“Of course,” he said, “there will be no discussion of my sending you child support checks, and no discussion of the child being raised here, because you will both be in Santa Firenze.”
“I thought I wasn’t fit to be brought back to your country.”
She wasn’t. Even now, looking at her, that intense possessiveness had him in a stranglehold. Taking her, claiming her seemed to be the most obvious choice.
Which was what gave him pause. A ruler was meant to be cool. A ruler was meant to direct his actions with his mind, his sense of honor, not with anything half as fickle as desire or heat.
He wondered what his father might have done in this instance. And then had to concede that his father would never have been so foolish as to get himself in this situation.
He was forced then to weigh his options. To bring back a woman such as this, one he had already decided was unsuitable for his kingdom...it was unfathomable.
But honor. Honor and duty were at the center of all of it, regardless of what she made him feel. His duty was to his child.
“That was before I knew you were carrying my heir.” He took a step toward her, the word mine pounding itself through his head in time with the thundering of his heart. “Of course you are coming back to my country with me now. But not as my mistress. Bailey Harper, you are going to be my wife.”
“YOU HAVE A private jet.”
“Of course I do,” Raphael said, brushing past her and walking up the stairs into the sleek-looking aircraft.
“Were you in your private jet the night that we met?”
He treated her to a withering look. “I wasn’t flying economy.”
“I just...” She let the words trail off. There wasn’t much to say. Not really. He was not the man she had thought he was. That had become apparent when he’d broken her heart the way that he had, when it had been revealed that there was another woman in his life. This was just another layer to it. She supposed that some people would view this as good luck. The fact that the man who had gotten her pregnant was wealthy, titled and powerful should be some kind of boon.
She looked up at the plane. She didn’t really feel like it was a good thing. Not now.
She just felt small. Small and so desperately out of her depth.
She had argued with him about the marriage thing, and she intended to argue with him even more. But...what could be done? He presented a pretty ironclad case when it came to how he would go about getting custody. And she didn’t want to lose her baby.
Are you sure part of you just doesn’t want to go off with him because it sounds easy?
She banished that traitorous voice, began to walk up the steps and into the jet. And that feeling of being tiny only increased. She was nothing. No one. Just a girl from Nebraska who had gone to Colorado seeking mountains and a fresh start. A girl raised by a single mother in a drafty house built in the 1920s with a sagging foundation and a crack in the ceiling.
She looked around the cabin, her jaw a little bit slack. It was...she had never seen anything like this on the internet. She had idly scrolled through the odd slideshow on various lifestyle websites showing the ridiculously luxurious way that the rich and famous traveled, but she had never imagined she would be standing in the middle of it. Much less ready to fly on board.
“There are bedrooms back that way,” he said, gesturing past the plush living area and bar to the back of the plane. “There is also a bathroom and a shower.”
“There’s a shower?”
“Of course there is.” And that was it. No further explanation. As if it really were the most typical thing on the planet for a man to have a shower on his plane, and she was the absurd one for thinking otherwise.
“Okay then. I will keep that in mind in case I feel a little bit travel stale.”
Her heart began to hammer loudly, her hands shaking as the door to the plane closed.
“You know,” she said, “we don’t have to go now. I have... I have school to finish.”
“You mentioned. In your rant as you packed your things.”
She was failing right now, but still. “Well, it was a valid rant. I worked hard to pay my way this far through school, and if I don’t finish this term, I’ll be out the money for the classes.”
He sat down on one of the tan leather couches, spreading his arms wide over the back, his posture laconic. She had to wonder how on earth she hadn’t realized he was royalty. Sure, she had never been in the presence of anyone who could be considered royal, but he exuded it. How had she ever thought he was a normal man?
You never did. You saw him and the world stopped.
“Come now,” he said, “cara mia, the cost of your college tuition will be the least of your concerns. I can arrange to have you complete your courses remotely. Or you may transfer to one of the universities in Santa Firenze. Of course, you will have to take classes at the palace and not on campus should you choose to do that.”
“Why can’t I go to the campus?”
“You would create a circus.” He tapped the back of the couch with his fingertips. “I am not a man accustomed to getting tabloid attention. My family name has always been upheld, whispered reverently, spoken of with great respect. We are not part of the nouveau riche royal set who takes great pride in posting our social engagements on various online accounts. We take pride in the title. My father did before me, and I do it now. That headline you saw today was an aberration. There is a reason that you were not aware of my identity. I simply don’t court publicity. That is the vocation of celebrity, and I am not a celebrity. I am the ruler of my country.” He sighed heavily. “I dislike the position I find myself in. Because you...you will be a problem.”
“Oh, will I? Excellent. One hopes that I will be too much of a problem for you to want to take on.”
He waved a hand. “Not at all. You see, cara, you are carrying my baby. The most important thing on this earth is the birthright of that child. You must be married to me in order to secure that birthright.”
She blinked. “Is this the Middle Ages?”
“No, this is Santa Firenze. And this is the cost of being royal.”
“Good thing you’re rich. It seems damned expensive.”
“You have no idea. But, suffice it to say, your tuition is not my concern. In fact, it isn’t your concern, either. You have no more financial concerns.”
His words were strange. Made her ears feel fuzzy. She could hardly comprehend them. All she had worried about—from the time she had known what it was like to be hungry, from the moment she had experienced her first night in winter with the heat off because the electricity had been interrupted by the power company—was money. To have this man look at her, snap his fingers and say it was no longer a concern was...it was beyond surreal.
“I don’t... I don’t understand...any of this.”
“It is simple,” he said as the engines to the plane fired up and the aircraft began to glide down the runway. “I am a prince, I cannot have a bastard. I would have preferred a more suitable wife, a wife with a title or a pedigree of some kind. However, you are the one carrying my baby. That means I will have to make do with what I have.”
“More flattering words have never been spoken, I’m sure.”
“This is not about flattery. This is about reality.”
The aircraft lifted off, and as it rose higher, Bailey’s stomach sank into her feet. The longest plane ride she