His Forbidden Pregnant Princess

“It will do,” he said, his tone as hard as his features.

Her throat felt prickly, and she swallowed hard, feeling foolish, her heart fluttering like a caged bird trying to escape. How could she feel so much when he looked at her, while he felt nothing for her at all? While he clearly saw her as an annoyance.

He didn’t look impressed; he didn’t look awed or surprised with what she had felt was a total transformation.

“I am glad that I reach at least the bottom of your very lofty standards, Your Majesty,” she said stiffly. “I can only hope that a certain Swedish noble has a slightly more enthusiastic response.”

“I said that it will do,” he reiterated. “And it will. What more do you want from me, sorellina?”

“I spent the entire day receiving a makeover. I would have thought it would garner a response. But it seems as if I am destined to remain little more than wallpaper. It is okay. Some women are never going to be beautiful.”

She grasped the flowing skirt of her dress with her fists and pushed past Luca, running out of the room, down the hall, running until her lungs burned. The sound of the heels she was wearing on the floor drowned out the sound of anything else, so it wasn’t until she stopped that she heard heavy footsteps behind her. And she was unprepared for the large, strong hand that wrapped around her arm and spun her in the opposite direction. It was then she found herself gazing up into Luca’s impossibly dark and imposing eyes.

“What is it you want from me?” he asked, his voice low and hard. Shot through with an intensity she had never heard in his voice before. “What do you want me to give you? What reaction would have been sufficient? In the absence of the one man you have ever wanted, what is it you expected me to give you? Do you want me to tell you that you’re beautiful? Do you want me to tell you the curves would drive any man to distraction? That every man in that ballroom is going to imagine himself holding you in his arms? Feeling those luscious breasts pressed against his chest? Kissing those lips. Driving himself inside you? Is that what you want to hear? I can give you those words, Sophia, but they are pointless. I could tell you that any man who doesn’t want you was a fool, but what is the point in saying those words? What could they possibly mean between the two of us?” He released his hold on her, and she stumbled backward. “Nothing. They mean nothing coming from me. It will always be nothing. It must be.”

“Luca...”

“Do not speak to me.” He straightened then, his expression going blank, his posture rigid. “It will do, Sophia. You will wear that dress the night of the ball. And you will find yourself a husband. I will see to that.”

It wasn’t until Luca turned and walked away, wasn’t until he was out of her sight, that she dropped to her knees, her entire body shaking, her brain unwilling to try and figure out what had just passed between them. What those words had meant.

He said it could be nothing. It was nothing. She curled her fingers into fists, her nails digging into her skin.

It was nothing. It always would be.

She repeated those words to herself over and over again, and forced herself not to cry.

CHAPTER FOUR (#u1672c64f-daf0-5626-b657-4293c8ad2ba0)

HE HAD ACTED a fool the day that Sophia had received her makeover. He had... He had allowed his facade to crack. He had allowed her to reach beneath that rock wall that he had erected between himself and anyone who might get too close.

He never acted a fool. And he resented the fact that Sophia possessed the power to make him do so.

His entire life was about the crown. The country.

His mother had driven the importance of those things home before she died. In an exacting and painful manner. One that had made it clear it was not Luca who mattered, but San Gennaro. The royal name over the royal himself.

He had shaped himself around that concept.

But Sophia had looked...

Thankfully, it was time. The guests had all arrived for the ball, with Sophia scheduled to arrive fashionably late so as to draw as much attention as possible.

His attention had been fixed on her far too much in the past few days. Sadly, everything his body had suspected about her beauty had been confirmed with this recent makeover. This stylist had managed to uncover and harness the feminine power that had always been there. And she had put it on brilliant display. Those curves, not covered anymore, but flaunted, served up as if they were a rare delicacy that he wanted very much to consume.

And of course, other men were going to look at her this way. Other men were going to dance with her.

Another man was going to marry her. Take her to his bed.

It was the plan. It was his salvation. Resenting it now... Well, he was worse than a dog in the manger, so to speak. Much worse.

He made a fox and a hen house look tame. Of course, if he were the fox he would devour her. He would have no one and nothing to answer to.

He was not a fox. He was a king.

And he could not touch her. He would not. He would honor that final request his father had made. To keep her safe. To see her married to a suitable man.

He was not that man, and he never could be.

Even if their relationship wasn’t as it was, he would not be for her. He might have been, once. But that possibility had been destroyed along with so many other things. He had very nearly been destroyed, too. But as he had set about to rebuild himself, he had made choices. Choices that would redeem the sins in the past. Not his sins to redeem. But that mattered little.

He was the one who had to live with the consequences. He was the one who had to rule a country with strength and unfailing wisdom.

And so, he had purposed he would.

But that did not make him the man for her.

Thank God the ball was happening now. Thank God this interminable nightmare was almost over.

She would choose one of the men in attendance tonight. He would be certain of that.

He stood at the back of the room, surveying the crowd of people. All of the women dressed in glorious ball gowns, none of whom would be able to hold a candle to Sophia, he knew. None of whom would be able to provide him with the distraction that he needed.

“This is quite lovely.” He turned to see his stepmother standing beside him. She had been traveling abroad with friends for months, clearly needing time away to process the loss of her husband. Though she was back now, living in a small house on palace grounds.

It suited her, she said, to live close, but no longer in the palace.

She had lost a significant amount of weight since the death of his father, and she had not had much to lose on that petite frame of hers to begin with. She was elegant as ever, but there was a sadness about her.

She had truly loved his father. It was something that Luca had never doubted. Never had he imagined she was a commoner simply looking to better her station by marrying royalty. No, there had been real, sincere love in their marriage.

Something that Luca himself would never be able to obtain.

“Thank you,” he said.

“And all of this is for Sophia?”

“Yes,” he said. “It is as my father wished. He wanted to see her in a good marriage. And I have arranged to see that it is so.”

“Yes,” she said, nodding slowly. “But what does Sophia think?”

“She has agreed. In that, she has agreed to try to find someone tonight. And if she does not, she has six months following to choose the man that she wishes. But I have confidence that one of the men tonight will attract her.”

“I see,” she said.

“You do not approve?”

“I married your father because I loved him. And one of the wonderful things that came with that marriage was money. With money came the kind of freedom that I never could have hoped Sophia to have if we had remained impoverished. I hate to see it curtailed.”