United By Their Royal Baby. Therese Beharrie

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СКАЧАТЬ of them,’ he replied, his hand lifting before he could stop it to brush at a curl that had escaped from her bun. ‘Just this one.’

      He knew he was playing with fire. The beach, that dress, the magnetism she exuded without even trying... It was bound to get him burned, and he still had the scars from the last time he’d played with the fire.

      Yet he couldn’t move away.

      ‘I’ve made too many decisions for duty,’ she said softly. ‘I can’t possibly begin to name them all.’

      ‘How about the night you told me you couldn’t be with me? When you said that you’d mistaken the love you felt for me as a friend for more?’ Forgotten anger stirred and his hand moved to the small of her back, pressing her closer to him. ‘I begged you to tell me what was happening, to help you get through whatever it was.’

      ‘I told you the truth then.’ Her voice shook. ‘There was never more. There couldn’t be more.’

      ‘You’re saying there isn’t more, Leyna?’ He dipped his head so their mouths were a breath apart. ‘What royal duty had you deciding you couldn’t be with me?’

      ‘Stop it,’ she said, and tried to put distance between them. But he kept his hand on her back, refusing to allow her to pull away from him again. ‘Xavier, let me go.’

      Her voice had gone cold. The shield was back up, he realised. His hand loosened its grip on her and he slipped it into his pocket and took a step back. His fingers curled into a fist when he realised his hand was now shaking, and he took another step away from her.

      She was making him lose his mind. His bearings. And if he didn’t have them, what would stop him from continuing where they’d left off ten years ago?

      It was the talk of marriage and children—as though it were as easy as it had been then—that had made him forget about the life he’d lived in those ten years since. He could almost hear Erika’s voice mocking him, asking him whether she was really so easy to forget. Taunting him that things were turning out exactly as he’d wanted them to all along.

      It had been a constant argument between them. No matter how much Xavier had told her he was committed to them, that Leyna had no part in their relationship, the argument had remained. And no matter how hard he had fought to keep Leyna separate from his life with Erika, she was always there. In the simplest things, and the most complicated emotions.

      Erika had deserved more. She hadn’t deserved to be compared to another woman. Didn’t he know what it was like to be compared to someone who’d come before? To be held to an unfair standard? It didn’t matter who that person was, the feeling was terrible. And his wife had deserved more than that. She’d deserved more than a sudden death when she was barely thirty, too.

      He hadn’t been able to give her all that she’d deserved when she was alive, but he could try to make up for that now. And what she deserved now—what her memory deserved—was that he keep things between him and Leyna strictly professional.

      His kingdom deserved it, too. He could still hear the words his father had said to him after Leyna had broken up with him. Xavier had been so heartbroken he hadn’t been able to keep up with his responsibilities. His father had taken him aside, and had given him the tough love he’d needed.

      Always put the kingdom first.

      He might not have a choice about what they had to do to protect their kingdoms, but he could choose to remember that. To honour his kingdom and his wife. To set boundaries where Leyna was concerned. Yes, he could do that.

      ‘We’ll have to make the people believe it,’ he said. If she was confused—or relieved—by the shift in topic, she didn’t show it.

      ‘I don’t think it matters whether they believe it. They’ll appreciate our attempts to protect them.’

      ‘They probably will. But they’d know why, and it might have them panicking. If we do this, it will speak to their desire to believe that everything is fine.’

      ‘I suppose that’s true,’ she said, and shifted the hem of her dress from her left hand to her right. It drew his attention to her long, shapely legs, and he looked away before they tempted his already tenuous control. ‘We should head back.’

      He walked with her but said, ‘We should talk about this more.’

      ‘I agree. Tomorrow? We can meet here again, if that suits you, and talk through the details. Xavier?’ she said when they reached the pathway leading back to the castle. ‘Are we really doing this? Getting married and having a child?’

      ‘We have to.’

      She nodded. ‘I suppose there’s a wedding and a baby in our future then.’

      ‘For the sake of our kingdoms.’

      He said it as a reminder to both of them of what was at stake. They had to put their feelings aside and focus on protecting their kingdoms.

      She straightened her shoulders, an expression fierce with determination on her face, and repeated, ‘For the sake of our kingdoms.’

      * * *

      Xavier made his way to the roof of the Aidaraen castle, more than a little annoyed that Leyna was there when she should have been in her library, preparing for their meeting together. They’d agreed the previous evening to hash out the details of their arrangement there. And, since it was something neither of them really wanted to do, the least Leyna could have done was to make sure she kept to their plan.

      As he climbed the stairs, though, he realised that he should be glad she wasn’t at the beach. He’d struggled with the memories when they’d been there together the night before. In the clear light of day—after the sleepless hours he’d spent thinking about it—he knew that seeing her in the place that had always been theirs had been partly responsible for the spell that had taken over him.

      The other parts he didn’t care to think about. But, since he’d made a pact with himself the night before, it didn’t matter anyway.

      The more he thought about it, the more he realised the roof of the castle was the perfect venue for the type of conversation they needed to have. Private, secure. But his thoughts stalled when he walked through the door.

      The usually empty space now held a round table in the middle of it. The table was set for an intimate date, with red and pink flowers in the centre and an ice-bucket with champagne cooling just beside it. Each corner of the rooftop held a potted tree and colourful plants, green and bright, as though they’d been there since the beginning of time.

      His eyes then moved to the woman who stood beside the table, and his gut tightened.

      Leyna wore a simple white dress that was cut in a V at her neck and flowed gracefully down to her ankles. It was perfectly respectable. Or it would have been, he thought, if it had been on anyone else.

      On her, the demure dress looked as if it was designed to be torn off. Thrown aside by hands—his hands—in order to roam over the slim curves of her body as his lips took hers, his tongue tasting whether she was still as innocent as she’d been when he’d first kissed her at fourteen, or as alluring—as seductive—as she’d been the day she’d said yes to his proposal.

      He clenched СКАЧАТЬ