Marcus stared at her. She was wrong. This changed everything.
“Look,” Kyra said, “I’ve been sick for days, and while I waited until today to take the test, I’ve been thinking things through the whole time. There’s no reason things can’t go on just as they are now.”
“I need to sit down,” Marcus said. He walked unsteadily to the sitting room and fell into an easy chair as Kyra continued, her voice sounding superimposed above his thoughts.
“I’m totally capable of raising this baby on my own,” she said. “We’ll finish the shelter project, and I’ll return to the US. I’m not interested in co-parenting or anything like that so don’t worry.”
Marcus didn’t even know how to respond. On one hand, he was happy Kyra wasn’t a gold digger out for his money or for the celebrity of having a royal baby, but on the other he felt kind of rejected. He told himself he should be glad she wanted to be so independent, but a different feeling was nagging at him. Rejection.
Kyra was brushing him off just like everyone else did. He thought she took him seriously, at least on a professional level, but obviously she didn’t believe he was good enough to be a decent father.
“You don’t have to do this alone, Kyra,” he told her. He wouldn’t shirk his responsibilities as the father of this child. “I can help.”
Kyra released a long breath. “I know you can, but like I said, I want to do this on my own. It doesn’t have to be a big deal, Marcus.”
Her eyes pleaded with him, and reluctantly he agreed, but he felt completely blindsided.
It didn’t have to be a big deal?
She’d said the words, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that she was way off.
It was a big deal—the biggest deal of his life.
5
While Kyra and Ava retreated to their rooms to put away their things, Marcus was still reeling from Kyra’s news. After he’d reluctantly agreed to let her deal with the pregnancy on her own terms, she’d asked him to show her around the estate. She’d seemed genuinely pleased with all the work he’d put in, and that made him feel better, but the pregnancy was blaring background noise to Kyra’s words of approval. The outcome just wasn’t sitting well with him.
As Marcus sipped at a glass of water, his cell phone rang.
“Marcus.” His father’s gruff voice was in his ear. “How are things going out there in Havershire?”
Marcus cleared his throat. “It’s really great, Dad. Repairs have been made. Everything is up to code. It’s all good.”
“Really?” the king asked. Marcus detected a note of sarcasm in his father’s voice but chose to ignore it.
“Yeah. I’m here now at the estate. I’ll be staying here a few nights to evaluate the accommodations.”
The king scoffed audibly. “Just remember that this is business, son. You’re not out there on a pleasure cruise.”
Marcus rolled his eyes. Of course his father still didn’t take him seriously. “I’m on it,” he said.
“I know all about your little fling with the American,” King Hanson said.
Shit.
“I have eyes and ears all over the kingdom, and so help me if you land in the papers with another international scandal…” He didn’t finish his sentence, leaving Marcus cringing at the thought of his father discovering the pregnancy.
“I promise I’m on top of this,” he said.
“Don’t screw up, Marcus.”
As he bid goodbye to the king, a sight from outside the window caught his eye. Kyra had Ava in the rose garden. She was radiant in the afternoon sunshine. He’d heard that pregnant women had a certain glow about them. Could she already have it this early in the pregnancy?
Marcus walked out onto the back deck, his father’s warning wafting around him. He knew King Hanson had been referring to the project when he’d told Marcus not to screw things up. But, as Marcus stared longingly at Kyra in the rose garden just below him, his father’s words went much deeper.
He couldn’t screw this up.
He had to do things right this time.
Kyra looked up from the beautiful flowers to see Marcus’s gaze fixed on her. Her heart jumped a little in her chest. Even though she’d told herself time and again there was to be no more funny business with him, she still couldn’t shake her attraction. He was so incredibly handsome. His dark wavy hair, always just a bit out of place, his chiseled arms and chest called out to her. She had to just keep trying to ignore his appeal.
“What’s with the creepy stalking?” she asked, a semi-joking grin on her face.
His dark eyes crinkled with laughter. “I’m not stalking, just watching.” Marcus’s stare travelled the length of her body, and Kyra wanted to melt into his eyes. She pinched herself instead. “Ava seems like a great kid,” he said.
“She is,” Kyra replied. “I’ve helped raise her since she was a baby.”
A wistful look passed over Marcus’s face. “You’ll make a great mom,” he told her.
“Thanks,” she said, wondering if the revelation of her pregnancy was going to make Marcus get all gooey-eyed and go deep on her. God, that was the last thing she needed to deal with today. She’d rather him just remain the sexy eye candy that tempted her endlessly. That she could handle.
“I could make a great dad,” he went on.
And there it was.
“Marcus, I told you,” she began, but he interrupted her.
“Hear me out, Kyra. We’re going to be here for a few nights, and with Ava here, I can prove to you that I am good father material. That I have what it takes to be the man you need.”
She caught herself silently twirling her hair, her nervous habit.
“What do you have to lose?” he asked. “Worst case, nothing changes from the original plan, but best case, maybe you don’t have to do this alone after all? Maybe we both can find something that’s been missing in our lives.”
Kyra found herself enraptured by Marcus’s voice, his lips. And, damn it, his logic. He made some good points. It would be so easy to let him in, but, she reminded herself, they’d only had a one-night-stand. And she had her career on the line here.
“I just don’t know, Marcus,” she said and looked away.
He walked down the porch steps and into the garden so that he was beside her.
“You know,” he began, “my dad just called to berate me for not taking this project seriously. He hasn’t been out here to check on it and see what I’ve done, but he assumed it’s been close to nothing.” Marcus sighed and shook his head, and Kyra could feel the shame and frustration rolling off of him in waves. “My father and everyone else have always seen me as utterly incapable, but that’s only because nobody has given me a chance to prove I can be more than that.” He dug deep into Kyra’s eyes, seeming to reach her soul. “Please. Give me that chance?”
Kyra thought about the way she’d seen people treat him at board meetings. It seemed to be true that no one thought him capable. And while she knew there was probably some reason for that reputation, she’d seen how people took their judgments too far, doubting everything he said even when he made good suggestions or offered good ideas. As a woman of color, she’d had her own experiences with people discounting her abilities based on their own prejudgments. She didn’t want to be like them. Especially when Marcus seemed so sincere.