There was no give in her tone, no evidence of possible softness in her blue gaze. He was not used to seeing Gillian as the hardline taker, but there could be no question. This woman would not be moved.
“Then in two weeks’ time we will be married.”
“I’m not making any promises—”
“Until you’ve hit your second trimester. I heard you the first time.”
“So, stop trying to push for a promise I’m not prepared to make.”
“But you will make it.”
“I don’t know.”
“You do.” She must. “You made your choice.”
“What do you mean?”
“You knew dating me came with different expectations than other men.”
“I didn’t sign my life over to you when I agreed to see you exclusively.”
They’d never verbalized that agreement, but he took her point.
It just wasn’t the salient one. “You did not know about your compromised fallopian tubes when you agreed to make love without a condom.”
“We had sex and you made the same choice.”
“I believed pregnancy was impossible, or at least extremely unlikely,” he felt compelled to add.
“Unlucky you.”
“That is not how I see it.”
She frowned and then enlightenment dawned, but he held no confidence she’d seen light about the right thing. “No, I suppose you think me being pregnant with your child is lucky indeed. The heir is on the way.”
“I will treasure our child, and not merely because he or she is the heir to the throne of Volyarus.”
“Will you? Really?” she asked intently.
“Yes.” There could be no doubt.
“That’s something, I suppose.”
“My parents were king and queen of a small but still demanding nation. Nevertheless, they were very good parents.”
“Even though your father split his time between your family and his friend the countess?”
“No one’s home life is ideal, but mine was good. Our child’s will be better.”
“That’s what I want for my child. Better. I want her, or him, to know unconditional love.”
“Like you did from your grandparents.”
“Like I wanted from either or both of my parents.”
She’d never voiced that desire before, though he could have guessed at it.
“We are not your parents.”
“We aren’t yours, either.”
It was his turn to ask what she meant.
“If, and I do mean if, I agreed to marry you, there would be requirements.”
“Like?”
“Like, no mistresses. I’m not your mother and I won’t tolerate a long-standing or short-standing affair, or one-night stand for that matter. I would leave you and you’ll sign a prenup giving me primary custody in the event of your infidelity.”
“I am not my father.” Maks was determined not to emulate the other man when it came to this area of his father’s life. “The king’s long-standing understanding with the countess is not something I will ever repeat.”
“I’m the only one in your bed. Full stop. Period.”
He hated she felt the need to make the stipulation because he knew this was about his father’s choices not any Maks had made. He’d never cheated on a lover, even in his college days.
And he never considered his position made him immune to the rules of honor in regard to his future wife, either. “Again, I am not my father.”
“You put Volyarus first, last and always.”
“But my father does not.”
“You don’t mean that,” she said in obvious shock.
Well, she might be. He didn’t criticize his father often and he’d done so twice in one day to her. But if they were to be married, he would not pretend wholesale support of his father’s decisions as he did for public consumption.
Like Demyan, Gillian would be privy to things Maks would never express elsewhere. “If my father put Volyarus first and in all ways, he would not continue a liaison that could explode in our faces at any time.”
“Your outrage at your father’s behavior is based on your concern for Volyarus, not your mother.”
“My mother was well aware of the countess when she agreed to marry my father.”
“If I am unable to conceive a second time, we will use a surrogate or pursue fertility measures. You will not leave me for a more fertile woman and that would be in any prenuptial between us.”
“Fine.” Though he didn’t know how she planned to ensure that one.
“The prenuptial will include any future offspring in that custody agreement.”
“You would have primary custody of any child I conceived with another woman?” He couldn’t help the appreciation of her planning lacing his tone.
The woman was not only intelligent, but she knew how to be ruthless. He could appreciate that fact.
“Exactly.”
“And if the mother doesn’t agree?”
“She’ll be forced to fight the Crown in a very messy custody battle right in the center of the media’s eye.”
“You will use your connections to your father to bring Volyarus into the public eye?”
“You have no idea how far I will go to protect my children’s future and their happiness.”
“I was raised by a woman willing to sacrifice anything for mine, I do know.”
“Oh, no, your mother never fought the way I would fight. She’s too wrapped up in the good of Volyarus to push as hard as I would.”
That was true. “She is not weak.”
He used to think otherwise, but had come to appreciate his mother’s brand of strength.
“No, but she is too self-sacrificing. I won’t be her.”
“You won’t be your parents, either. You’ll never deny your child its birthright.” The way she was talking made him realize just how much time Gillian had spent since discovering she was pregnant thinking about the scenario of a marriage between them.
There could be no doubt the prospect no longer thrilled her, but she clearly understood the importance of protecting their child and his birthright.
“I don’t have to marry you for you to name our child as your heir.”
“According to Volyarussian law, I can name any living relative as my successor, but the birth of a legitimate heir negates all previous claims to the throne.”
“You’re saying if you marry someone else and they have a child, that child inherits the throne?” she asked carefully and with clear thought.
“Exactly.”
“Fine.”
Shock coursed through him. “You would deny our child his place in life?”
In no scenario had Maks expected categorical denial.
“I’m not saying what I would do. You do not seem to be getting that. I’m acknowledging the consequences if I choose not to marry you.”
“You cannot do that to our child!” She must realize that.
“You walked out on me ten weeks ago.”
“And our child must pay because of it?”
“I have to make the best choice for this baby, one way or another. He or she deserves the best I can give. That may, or may not be, marriage to you.”
“Damn it. Why?”
“You don’t love me.” She put her hand up when he made as if to speak. “In your mind, that doesn’t matter. I know, but it matters to me and I have to decide if I can be the best mother possible married to a man who does not love me and who found it so easy to discard me.”
“It was not easy.”
He could see by the expression on her face that she considered his claim very much a situation of far too little, far too late.
And her words proved it. “It was easy enough. You wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t found out by nefarious means that I am pregnant.”
“It was hardly nefarious means.”
“You managed to get information in my confidential medical records. What wo
uld you call it?”
“Expedient.”
She laughed, the sound both unexpected and welcome. “You’re a piece of work, Maks, you know that?”
“I am a prince.”
“Who thinks he has the right to put surveillance on an ex-girlfriend.”
“I told you—”
“Demyan did it. I knew you two were like brothers. I didn’t know that extended to finger pointing.”
“He was doing what he thought best.”
“Why? I wasn’t going to go to the tabloids. You had to realize that.”
“I told him about that night.”
“What?”
“That we did not use condoms.”
“Oh. You told him? Really?”
“Yes, really.”
“Why?” She clearly could not see him sharing confidences.