bathroom door made hardly a sound as she shut it behind her.
He turned so that he could watch the clock. The test would take several minutes. He waited.
When the time came, he pushed back the covers and rose from the bed. He knew she wouldn’t lock the door.
She hadn’t. He turned the handle and pushed it open. And there she was, wearing a fluffy white robe, perched on the edge of the claw-footed tub, head bent over the test wand, her straight gold hair sleep-tangled, falling forward over her shoulders.
Something happened inside him right then as he stood naked in the doorway and stared at the vulnerable crown of her head. Something tore.
Something ripped wide open.
She looked up. Her face was white as her robe, the blue eyes haunted.
Up till now, he’d been able to keep his eyes on the prize—the prize being to get the mother of his child to marry him and come home with him where she belonged. My love, he had called her. And Darling Liv. It had all been in the nature of a delicious game, a game he had played for the joy and the challenge of it, his only goal: to win.
But all at once it was a game no longer. His mouth tasted of ashes as he recognized the moment for what it was: the moment of his own defeat.
‘‘Well?’’ The word emerged from his mouth sounding harsh, guttural.
She whispered, ‘‘I’m pregnant.’’
It was no surprise to Finn. He’d known she carried his child from the Sunday after Midsummer’s Eve, when her father called him to his chambers to tell him of the Freyasdahl signs and their meaning.
No, it wasn’t the news of a baby coming that stole his breath and gripped his belly to a fisted knot.
It was the sudden clear knowledge that he loved her.
Deeply.
Completely.
He loved her in a way he had never, ever meant to love anyone—the way his father had once loved his mother, the way that cut out all others and left him longing only for her.
He felt scraped raw, his flesh peeled away. Leaving him much worse than naked. Leaving him shamed and revealed: the seducer, seduced.
He looked into those stunned blue eyes and saw her doubts, her thousand and one denials. He knew her thoughts exactly. ‘‘You never believed you were pregnant, did you, until now?’’
She swallowed, her slim throat moving convulsively, and she shook her head.
‘‘And even though you know it now, you still don’t plan to marry me, do you?’’
She found her voice. She used it to sputter excuses, to stammer out halting evasions. ‘‘It’s just…so difficult. To believe. I, well, of course, somehow there’ll be a way. It’s going to be…challenging, but not impossible.’’
He knew what people called him. Player. Charmer. A man who changed lovers like most men change shirts. And it was true. He wanted to give pleasure. And take it. It was never his intention to love anyone too much or too long. He’d seen what that could do to a man.
Yet at the core he was Gullandrian. It was bred in the bone with him to make certain his children were born only to his wife.
What a vain, proud fool he’d been. He should have taken the advice of his king, should have kidnapped her that morning when she first refused him, should have kept her under lock and key until she’d agreed to marry him and the baby was born.
Then, Freyja curse her, she could have divorced him. What would it have mattered? His child would have his name; the goal would be won.
Yes, Liv would have hated him, but he wouldn’t have cared. Not in any deep way. He would hardly know her, after all. She wouldn’t have let him know her, had she been his captive. Not a woman like Liv. She’d have fought him every step of the way.
But no. He couldn’t simply take her and be done with it. He’d had to do it his way. He’d thought himself the smooth one, the one who understood the twenty-first century woman so well.
And now what? Now that her eyes told him so clearly, so regretfully, that she would never marry him. How in the name of all the nine worlds would he bring himself to carry her off and imprison her at Balmarran? Now that he loved her. Now that her happiness and high regard meant everything to him, more, even, than the right of his child to be born legitimate.
‘‘By Odin’s one eye, just say it,’’ he demanded low. ‘‘Just tell me. Once and for all. Will you marry me?’’
‘‘Oh, Finn. You know I can’t. I…I have things I…what I mean is, I just don’t think…’’
Before she could finish stuttering out her refusal, he turned and left her there.
‘‘Finn!’’ Liv jumped up to follow as he disappeared into the other room. She took one step and faltered. The wand that proved she was pregnant was still in her hand. She looked down at it, shook her head and dropped to the edge of the tub once more.
Finn had been right. She had never really believed.
Until now.
In the other room, she could hear him moving around. She didn’t understand his strange, abrupt reaction. It was so unlike him. Of the two of them, he was always the reasonable, levelheaded one. He took everything in stride, with a wink and smile and a clever remark.
She ought to get in there and talk to him, find out what was going on with him, but right at that moment, she was in no condition to find out anything. Right at that moment, she was, quite simply, reeling.
A baby…
It didn’t seem possible. It wasn’t…in the plan.
Liv wasn’t the one who was going to have the babies. Not for years and years yet. Elli was the one who’d have all the kids. In any case, Elli was supposed to have three or four of them before Liv got around to deciding if, just maybe, she dared to add a baby to all the other heavy responsibilities that would come with her powerhouse career.
A baby came under the heading: Hope so. Eventually.
After I’m established…
If I find the right husband, a nice, settled-down type of guy, a guy willing to change diapers and get up close and personal with the downside of parenthood: things like colic and late-night feedings, ferrying them around as they got older, taking them to the pediatrician and the orthodontist, checking into the best schools, monitoring their homework, making sure they ate right…
God. The list went on and on.
True, she’d been telling herself for two weeks that she might be pregnant. That maybe it was something she’d have to come to grips with soon.
But might and maybe were worlds away from the two solid blue lines in the little white wand.
It
