Pregnant With His Royal Twins

A banana was placed right in front of her. She frowned and looked up to see who had given it to her.

‘Jamie...’

‘Eat this. You haven’t had anything all night.’

She moved the banana away from her. ‘Thank you, but I have other plans.’

‘So you say—but you’re not the only one who gets to make decisions about yourself any more. This is my baby too and you need to eat. Healthily, preferably.’

He grabbed hold of the tin of sweets and moved it away from her.

Angrily, Freya grabbed the tin back. ‘Keep your voice down. I don’t need the whole ward hearing about it.’

‘Are you going to eat the banana?’

She glanced at the fruit, lying harmlessly on the desk, and felt repulsed by it. The idea of taking a bite of it turned her stomach. She craved hot food. Preferably dripping in grease.

‘Not right now.’ She felt a little hypocritical. She’d often lectured pregnant women about eating well for a healthy pregnancy and here she was craving fat. And maybe another chocolate from that tin.

‘So when are you going to eat?’

‘When I get out of here. At home, where I can cook myself something.’

She didn’t want to tell him that she didn’t like to go out during the day. Didn’t like to sit by herself in cafés filled with staring people.

‘Where do you live?’

She looked at him incredulously. ‘Why would I tell you that?’

‘Because, like it or not, we’re involved now and I want to look after you.’

‘I don’t know you!’

‘You knew me enough to make a child with me.’

He stared hard at her, his eyes dark and dangerous, as if daring her to try and wriggle out of that one.

‘Well, I didn’t know I was doing that at the time.’

It was enough to make her remember their assignation—her back against the wall as he hoisted her legs around his waist and thrust into her, her hands frantically grasping at him. Both of them made courageous by darkness and anonymity.

No. She would not tell him her address. He might be anyone and her home was her safe space. Her haven. A place where she could relax and just be. It was her bolthole, and there was no way she was going to give him that information.

‘You’re not going to do this, you know.’

‘Do what?’

‘Go all alpha on me. Order me about.’ She could hear her own voice quaking as she stood up for herself.

‘I care about you.’

‘No, you don’t. You got me pregnant and now you think that you’ve got to be seen to be doing the right thing. Well, I’m giving you an out. You’re off the hook—you can walk away.’

It would be easier, wouldn’t it? To do it alone? Without a man? Because men were frightening. They didn’t know what it felt like to be a woman. To know that half the population was bigger and physically stronger than you. That they could overpower you if they cared to try. Not to be able to walk down a street without fearing the footsteps you could hear behind you. Always having to be aware of your surroundings. Of who might be looking at you strangely. Were they just curious, or were they about to pounce?

He leaned forward and stared at her. ‘I don’t know what experiences previous men have given you, but let me tell you something. I am not that kind of man. When I do something I take full responsibility for it. And that means taking care of you and taking care of that baby.’

‘But you don’t have to. I can do it alone.’

‘I do have to. It’s my child. It has to be honourable.’

‘Why does it have to be honourable?’

Even as she said the words she realised how childish she sounded. Why wouldn’t she want her baby to be honourable? Was she cheapening it already? By saying it didn’t matter if it was ‘honourable’?

But this was her baby! She had dreamt of this for years!

He recoiled as if she’d slapped him, as if he was appalled that she could think anything else.

‘Because it has to be. I won’t have it any other way.’

She moved the banana. She could smell it and it was beginning to turn her stomach.

‘If everything you do is “honourable”, then how come you had a quickie with a stranger in a closet? Surely being honourable would make you at least a hotel-room-with-satin-sheets kind of man?’

‘Maybe I am?’ he challenged, pushing the banana back towards her. ‘There is plenty that you don’t know about me, Freya MacFadden.’

The use of her name made her narrow her eyes as she looked at him. God, he was beautiful. Almond-shaped eyes, dark as ink, cheekbones a model would die for, and his lips...

Oh, goodness, I remember those...

Freya cleared her throat and tried to sound as if she was in control of this conversation. ‘Well, perhaps you’d care to enlighten me?’

Jamie checked around them, as if keen to make sure they were alone and no one was listening in.

‘I can’t tell you right now. You wouldn’t believe me. Perhaps if you agreed to meet me here?’

He pulled a card from his uniform pocket and slid it across to her. It was a glossy black card with the name of a hotel in silver.

Why did he want to meet her in a hotel? What kind of movie did Jamie think he was living in? He was deluded. This was normal life. People didn’t do that. There was no way she was going to meet a total stranger in a hotel!

‘Can’t you just tell me?’

‘You wouldn’t believe it. Please meet me there.’

It would be a public place. Safe. But it would be in daylight. When there were other people about. Not in his room. Nowhere they could be alone. But she would have to face other people’s stares.

‘When?’