The Queen's Baby Scandal. Maisey Yates

months ago, and yet like a different creature entirely.

      She was regal in her posture, her every movement elegant, each slight turn of her head intentional.

      “Sir,” Carlo said.

      “Shut up,” Mauro said, grabbing the remote and turning the TV up.

      She was speaking, but it was in a different language, something like Norwegian, but slightly different, and he didn’t speak it either way. They were not putting up subtitles on the screen, but the news commentators were going over the top in his native Italian.

      “Queen Astrid von Bjornland issued a statement today to her people, that she is about to embark on an unusual path for a woman in her position. The queen is pregnant, it seems, and is determined to raise the child alone. Invoking an old rule native to the country, the queen is able to claim herself as the sole parent of the heir to the throne.”

      The camera panned away from the woman, shrinking the video down to a small square, where two news anchors were sitting at a desk now, a man and a woman.

      “And only women can do this?” the man asked, looking somewhat incredulous.

      “Yes.” The female news anchor nodded gravely. “An old, protective law that ensured a queen would not be bound to one of the country’s invaders, should she be forced against her will.”

      Against her will? She had…

      That lying bitch.

      She was pregnant with his child.

      More than that, she was denying him his right as a father.

      It took him back in an instant. To what it had been like to be a boy. Knowing his father was there in the city, an omnipresent being in his mind who had been potentially around any corner. Who had, to him, been possibly any well-dressed man walking by.

      He’d known his father was a rich man. A powerful man.

      A man who didn’t want him.

      And he had done his best to be careful—with every woman except this one—but he’d always known that with sex there was a chance birth control would fail. And he’d always known that should that ever happen he would not be like the man who’d fathered him.

      He would never let a child of his wonder like that. Would never leave him abandoned, unanchored to what he was.

      Would never deny him anything he had.

      Yes, Astrid von Bjornland had money, had a title. But their child was more than her. That child deserved all, not half.

      And yet there she was. Claiming his child as hers and solely hers, when both of them knew he was well involved.

      He remembered the way she had looked up at him, the way she had trembled just before he’d entered her body.

      “It’s fine,” she had whispered.

      It had bloody well not been fine. He hadn’t realized he’d stood up until he looked over and saw Carlo’s shocked expression.

      “Sir?”

      “Ready my plane,” Mauro said, his tone hard. “I’m leaving.”

      “Where are you going?”

      “Bjornland. I hear it’s lovely in summer, and a bit harsh in winter. However, I hear their queen is a lying snake all year round. And that is something that needs addressing.”

      “Mr. Bianchi…”

      “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m not going to make an international incident. Provided she falls in line.”