“That first week we met, when you told me about a contract that was already years old, but you never mentioned it again. Not when you insisted we live together, not when you made sure we spent as much time together as possible. You called me when we were apart. You treated me like I mattered. Until I didn’t.” Just like her parents had.
Although they had been strict, they had been loving and kind. Until she disappointed them and they decided they didn’t want her as their daughter anymore.
“The contract was always there, hanging over my head. I never forgot about it.”
Even when he’d been calling her in the middle of the night just to hear her voice when he’d been out of town on business, or duties with the palace. She believed him because right now, the anguish in his tone, it was genuine.
He’d felt conflicted. Just not conflicted enough to remind her he didn’t plan for them to stay together, she told herself.
They could not change the past, but she had learned from it. Perhaps he had as well.
“What now?” she asked Konstantin. “Mickey isn’t going to be happy seeing you only a few days a year, but I don’t imagine you come to New Mexico often.”
She really had no idea what Konstantin had meant the day before when he said he was staying in Mickey’s life. As a secret father who saw their son sporadically? As a public dad who made an effort to see Mickey once a week?
The options and what they would mean to her own life had kept Emma up the night before.
“I come to Santa Fe, once or twice a year,” he said dismissively. “Surely what comes next is obvious. Naturally, we will get married.”
It took Emma’s brain several seconds to parse what Konstantin had said because it was so out of the realm of what she had been expecting. “Married? You and me?” She grabbed one of the goblets of water from the table, not even sure it was hers, and gulped it down. “You don’t mean that.”
“If I had known about Mikhail before he was born, we would be married already.”
“Now, I know that is a lie.” And she’d just started to buy the whole “I will never lie to you” shtick. At least in words. “There was still the contract.”
“And it would have held no weight when compared to my impending fatherhood.” He sounded like he truly believed that.
Emma wasn’t as convinced, but neither of them would ever know because she had not been allowed to tell him the truth about her pregnancy and then she’d been well and truly scared off by a queen’s threat to take away Emma’s baby.
“You haven’t asked for a DNA test.” Which was a point in his favor. “You thought he was yours from first sight.”
“He announced his age quite loudly. There was no chance in my mind that little boy could belong to anyone but me. Besides, he looks just like me.” Konstantin sounded really proud of that fact. “As for a DNA test, I do not need one. I’m sure at some point the palace legal team will require DNA proof before my brother names Mikhail as part of his succession line.”
“Mickey? In the succession to the throne. No. That can’t be right. We weren’t married when he was born.”
“We will be married and he will be legitimized through all proper channels.”
“I never agreed to marry you.” And honestly? Right now, she could not fathom it.
Emma had no intention of putting her heart on the line with this man again.
“You agree that Mikhail needs me in his life.”
“Yes.”
“More than once or twice a year.”
“Yes.” It would mean moving and that would be really hard, but for Mickey’s happiness, Emma would reshape her dreams again. “Do you still make your primary home in Seattle?”
“You do not follow news of me?” he asked again trying to tease.
He used to tease her all the time, but their relationship wasn’t what it had been.
“Don’t be an egoist. Just answer the question.”
“I spend equal time in Mirrus and Seattle with business trips on behalf of Mirrus Global once or twice a month.” He frowned, like something about that schedule bothered him.
“Okay. So, I’ll relocate to Seattle,” she said all in one breath, getting out the words that were so hard to say.