Free The Prince's Scandalous Baby by Holly Rayner

happening.
     
    She walked up the stairs to the grand front entrance. It probably wouldn’t be open, she knew, but she had to try anyway. Better that than being sick into the perfectly manicured bushes.
     
    To Juliette’s surprise, the door handle gave way under her gentle pressure. She was relieved for only a moment, however, before her heart dropped all the way into her tumultuous stomach.
     
    There, standing just a few feet away from her, was Rafaele—King of Campania.

 
    TWELVE

“Won’t you come in, dear?”
     
    The King’s words were kind, but his tone was not. Juliette recognized his voice immediately as the one she had heard on the phone. The icy chill it had had before was only more intense in person.
     
    She followed his gesturing hand inside the house, and wandered forward as he led her into the salon.
     
    The view was still amazing. The frescoes—the ones she’d been too upset to look at on her way out—were easier to see in the daylight than they had been at night. They were beautiful. She found herself fixating on them. Something gorgeous in the midst of all this uncertainty. It was a small comfort.
     
    “Please,” the King said, pulling her attention away from the walls. “Won’t you sit down?”
     
    Two large, uncomfortable-looking wooden chairs had been set in the middle of the living room. They hadn’t been here before, Juliette knew. She imagined they’d been brought in just for the purpose. They seemed out of place in the midst of all the signs of renovation around them.
     
    She sat in one of them, finding it exactly as uncomfortable as it had looked.
     
    “You are Juliette, correct?”
     
    Juliette cleared her throat to speak. It was the first time she’d spoken since she’d told the driver where to go, and her voice sounded weak even to her own ears.
     
    “Yes, I am.”
     
    “And you’ve been attempting to contact my son, have you not?”
     
    She nodded. Her eyes were large, she knew. It probably made her look even more out of place than she already felt, but she couldn’t change it. Something about the man and the situation terrified her.
     
    “Ah, what am I doing?” the King said. His tone had gotten a little bit friendlier—or at least he’d tried to make it so. To Juliette, the malevolent tones underneath still rang through. “I’ve been drinking a lovely Pinot as I’ve been waiting for you. Would you like a glass?”
     
    He was putting on a show as though he had just remembered he had it on hand, and that it would be a good thing to offer to a guest. He hadn’t forgotten. It wasn’t a coincidence. Juliette felt her blood boil just as it had the last time she was here. Only this time, her ire was directed at a more deserving target.
     
    “No, thank you,” she said, quietly. This was a trap.
     
    He smiled at her widely, but not kindly. “I’m afraid I insist! Any friend of my son’s is a friend of mine, and I always like to share an afternoon glass of wine with my friends. Will you refuse the King of Campania?”
     
    “Why don’t you just come out and say it?” Juliette said. She could feel her hands trembling as she clasped them in her lap.
     
    “You want to speak plainly? Very well, then. It will save us both some time.”
     
    He set down the glass he’d been offering her on the floor beside him. A servant appeared from nowhere and whisked it away. The King’s servants were probably all like that, Juliette imagined—chosen for their ability to just fade into the background.
     
    “You are not to first girl with a baby in her belly to try to come crying to the Prince.”
     
    She didn’t like his way of talking. It was grand and cruel at the same time. But then, it was the content of his words that Juliette found most objectionable. If the Prince had other children, where were they? Was he always so careless? Why had she been so careless?
     
    She had so many questions, but she only had space in the air between them for one.
     
    “My