‘I cannot even believe...’ she began in a throaty whisper. ‘Could you be pregnant? Is that a possibility?’
‘No.’ The denial, the lie, was instinctive, and Halina desperately wanted to believe it. She couldn’t be pregnant. She just couldn’t. Aliya turned around slowly.
‘Because if you were,’ she said, ‘we would have to get rid of it. I know how heartless that sounds, but as a royal family we cannot endure the scandal. It would shame us all, and ruin your sisters’ potential matches.’
Halina kept her mother’s gaze even as she quailed inwardly at Aliya’s total ruthlessness. Get rid of her child? No matter how much she’d wrecked her future, Halina knew she would never want that. But she hated the thought that what she’d done might affect her three younger sisters, who were still in the schoolroom and even more innocent than she was—or, rather, had been.
‘There’s no chance,’ she said firmly, willing herself to believe it along with her mother. Inside her everything shook. Her future felt more uncertain than ever. She had no idea what was going to happen to her now.
* * *
Rico stared at the hazy landscape of Rome’s buildings in the muggy summer heat, unable to concentrate on the property deal laid out on his desk. All he needed to do was review a few simple terms and scrawl his signature. Yet his brain had stalled, as it had many times over the last two months, ever since Lina had left his hotel suite in a cloud of confusion and shame.
It hadn’t been difficult to find out who she was—Princess Halina of Abkar, known to be a spoiled pet of her father, a guest of the hotel where the party had been held and presently engaged to Prince Zayed al bin Nur of Kalidar. The fact that he’d deflowered a virgin promised to another man was like a stone in Rico’s gut.
He might be considered cold and ruthless—he’d been called emotionless and even cruel—but he was a man of honour, and in lying to him Halina had made him violate his own personal code of morality. It was one he’d lived by staunchly since his days in the orphanage, determined to rise above the desperation and poverty, to be better than those around him, because that had felt like all he’d had. He didn’t lie, steal or cheat. He never would. But in taking Halina to his bed he felt he’d done all three. It was something he could not forgive himself.
But, regardless of whether or not he could forgive her for lying to him, he needed to know where she was... and if she was pregnant. Because no matter what he felt for Halina he would take care of his child. His blood. That was a certainty. The very idea that he might be put in the position his mother had been in, a stranger to his own child, was anathema to him. His mother might not have cared about her own child, but he did. He would. Absolutely.
The day after Halina had left his suite Rico had hired a private investigator to discover where she was and what she was doing, determined to find her, and more importantly to discover if she was pregnant.
The possibility that she might be carrying his child and marry someone else burned inside him. He would never allow such a travesty; it would be even worse than her simply being pregnant. But as the days slipped by with no answer he knew he might have to; it might have already happened.
The thought of another man raising his child, passing him off as his own, made his fists clench and brought bile to the back of his throat. Never. But he’d had no word from the investigator who had flown to Abkar to ferret out information.
All he knew was that Halina had returned to Abkar the day after their encounter and hadn’t been seen since, although she was believed to be residing in the royal palace. Attempts to get any information or gain entrance to the palace had been fruitless, so he had no idea if she’d married al bin Nur as planned or if she was pregnant.
Rico turned away from the window, pacing the confines of his luxurious office. For the last eight weeks he’d lived in a torment of ignorance and uncertainty, unable to focus on anything until he knew the outcome of his one night with Halina.
He’d told himself it was unlikely she was pregnant, that in all likelihood he’d never see her again and never needed to. His own history made that hope a faint one. His mother had been a waitress, his father a worker on Salerno’s docks. They’d had one night together and he’d been the unwanted result. His mother had dumped him with his father when he’d been two weeks old and walked away, never to return. He’d been a mistake, a terrible inconvenience, and he’d never been able to forget it. He would not allow his own child to suffer a similar fate.
‘Signor Falcone?’ The crackle of his intercom had him turning. He reached over and pressed a button.
‘Yes?’
‘A Signor Andretti to see you, signor,’ his assistant said, and Rico’s heart leapt with fierce hope. Andretti was the private investigator he’d hired a month ago. ‘Send him in.’
Moments later the neatly dressed man, slim and anonymous-looking, stepped into Rico’s office.
‘Well?’ Rico demanded tersely. ‘Is there news?’
‘The marriage to al bin Nur has been called off. Apparently the Princess refused to marry him, and so he is remaining married to the governess he kidnapped.’
Rico had heard already, through the investigator, how Halina’s fiancé had kidnapped the wrong woman and married her in so much haste that he hadn’t ascertained her name first. A fool’s mistake, one he would never make. He dismissed them both; they were irrelevant to him now that he knew Halina had called off the marriage. ‘And the Princess?’
‘I believe she is currently staying in a royal residence in the north of Abkar, a remote location.’
‘Are you sure?’
Andretti shrugged. ‘I bribed a maid in the palace, who told me the Princess had left about a month ago. It seems the Princess is going to stay in the north for some time...’ Andretti paused meaningfully. ‘At least nine months.’
Nine months. Shock iced through him, followed by a fiery rage. She must be pregnant and she hadn’t told him. Hadn’t even tried to tell him. Instead she’d gone into hiding...hiding from him? He took a deep breath, steadying himself.
‘Thank you.’ As his head cleared a new emotion took the place of that first lick of anger, something that took him by surprise. Hope. Joy. If Halina was pregnant...he was going to be a father. He was going to have a child. One he would keep by his side, for whom he would fight to the death Someone he would never, ever leave. Not as he’d been left.
‘Do you have the location of the palace?’
Andretti withdrew a folded piece of paper from his pocket. ‘Right here, signor.’