The royal physician has kind eyes and cold hands. Dr. Harrington presses the stethoscope against my chest like she's searching for secrets rather than heartbeats. The examination room smells of antiseptic and carefully maintained discretion.
"Approximately eleven weeks," she confirms, removing her gloves with practiced efficiency. "Based on your last cycle and the examination."
Eleven weeks. The number settles into my bones like lead. Eleven weeks of Hunter's child growing inside me while I plot his family's destruction.
"The nausea should begin easing within a few weeks," she continues, consulting her notes. "Though every pregnancy is different. You'll want to begin prenatal vitamins immediately."
I nod, absorbing information I never wanted to need. She explains fetal development, dietary restrictions, warning signs to monitor. Her voice is gentle, professional, utterly devastating in its clinical certainty.
"How long before..." I gesture vaguely at my still-flat stomach. The question catches in my throat.
"Before it becomes visible?" Dr. Harrington's expression softens with understanding. "You're fortunate—first pregnancies often show later. Perhaps another eight to ten weeks before concealment becomes challenging."
Two months. Maybe less. I have two months before my body betrays the secret I'm desperately protecting. Two months before questions start. Before whispers spread through the palace like wildfire.
Before everything I'm building crumbles into ash.
"Thank you, Doctor." My voice sounds distant. Someone else's voice entirely.
"Your Highness." She pauses at the door, one hand resting on the frame. "Whatever you decide, whatever you need—I am sworn to your service. And your discretion."
She leaves me alone with the diagnosis I already knew and the timeline I was dreading. The examination table feels cold through my thin robe.
The evening finds me pacing my chambers like something caged. The walls press in. The silence screams. Every mirror reflects a woman I barely recognize—future queen, secret mother, walking contradiction wrapped in silk.
I can't stay here. Can't face another hour of my own thoughts spinning in destructive circles.
My feet carry me through palace corridors before my brain catches up. Past guards who bow. Past portraits of ancestors who never faced this particular disaster.
Daniel's study. Of course. Because apparently my subconscious has developed an inconvenient attachment to cedar cologne and grey-green eyes. The realization should concern me more than it does.
I knock before I can overthink it.
"Come in."
He's at his desk, papers scattered in organized chaos, reading glasses perched on his nose. The glasses are new information. They make him look almost human. Almost approachable.
"Christina." He removes the glasses, setting them aside. "Is everything alright?"
"Fine. I just—" The lie sticks in my throat like something sharp. "I wanted to discuss Hunter's intelligence further. The Montclair situation."
Daniel studies me for a long moment. His expression says he knows exactly what I'm doing. His mouth says nothing of the sort. He's giving me the gift of pretense.
"Of course." He rises, moving to the sideboard. "Tea?"
"The terrible coffee shop kind?"
"Better." He produces a tin from a hidden cabinet. "The good tea. The one I keep hidden from everyone who doesn't deserve it."
"I'm honored to make the deserving list."
"You should be. It's very exclusive. The membership requirements are extensive."
He prepares the tea with careful attention—warming the pot, measuring leaves precisely, letting it steep exactly long enough. The ritual is soothing in its ordinariness. Normal. Human. Everything I'm not anymore.
We settle into our usual positions. His chair. My leather monstrosity. The fire crackling between us like a third person in the conversation. Shadows dance across his features.
The tea is excellent. Of course it is.
"The Montclairs," Daniel prompts gently.
"I don't want to talk about the Montclairs."
"I suspected as much."
Silence stretches between us. Comfortable. Patient. He doesn't push. Doesn't fill the quiet with empty words. Just waits, like he has all the time in the world for me to find my voice.
"I'm terrified," I admit finally. "Not of thrones or conspiracies. Of everything else."
"Everything else covers considerable territory."
"I'm surrounded by people constantly." My voice cracks despite my best efforts. "Advisors. Guards. Protocol instructors who count my teeth. And I've never felt more alone in my entire life."
Daniel sets down his cup with quiet deliberation. His grey-green eyes hold mine with an intensity that makes my breath catch somewhere behind my ribs.
"Everyone wants something from me," I continue, the words spilling out like water through a broken dam. "My signature. My approval. My compliance. Everyone except you."
"Christina—"
"You're the only person who seems to want nothing except my success. My survival." I laugh, and it sounds brittle as old glass. "It's pathetic, isn't it? The future queen, desperate for one person who doesn't have an agenda."
"That's not entirely true."
The words land strange. Wrong somehow. The air shifts between us.
"What do you mean?"
Daniel rises from his chair. His movement is deliberate. Controlled. Like a man who's made a decision and isn't entirely certain he should follow through with it.
"I mean I do want things." His voice drops lower. Rougher. "Things I have no right to want."
My heart stutters against my ribs. "What things?"
He doesn't answer. Not with words.
He crosses the space between us. Slowly. Deliberately. Giving me every opportunity to stop him, to pull away, to remember all the reasons this is impossible.
I don't move. Don't breathe. Don't do anything except watch him approach like gravity made human.
He stops inches away. Close enough that I can see the pulse jumping in his throat. Close enough that his cologne wraps around me like a promise I want him to keep.
"Tell me to stop," he says quietly.
"No."
When he kisses me, it's nothing like I expected. Not careful. Not hesitant. Not the measured restraint Daniel Cromwell shows the rest of the world.
This is deep. Certain. Consuming. Like he's been holding back a flood and finally let the dam break completely.
His hands cup my face, fingers threading through my hair. His mouth moves against mine with devastating expertise—twenty years of experience poured into one kiss that rewrites everything I thought I knew about wanting someone.
I pull him closer without deciding to. My fingers grip his lapels, his shoulders, any part of him I can reach. Heat floods through me, burning away the cold terror that's lived in my chest for weeks.
For a few breathless minutes, nothing exists except this. His mouth. His hands. The solid warmth of his body pressed against mine. The sound of our breathing tangling together like something desperate and newly born.
When we finally break apart, both gasping for air, Daniel rests his forehead against mine. His eyes are dark. Pupils blown wide. The composure he wears like armor has cracked completely.
"We should stop," he says. His voice is rough. Wrecked.
"Do you want to stop?"
A pause. His thumb traces my cheekbone with unbearable tenderness, learning the geography of my face.
"No." The admission costs him something. I can see it in the tension of his jaw. "God help me, I don't."
"Then we're in agreement." I meet his grey-green eyes without flinching. "I don't want to stop either."
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