to know anything,” she said, pale of face and tight-lipped with rage.

  “Did you love him so much that this is an affront to you?”

  “I tried,” she said, whipping around to face him, her dark curls following the motion.

  “I tried to do the right thing. I tried to do what you asked of me. I was willing to—”

  He could not hear her lies. He held up a hand and stopped her speaking. “You were willing to try to pass my child off as another man’s. For that, I cannot forgive you.”

  “You were willing to let me marry another man,” she said. “Only when you found out that I was carrying your child did you try and stop it. You took my virginity in a garden. You gave no thought to protecting me. You took advantage of my innocence. You were going to let another man have me. For that, I cannot forgive you.” She looked away from him again, pressing one hand to her stomach. “He knew it was not his child, Luca. Whatever you think of me, I would not try and convince another man that this baby was his.”

  “Does he know it’s mine?”

  She looked toward him, her dark eyes flashing. “I told him it was the one thing we could never speak of.”

  “I know you only found out yesterday,” he said.

  “How did you find out?” she asked.

  “The palace physician reports directly to me, Sophia. In these matters, there is no privacy.”

  Her face drained of the rest of its color, her entire frame shaking with rage. And perversely, even in the moment, he found his eyes drawn, outlined to perfection by the sweetheart neckline of the gown, to the delicate swell of her breasts.

  A sickness. Sophia would always be his sickness.

  “How dare you?”

  “I dare everything,” he said, his voice like granite even to his own ears. “I am the King of San Gennaro. You are pregnant with my heir. You would have me leave that to chance?”

  “I was trying to prevent a scandal. And I don’t want your obligation, Luca.”

  “You have it,” he bit out. “Endlessly, sorellina, and there is no way around that.”

  “Would you have let me marry him?”

  His throat tightened, adrenaline working its way through his veins. He closed his hands into fists and squeezed them. “Of course,” he said. “Because when it comes to matters of the flesh, you can hardly allow them to dictate the course of a country.”

  “Except, apparently, when that flesh takes shape as a child.”

  “Naturally,” he bit out. “I will hardly allow another man to raise my child. I will hardly sacrifice my son’s birthright on the altar of my reputation. On this you are correct, Sophia. I was careless with you. And that carelessness should not come back on our child.”

  “It might not be a son. It might be a daughter. In which case, you might wish you had allowed me to marry someone else.”

  “Never,” he said, his voice rough.

  “You don’t seem overly happy.”

  “Happiness is not essential here. What is essential is duty. What is essential is that I do what is right by my child.”

  “Yes, I suppose it is what your father tried to do for me. Bundle me up and sell me off to the most worthy of men.”

  “Yes, and sadly you seem to be stuck with me.”

  She said nothing to that. He imagined she didn’t think he meant it. He did.

  He had his darkness. He had his trauma, and he would never have chosen to lock Sophia into a union with him. But the fact remained, it was unavoidable now.

  And if that meant he got to sate his desire in her lovely body, then so be it.

  “You will be my wife now, Sophia,” he said.

  “When?” She said it like a challenge. As if she didn’t believe him.

  “Oh, as soon as we can arrange it. We’re going to San Paolo.”

  Her expression went strangely...soft. Very odd in the context of the moment, when before she’d been looking nearly feral. “Your father’s island?”

  “It is my island now.” A soft, firm reminder that his father was gone.

  That, though he would have strongly disapproved of this, he was not here to see it. No one was. Not now.

  How easy it would be to lay her back on that chair, to push up that wedding dress and lose himself inside her. Talking was a pointless exercise when it was not what he wanted.

  Heat lashed through him. He wanted her. Even in this moment, when all should be reduced to the gravity of the situation, he wanted her.

  “This will not be easy,” she said, her voice shaking.

  “Denying me my child would have been simple, Sophia?”

  “That isn’t what I mean. Don’t be dense, Luca. The world will be watching us. Will be watching and judging and we will be bringing a baby into that. It seemed kinder in some ways to try and avoid all of that.”

  Rage was like a storm inside him. By God, he couldn’t cope with not having power. With having his choices taken from him. “You don’t have a biological father of your own. The man couldn’t be bothered to raise you. How dare you visit the same fate upon your child?”

  “Biology doesn’t matter,” she snapped. “All that matters is that a man is good. Your father was the best father I could have ever asked for.
My own father... He didn’t want me. He didn’t care for me. He didn’t matter. Not when I had your father to call my own. He earned that place. He wasn’t born with some magical right given to him by blood you can’t even see. That’s how I thought I could do it. Because I know full well that it’s not genetics that make a parent.”

  “And what about me? You think so little of me that you think I am like the man who sired you? That I am like a man who could walk away from his child and never think of her again?”

  “I figured what you didn’t know couldn’t hurt you. Or your goals. Or the country.”

  “How cavalierly you played with our fates,” he bit out.

  “How cavalierly you played with my privacy,” she shot back.

  “You don’t deserve privacy,” he returned. “You proved that with your betrayal.”

  Silence descended on the plane. Luca stood up and made his way across the space, heading over to the bar and pouring himself a measure of scotch.

  “None for you,” he said, his tone unkind. He was well aware of it. He didn’t care. She did not deserve his kindness at the moment.

  “You hate me,” she said softly. “You always have. Or, if you don’t hate me, it’s a kind of malevolent indifference the likes of which I have never experienced. I would have said it was impossible. To dislike and not care at the same time. But you seem to manage it.”

  He shook his head, laughter escaping in spite of himself. Then he took a drink of scotch. “Is that what you think?”

  “It is what I know, Luca.”

  “You are a fool,” he said, knocking back his drink, relishing the burn all the way down to his gut. At least that burn was expected. Acceptable.

  Then he stopped over to where she was seated, leaned forward, bracing his hands on the arms of the seat, bracketing her in. His eyes met hers, electricity arcing between them. His skin tingled with her being this near, his entire body on high alert. His heart was pounding heavily, his blood flowing south, preparing his body to enter hers.

  He wondered if every time he was near her it would be thus. And concluded just as quickly that as it had been this way for nearly a decade it was likely not to change anytime soon.

  “You think I hate you? You think I am indifferent to you? If I behaved that way, Sophia, it was only because I was attempting to protect your innocence. Attempting to protect you from my lust.”