Page 26 of Sheikh's Secret Love-Child

“Shona.” And with that, he flipped a switch. She could see it just as easily as she could hear it in his voice. She felt her spine straighten against her will. “This is not about you. This is not about any battle you seem to feel you need to keep fighting with me. This is about Miles.”

She swallowed, though it was harder than it should have been. “Miles doesn’t care how I dress.”

“I am certain he does not,” Malak said coolly. “But we are discussing my official coronation and what will happen there. Miles will be introduced as my son and heir, the crown prince to the throne of Khalia. This will be his first introduction to the kingdom and, more than that, to the world. Do you really want every eye to focus on you and the inappropriateness of your outfit? Is that what you want them to take away from their first exposure to your son?”

Her heart seemed to squeeze too tight at that question. As if she was actively failing her child when none of this was what she’d wanted in the first place.

“I didn’t agree to this. I didn’t agree to any parading of Miles in front of—”

“I have put this off for as long as I could already,” Malak said, still in that implacable way of his that made her fight to keep from showing her reaction. “It cannot be put off any longer. Miles is here now. He is happy. I cannot imagine he will view a stuffy, private ceremony any differently than he would one of his usual adventures in the palace. The worry is not Miles, Shona. It’s you.”

That bit of shame she’d felt before bloomed wider. Deeper and hotter. She sucked in a breath, amazed that something like this could get to her. Surely she shouldn’t care. Surely she should be sure enough of herself and who she was to scoff at the notion that the clothing she wore might make any kind of difference to her child.

Not your child, a voice inside said in a similarly implacable manner. But his prospects, his future.

And that was worse. That hurt more.

“You’re presenting him to your kingdom as your crown prince,” she said quietly, because there was no use arguing that he wasn’t just as happy and well-adjusted here as Malak had said he was. And it didn’t matter how she felt about that, or the fact that her baby had a role to play in this place whether she liked it or not. “You don’t need me there. What I wear while out of public view shouldn’t matter at all.”

Malak looked past her for a moment and did something with one eyebrow that sent Yadira hurrying from the room. Then he returned that imperious gaze of his to Shona.

“I have been patient with you,” he told her, though there was no evidence of that patience in his tone, then. Much less in his glittering dark green eyes. “You can spend every night between now and eternity arguing with me in the privacy of my rooms, if you wish. I welcome it. Perhaps I even crave it, since it is the only remnant I have left of the carefree life I will never have again, one in which people talk to me as if I do not have the power to end their lives with the click of my fingers.”

Shona swallowed. “Is that a threat?”

“I have allowed you to keep reality at bay too long, clearly. Is this really so much to ask, Shona? There is a certain way the mother of the crown prince of Khalia must look. Act. It is not to put you in a box or whatever your objection to it is today. It is to protect him. I am starting to believe it is not that you don’t see the truth of that, but that you do not want to see it.”

“Miles doesn’t care how I dress,” she said again. And more fiercely this time. “What I wear has absolutely nothing to do with him or the role you want him to play for you.”

“I wish that were so,” Malak replied, all ice and certainty. “Perhaps it is true where you come from, but this is Khalia. There are expectations of royal behavior, whether we like it or not. And the tragedy for you is that I have spent my life ignoring those expectations. I was a playboy. I was a disappointment. I was everyone’s favorite scandal without even trying. I reveled in the fact that I could be depended upon to horrify the good people of this kingdom without even rising from my bed in the morning, because it is all fun and games when there is no possibility that you might ever ascend the throne. But now I have.”

“My condolences,” Shona gritted out.

“What it means, sadly, is that everything I touch, everything going forward, must be excruciatingly correct to make up for all my misbehavior.”

“You seem to be under the impression that your life and your problems are somehow mine, too.” Her voice felt strangled in her own throat. Her chest felt much too tight, as if she might crack in two at any moment.

“What is it you want, Shona?” Malak demanded then, and though there was fire in that gaze of his, his voice was cold. “You do not want to be queen. You do not want to take on board even the smallest lesson my people try to teach you about how best to fit in here. You do not want to learn a single thing that might help you feel more comfortable in this world. You would prefer to stalk about the palace, scowling at everyone, making certain that even the lowliest maid knows full well you do not belong here and never will. Is that it? Is that truly what you want? Because you are already well on your way to achieving it, if so.”

That it was such an accurate description of her behavior over the past few weeks stung. But more than that, it was an apt description of her behavior in every foster home Shona had ever been thrown into.

And that rocked her.

Had nothing changed at all? She’d been out of the foster system for eight years, and a mother for four. Had she learned nothing in all that time? Was she still that same surly teenage girl, well aware that no one would ever happen along and adopt her at her age, and was therefore determined to push everyone away before they could do the same to her? Or worse?

It made her feel sick. It made her feel unsteady on her own feet.

It made her want to take a swing at the man who stood before her, so easily shredding her to pieces. He’d done it that night on his balcony. He did it, again and again, as she sat at his table. And now this.

She wanted to open her mouth and admit it. She wanted to act like the grown woman she’d fought so hard to become, for a change, not that eternally passed-over foster kid who hadn’t mattered to anyone. But she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t give away the only weapon she’d ever had, no matter that every time she used it she was really only hurting herself.

But she didn’t know how to stop.

“Every single thing that’s happened since you set foot in that restaurant in New Orleans has been about you,” she said instead, and she kept her gaze steady on him as if that could make her steady, too. As if it could change that rocking, rolling sensation beneath her feet. “Your life. Your kingdom. Your throne. Your son. You, you, you. And I get it. You’re the king, as you’ll be the first to remind me.” She found one fist over her heart and pressed it in, deep. “But I have my own life. And guess what? I have my own dreams. My own hopes. My own—”

“Wonderful,” he interrupted, in that same harsh tone. He moved closer to her, towering over her in a manner she should have found intimidating. But she didn’t. She felt...melty and too soft and lit on fire, but not intimidated. “Tell me your dreams, Shona. I will make them come true. This is what I do.”

“I want to be free,” she shot back at him.