He took glassware and cutlery through to the small dining room.
“I’d prefer to eat on the sofa,” she called from the kitchen, sounding every bit as cranky as she’d looked answering the door, not to mention as if she thought he should have known that already.
Not sure how she had expected him to read her mind, he made a quick change of direction, putting the glasses and cutlery down on the coffee table before returning to the kitchen. “What do you want to drink?”
“Milk.” Her mouth turned down in obvious dissatisfaction. “It’s good for the baby.”
“There are many other calcium-rich foods you can eat. You don’t have to drink milk if you’d prefer something else.”
She used to like milk. Was this one of those pregnancy things?
She glowered at him. “Stop being so nice!”
“You would prefer I was dismissive of your desires?”
“Yes. It would make it easier.”
“What?”
“You know what.”
“This supposed choice you must make?”
“It’s not supposed.”
Annoyance rose to match hers, but he controlled it, allowing nothing but certainty to color his tone. “There is no choice when it comes to our child, Gillian. You know that, though you refuse to acknowledge it.”
“Did your mother have a choice?”
What an odd question to ask, as if Gillian couldn’t imagine his mother marrying his father under any other circumstances. It pricked at Maks’s pride.
Perhaps a little of his irritation came through when he said, “She was not pregnant when they married if that is what you mean. In fact, I did not arrive until two weeks after their first anniversary.”
“Then why did she marry your father?”
Gillian made it sound as if marrying into his family was a fate worse than death. Forget small pricks at his pride, this was a fully realized blow.
“Many women would have been happy to receive my father’s marital-minded intentions,” he ground out.
Gillian’s brow furrowed. “But she knew about the countess when she married him?”
Maks frowned at the mention of his father’s love affair. Even though they’d discussed it before, he didn’t like dwelling on something that had been a source of unpleasantness for his family his entire life. “Yes. Why?”
“I cannot imagine marrying a man who was in love with another woman.”
“That is not something you have to worry about.” Maks would never allow that particular emotion sway in his heart or his life.
Romantic love only caused pain and undermined duty and dedication.
“You could fall in love with someone else later.” Gillian’s tone wasn’t at all certain.
Good. Even she realized how unlikely that was.
“If I were going to love anyone, I assure you, it would be you.” Surely she realized this?
But then what Maks thought Gillian should know and what she actually accepted as truth were widely divergent, he’d come to appreciate.
She shook her head. “Do you have any idea how that sounds, what that does to my heart to hear?”
In truth, clearly he did not. He thought she would have liked knowing that. “You would prefer I withhold the truth?”
“I would prefer you loved me.”
He wanted to turn away from the pain in her eyes, but he was not a weak man to refuse to face the consequences of his choices. “I am sorry.”
“You said that before you left my apartment ten weeks ago.”
“I meant it.” He was not a monster.
She frowned and turned back to the plates, sprinkling the fresh Parmesan over the chicken instead of looking at him. “We’re going to make a scandal, one way or another.”
“Maybe a small one, but nothing truly damaging to the country if we take a proactive approach. My PR team is very good.” It would cause some media furor.
His marriage couldn’t help but do otherwise, but his PR team would make sure that furor died down quickly and remained mostly positive.
They wouldn’t be able to do that if word of the breakup had gotten out before word of the baby and elopement, though.
“Is Demyan on it?”
He didn’t understand the question. “You know he’s Director of Operations for Yurkovich Tanner.”
“I was being facetious. He’s just Machiavellian enough to make a really good PR man.”
“I’ll tell him you said so.”
“Do. And tell him it’s not nice to hire hackers to break into confidential medical files.”
“I will leave that admonishment to you.” For his part, Maks was very grateful to his cousin’s foresight.
“Don’t think I won’t say it to him. He might scare everyone in your company, but he doesn’t scare me.”
“He intimidates.”
People said the same about Maks even though he’d played diplomat from the cradle, but Demyan had an edge to him unsmoothed by political expedience.
“He’s a scary guy.”
“But not to you.” They’d had this conversation once before.
She’d finished it by reminding him that she had Maks’s protection and that was all she needed to feel safe, no matter how intimidating a guy his cousin was.
The way Gillian’s blue eyes flared now said she remembered that conversation, too. But she was clearly not going there with the conversational thread again.
Her lips set in a firm line and she picked up the plates to carry through to the living room.
He shook his head and approached the fridge. He found milk and cherry limeade. He took the juice with him to the living room.
She looked at the carton in his hand and though she tried to frown, he could see she was pleased.
“Your favorite.”
“I’ve been craving it even more lately.”
“Your body no doubt wants Vitamin A and C.”
“Yes, Dr. Maks.”
“I read that pregnancy cravings are often linked to things your body needs for the baby, or because the baby has depleted your stores already.”
“I read that, too.”
“So, you’ve been reading up on pregnancy?” She wasn’t denying it just because she was cautiously approaching her second trimester. Good.
“Yes.”
“According to my research, your chances of miscarriage are closer to ten percent than twenty.” Though not all statistics agreed.
Many doctors still considered her chance of miscarriage at or above twenty percent until she hit the twelve-week mark.
It was the added stress she had to be under, pregnant to a man who was not only not yet her husband, but who would one day be king. Those added pressures and the tension between them increased her chances to miscarry.
He did not like it, but the stress of his position could not be avoided. And he did not see how to fix the other if she would not even entertain the idea of marriage until she’d reached that magical time marker in her head.
She looked at him curiously. “You think one in ten is good odds?”
“I do.”
She sat down, but didn’t argue. For which he was grateful. He didn’t want her thinking negatively.
Thought was a powerful weapon.
They’d been eating for a few silent minutes when she turned to him. “Thank you for dinner. It’s very good.”
He didn’t remind her she’d already thanked him. It was an overture.
He took it. “It is. There is no need to thank me. Your care is my responsibility. Thank you for allowing me to stay.”
“We aren’t together, Maks.”
“The baby growing in your womb says otherwise.”
“You’re so stubborn.”
“Have you looked in a mirror lately?”
He surprised her into a giggle and that made Maks smile.
“Nana always said I was sneaky that way. Everyone thinks I’m easygoing because I don’t fight what doesn’t matter to me.”
He began to better understand this woman he had dated for months without realizing once she could be a rock when it came to doing things her own way. “However, what does matter to you, you fight to the last?”
“Something like that.”
She hadn’t fought for him, or them when he said they had to end things. Despite her words of love Gillian had given in without a single volley to his side.
He felt pain in the center of his chest. Odd. This restaurant didn’t usually cause heartburn.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“I HAVE BEEN thinking a wedding onboard a luxury cruise liner. A friend of mine owns a fleet that sails the inside passage to Alaska on one of its routes. Ariston will make certain word of our marriage does not leak out until after the event.”