[Daniel’s POV]
Pregnant.
The word stops everything. My thoughts. My breath. The entire universe pausing on its axis while those two syllables rearrange reality into something unrecognizable.
Christina watches me, waiting. Fear creeps into her expression the longer I stay silent. Her grey eyes search my face for a reaction I can't seem to produce.
I should speak. Should react. Should do anything except stand here like a man who's forgotten how his own mouth works. But language has abandoned me completely.
My mind is caught in a loop. Pregnant. Hunter's child. Pregnant. The man who humiliated her before three hundred witnesses. Pregnant.
Hunter Valdren. The coward who announced another woman's name while Christina stood in borrowed pearls. The fool who spent two years sharing her bed without once defending her against his family's cruelty.
His child grows inside her now. While she fights his family. While she builds a throne. While she chose to trust me with this impossible truth.
I pull back from her. The motion feels like tearing something vital. Her eyes widen, and I watch hope drain from her face in real time.
"I need time to think." My voice sounds foreign. Distant. Belonging to someone else entirely.
Her expression crumbles. Not dramatic devastation. Something worse. Quiet acceptance. Like she expected this. Like everyone leaves eventually, and she was foolish to hope I might be different.
I dress without meeting her eyes. Each button feels like a betrayal. Each step toward the door carries the weight of twenty years of carefully maintained composure collapsing into cowardice.
I hate myself with every footfall. But I can't stop walking. My feet carry me forward while my heart screams to turn back.
The door closes behind me with quiet finality.
My quarters feel like a tomb when I reach them. I pour whiskey from the crystal decanter my ex-wife hated. The amber liquid catches lamplight, beautiful and useless. Mocking me with its warmth.
I don't drink it. Just stare at it like it might contain answers I desperately need.
The jealousy is irrational. I know this with absolute certainty. Christina's pregnancy predates anything between us. This happened before I kissed her. Before I touched her.
Before I finally stopped pretending I could be professional about wanting her.
But the knowledge burns anyway. Hunter Valdren, who never deserved her, left something permanent. Something growing inside the woman I've been falling for despite every logical objection.
Something I can never give her because I'm forty years old and she's nineteen. The math of our situation makes my head ache with implications I don't want to examine.
I pace until my legs protest. The carpet will need replacing after tonight. Forty years of composure unraveling in my private quarters like a rope fraying strand by strand.
Her face haunts me. That moment of quiet acceptance. The resignation in her grey eyes. Like she's spent her entire life watching people leave and simply added me to the list.
Another name. Another disappointment. Another man who failed her when it mattered most.
I stop pacing. Stare at the whiskey I still haven't touched.
Christina chose to tell me. She could have hidden it longer. Could have pushed me away first. Could have protected herself from exactly this reaction by simply keeping quiet until I was too invested to walk.
Instead, she trusted me. Offered vulnerability when she had every reason to expect rejection. Handed me a weapon and waited to see if I'd use it against her.
And I walked out. Like every other man who's failed her. Like Hunter announcing Catherine's name. Like her father who never existed. Like the entire Valdren household that spent nineteen years proving she wasn't worth keeping.
I pour the whiskey down the drain. Watch it spiral away like the excuses I've been making for the past hour.
Two days pass. I bury myself in work with the desperation of a man avoiding his own reflection. Security briefings. Parliamentary schedules. Coronation logistics that suddenly require my urgent attention.
Christina's name appears on every document. Her schedule. Her meetings. Her life continuing without me because she's stronger than anyone gives her credit for.
I catch glimpses of her in corridors. She doesn't look at me. Her posture is perfect. Regal. Composed.
Broken underneath, probably. Because of me. Because I couldn't handle a truth she trusted me enough to share.
On the third day, I stop being a coward.
Her chambers feel miles away despite being three corridors from my own. I knock before I can overthink it further. Before the excuses return with reinforcements.
"Come in."
She sits by the window, afternoon light catching the angles of her face. When she sees me, her expression shutters immediately. Guarded. Braced for rejection she's clearly spent two days preparing to receive.
I don't make her wait.
I cross the room in three strides. Take her hands before she can pull away. Her fingers are cold in mine. Trembling slightly despite her composed expression.
"The child's parentage doesn't change anything." My voice comes out rougher than intended. "I needed time, and I'm sorry for how I took it. But I'm not going anywhere."
Christina stares at me. Her grey eyes search my face for the lie. For the trap. For the inevitable betrayal she's learned to expect from everyone who should have protected her.
"Why?" Her voice cracks on the single syllable. "Why did you come back?"
The answer rises from somewhere deeper than thought. Deeper than the careful composure I've worn for twenty years. Deeper than diplomacy or strategy or anything I've used to survive this world of wolves and pretenders.
"Because you're the first thing I've wanted for myself in twenty years." I hold her gaze without flinching. "And I'm done being a coward."
Something breaks in her expression. The armor she's worn since I walked out finally cracks completely. Tears spill down her cheeks. Not dramatic sobbing. Silent devastation she's been holding back with sheer will.
She breaks apart in my arms.
I hold her through it. Through the trembling. Through the grief. Through the release of tension she's carried alone for too long because no one ever stayed long enough to help carry it.
"I thought you weren't coming back," she whispers against my chest.
"I know." I press my lips to her hair. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
"Everyone leaves."
"Not me." The promise settles into my bones like an oath. "Not anymore."
She cries until there's nothing left. I hold her until the shaking stops. Until her breathing steadies. Until she finally looks up at me with red-rimmed eyes and something fragile in her expression.
Hope. Despite everything, hope.
"The baby," she starts.
"Is yours," I finish. "Whatever you decide, whatever you need, I'm here. All of it."
Her laugh is watery but real. "You're impossible."
"Frequently. But reliably so."
She kisses me then. Soft and searching and tasting of salt. I kiss her back with everything I should have said two days ago. Everything I was too afraid to feel. Every promise I intend to keep.
When we finally break apart, she's almost smiling.
"Stay," she says. "Please."
"Always."
The word feels like coming home. And for the first time in twenty years, I mean it completely.
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