CHAPTER ELEVEN

Z IA STOOD JUST out of reach, looking like some beautiful statue. A paragon of fertility and female beauty. Regal. Knowing. The light from outside shining on her like some kind of beacon.

For a moment, just a flash, Cristhian could picture himself on his knees worshipping at her very feet.

The problem with love, mi princesa , is that it is beyond our control. And we are beyond theirs.

Sometimes he preferred to think of memories as dreams, rather than flashes of his childhood.

But that voice in his head was his father’s—American accent and all—and the image of his parents together, while she cried over some royal slight, was real. Stuck in his head. Because once his father had seen him there, he’d beckoned him over. Insisted they go on a picnic. And his mother had stopped crying. They had enjoyed a perfect afternoon.

That happy memory, of that picnic, of his father’s love, was the reason he felt this way. It had nothing to do with her . He wouldn’t allow it. Things were too complicated already.

Weren’t they?

Cristhian took a step back before what he realized he was doing. Retreat? Never . He lifted his chin, continued to study her. But this did not help. She was some beautiful siren, luring him off course.

“I liked her,” Zia said at last. “You made an excellent choice.”

“I am glad. She will remain on property until the children are born.”

Something flitted through her expression he did not quite recognize, but she put one hand over her stomach in a protective gesture, as if she was afraid of...something.

A sharp, curling need took him over then. It was the only way to explain it. He moved toward her. “You will have the best of everything, Zia.” He touched her shoulder, couldn’t seem to stop himself, even though he had never been any good at comfort . But he had to do something to assuage that fear. “There is nothing to worry about.”

She huffed out a little laugh. “Only a man could say that. There is so much to worry about.” Still, she put her hand over his on her shoulder and smiled up at him. “But I appreciate the... I know we want the same thing. Two happy, healthy babies.”

“Yes.” But it felt like she was leaving something out.

He didn’t want to think at all about what it might be. Because his children would come first. Before his own happiness. And hers. He would organize their lives so that everything turned out better than his had.

It put them at a crossroads, because he knew she put herself first. She had made that clear to him, and he would not let her do that to his children. His children would never know this conflict between them, though. Cristhian would ensure it.

He wanted Zia, yes. With a need that was blinding him to what was necessary. What was right. Such was her power, but he was a man in control of himself. In control of everything.

He could leave.

He would leave.

But her hand was on his. Her body so close. That lush mouth of hers tilted up, just within reach. A taste... What was a little taste? It would just keep her thinking love was an option.

Perhaps she would even mistake it for love. He could kiss her and maintain control. Because if she loved him, that would be all the control he needed.

Warning bells sounded in his head. The kind he listened to in his work. Those gut feelings he never took for granted. Because so often they told him where he was making a misstep, warned him he was going down a wrong path.

Today, he ignored them and pressed his mouth to hers. Just another small taste. Not for him, but to fool her. Her.

She met his kiss, pressed her palms to his cheeks as she lifted to her toes to get a better angle. Sweet and lovely, with enough bite to send a jolt through his system.

Control. I am in control .

He was sure of it.

“The doctor said it was safe,” she whispered against his mouth. He looked down at her, and those siren-green eyes, a myriad of colors he was drowning in.

Because it was a simple sentence, but her expression showed a variety of complexity behind that it.

Safe . Not just safe, but here Zia stood giving him the go-ahead. When it was not safe for either of them. It was just like that first and only night. A loss of control. No doubt full of consequences that would echo through them forever.

He knew what consequences did. He knew what happened when he gave up his control.

He kissed her anyway. Deep and hard, pouring months and months of frustration into her. Because how he had dreamed of her against his will. How he had wanted her and been unable to want anyone or anything else.

She had ruined him somehow, and this felt like control. Like reclaiming...something. So he claimed her mouth. He lifted her shirt off her and let it fall to the ground, claiming her breasts, the stomach where she carried their children.

So perfect, lush and vibrant. He remembered with a ferocity it didn’t do to dwell on every inch of her, but she had changed. Become fuller, softer. So he cataloged this new version of her, laying her out on the bed, naked and perfect just for him. He studied her, with his hands, with his mouth. Until she was all but sobbing out his name, writhing there on this large bed.

His. His. Because together they created something bigger than themselves. Not just the result of their night together, but this all-encompassing thing that stripped him of his control, his certainty. Stripped him of everything he was.

Because in this moment all he could be was hers .

He stripped himself of his own clothes, slid his palms along her inner thighs, opening her for him. He slid into her in one long, slow stroke, the wave of pleasure and right sweeping through him like an eruption. As if things had not been right since she’d left his bed that morning, and now they finally could be again.

She cried out, shuddering around him almost immediately. So responsive, always, like they had been designed to bring out a pleasure in each other that no one else could even begin to know.

So he moved, slow and steady, drawing her up that heady peak once more. Watching as the pleasure chased over her gorgeous features. He watched her mouth form his name, and he felt her lose herself once more around him.

He roared out his own release as she held on to him, strong and sure. But it left him feeling none of those things. Fear sneaked in under all the swirling pleasure as she rolled into him, as he pulled her close.

He held her too tight, he knew. This was out of his control. Beyond his rules. He had crossed all his own lines, and he had to get them back into place. The only way to take hold of this situation was to make certain everything happened the way he saw fit.

“You will marry me, Zia.”

He shouldn’t have said it. He didn’t know what had come over him. Just a need to have everything right and in place and her to be...

Mine .

But not that. Not in that way. Just in the way that...that they would... That would allow him to make everything right. Make the world right.

For his children. That was all.

Zia was amazed that someone could ruin something so thoroughly and so quickly. For a moment, the pleasure and joy of finding what they had had their first night had completely taken her over. There’d been some sliver of hope that something...good and right could come out of all of this.

Then he’d crushed it. While the orgasm still pulsed through her. She wriggled away from his too-tight grip, from that fervent, nearly wild gaze.

Maybe later she could consider what that lack of control on his face meant. Maybe later she could give him some benefit of the doubt. But in the here and now? The only way to protect herself was to lash out.

“So, that’s not a question,” she said, searching the floor for her clothes. When she couldn’t find them, she jerked a blanket off the bed and wrapped it around her.

He made a sound perilously close to a growl. “It is the appropriate course of action.”

“Have you been talking to my father? You sound just like him.” Which was possibly only an insult in her mind. But one that showed her just how stupid she could be. Leave it to her to be so consumed by a man as obsessed with control as any king.

He pulled on his pants, somehow looking perfectly businesslike and in control while she no doubt looked like a ridiculous potato wrapped in his blanket.

He seared her with a look. “You cannot take me to your bed and oppose marriage.”

“I think you’ll find that not only can I, but I do.”

“You are being contrary for the sake of it.”

She shook her head, even though a little voice in her head whispered, Aren’t you? But as contrary as she could be, this wasn’t about anything like that. Because it wasn’t about her. It was about their future, and how she could ensure it was the right one for their children.

“No, Cristhian. I will not go from one controlling ogre to another. I will have some say in my life, and so will my children.”

“Our children.”

“ Our means we share. Our means there are two people involved. Our means you don’t just get to...order things and have them be so. Our is a compromise.”

He held his jaw so tight now it was a wonder he didn’t crush his own teeth to dust. Anger simmered in his eyes, but when he spoke, he sounded very calm. Very cool.

“It is interesting that you feel qualified to give lectures on what our means, when everything you demonstrate is that you are only interested in you .”

It shouldn’t hurt. She shouldn’t let him fool her into thinking they were more than strangers. A few days of meals and conversations didn’t mean you knew someone well enough to...

It didn’t matter. Whatever she thought or didn’t, he clearly saw her as someone too selfish to understand an our . “Is that what you think of me?” she asked, trying to use his calm, cool tone.

He did not answer right away. He stared at her, his entire body seemingly taut like it was ready to explode. But he didn’t do that, she’d give him some credit there.

“I was hoping that you would be willing to be reasonable,” he said after a long, strained moment of silence.

“You were hoping that good sex would lead me to believe we were in love and should be married immediately.” Which nearly made her want to cry. That he’d just been using it as a weapon, not this irresistible need she had felt it was. “What you fail to understand is that I already knew the sex was good, Cristhian. That is not the concern.” She pointed at the rumpled bed. “This isn’t some new experience that was about to change my mind about anything.”

His expression went...arrested, almost. Like she’d stabbed him straight through and he was surprised to find it hurt. She didn’t know what to think of that, or why it should make her feel small and hurting.

Then he smoothed it all out. Back to in-control, certain Cristhian Sterling who ruled the world. “I will contact your father immediately and inform him that you have been found, and we will be married.”

It was absolutely ridiculous that she was shocked. Hurt . She knew better. But somehow...he’d fooled her. “What happened to the possibility of love?”

He eyed her, like she was some...piece of gum stuck to the bottom of his shoe, as if gum would dare. “I thought you could be reasonable. I thought, perhaps, there was a possibility that underneath the pampered princess veneer, there was a woman who could see beyond herself to the life she could give her children. Now that I see that I was wrong, we will proceed my way.”

She was struggling to breathe normally, to keep the tears that wanted to fall in check. She would be strong. For those children he didn’t think she cared about. Because she would not be a doormat. She would not bend for him. Because Zia knew, deep and personal, that a mother like that wasn’t a good mother at all.

“I won’t say yes.”

“I won’t need you to.” And with that, he left her room with quick, certain strides. So fast she couldn’t even find the words to argue with him.

He couldn’t force her to marry him. No matter what he said.

I will call your father.

What had happened? She sank onto the edge of the bed, at a total loss. How had sex turned into this...this? How had thinking they could find some common ground flipped so quickly?

What had she done so wrong?

She shook her head. No, she wouldn’t blame herself. Well, not fully. She had made mistakes, yes. She had let her guard down, and then she had let something as foolish as chemistry cloud her good judgment.

Because it was good judgment to not want to jump into marriage. If they married, he would have all the say. Over her, over the children. There would be no compromise.

He could talk about love all he wanted, but she had nothing to offer him. No way to protect a man like him. How could he love what essentially was a useless object to him?

For the first time, she pictured those children. Cristhian ordering them the way her father had ordered her. She would stand up for them, of course, like her mother never had.

But in this new visualization, with actual children, with Cristhian, she almost thought she understood why her mother caved.

Because what was worse? The caving to avoid the explosion, or the explosions themselves? If she fought Cristhian in front of their children, was that really any better for them? She had never witnessed her mother put up a fight, and she’d always thought she wanted to.

But now...with her in the mother role, she wasn’t so sure. That wouldn’t feel safe to two little children. Angry parents, conflicting parents.

So how did she make this right?

She pulled out her phone with shaky hands.

Beau. I need help...