Page 70 of Modern Romance September 2026 Books 1-4

‘I made the first move,’ he reminded her, probably unwisely.

A delicate stain of pink warmed her cheeks. ‘And I didn’t say no. I know you want to take sole responsibility for this, but you can’t, Isandro. You should blame me for—’

‘No,’ he interrupted, because letting her take the blame was just not happening. ‘The press are always harder on women, you know this. You’ll be destroyed in the media, and I won’t have my queen’s reputation suffering any more than it has to.’

Her pretty mouth tightened, but she said nothing. She knew as well as he did that he was right, no matter how much she didn’t like it.

‘I’m the King,’ he went on. ‘And while my reputation might be tarnished for a time, it’ll recover eventually.’ It wasn’t ideal by any stretch, especially given how important not tarnishing his reputation was to him. But Wren’s wouldn’t survive this, so if he had to sacrifice his spotless record for a year or so to help her, he would do it.

‘Fine,’ she said, biting the word off as if it tasted bad. ‘You don’t need me to help you craft anything.’

‘No, but I do need you to confirm it.’

‘Why bother?’ There was challenge in her eyes, and a defiance that had never been part of their working relationship. ‘I’m only here to do your bidding anyway.’

‘Wren.’

‘What?’ Every part of her was drawn tight, as if she was trying to keep something inside her and was afraid of it getting out. ‘It’s true, Isandro. You’ve commanded me here, and now you’re going to marry me, and I have no say in any of it. So why bother with it now?’

He said nothing. What could he say? It was the truth after all.

Then abruptly, she said, ‘If you’ll excuse me, I need to go and lie down.’ Then she rose from the chair and, without waiting for him to speak, turned and walked out.

Chapter Three

Wren woke the next morning to a relentless sense of dread. After the meeting in Isandro’s study where she’d walked out, she’d made straight for the familiar set of rooms that she used whenever she was in the palace.

The place was a warren of corridors and stairs, and since those rooms were far away from the royal apartments, it took her a good five minutes to get to them. But once she had, she’d shut the door, gone straight to the bed, and slept dreamlessly for at least ten hours.

The past month had been all early pregnancy exhaustion, sickness, and the anxiety had meant a lot of sleepless nights, so she should be feeling much better after a sleep like that, but she wasn’t. Not when her head was full of Isandro’s hard expression, his authoritative tone, and his flat insistence about everything.

It hurt. He’d seemed to her a stranger the day before, a man she didn’t know and didn’t want to know, either. And it scared her. This whole mess of a situation scared her, especially when he’d reminded her about her own reputation and how the press were always harder on women.

She’d tried to keep it together as she’d sat in her usual chair in his office, but she couldn’t stop remembering all the times she’d been in there. When they’d talked over campaigns and issues, and solved problems. When they’d laughed and talked about other things too, world events, their lives, their opinions and their dreams.

He never closed the door of his office while she was with him, which had been a good thing. An open door meant they could be seen, their conduct noted, and so they’d had to keep things appropriate for work.

She’d loved those times, even with the open door. She’d loved talking to him, listening to him speak about things that excited him and interested him, and she’d loved the way he’d listened to her in return.

Then of course there was the memory of his fingers closing around her upper arms, and the shock of being pulled against his hard, hot body. And his mouth finally—finally—on hers. She’d felt like Sleeping Beauty being woken with a kiss…

Painful memories, and so at odds with the present, which had been her, pregnant and exhausted, sitting on that chair, listening to him talk about how he was going to take the blame for the whole thing, because that was the kind of noble idiot he was.

She’d wanted to reach across the desk and touch his cheek, tell him he was being ridiculous. She’d wanted to push her fingers into the thick black silk of his hair and kiss his stern, unforgiving mouth.

But she couldn’t. She wouldn’t. Touching him in any way would be so bad for her. It would hurt her in ways she couldn’t bear to think about. Especially given his anger towards her. He hadn’t said anything specifically, but the distance he’d radiated at the airport and on the silent drive back to the palace said more than enough about how furious he was.

It almost made her regret her decision to leave. Then again, the outcome wouldn’t have changed. Either way, she was going to have to suffer through what was essentially a shotgun wedding, except it wasn’t her father holding the shotgun, it was Isandro himself.

Eventually, Wren hauled herself out of bed and went into the bathroom, hoping a shower would make her feel better, which it did. Standing under the warm water, letting it flow over her bare skin, she knew she was going to have to make a decision.

She wasn’t accustomed to feeling so powerless, and Isandro had never treated her like one of his subjects, so it was only natural to feel awful about it. He had all the power, while the only power she had was the fact that she was pregnant with his child.

Which meant she had to use it. She had to take control of this situation somehow, and stop letting him call all the shots. Yes, he was the King, but, as he’d reminded her yesterday, she was no longer his employee. She was now his fiancée, and that put her in a different position.

Marriage was inevitable, he’d made that clear, but if he thought he could decide what kind of marriage they would have, he had another think coming. She couldn’t control public opinion, or what anyone thought of her, but she could control herself and her response to it. She could control her response to him, too.

In fact, she already knew what kind of response she was going to give him. The kind she had to give him. It was not and could not be a marriage of the heart, not when it had been forced on both of them. It couldn’t be a physical marriage, either, not for her. It would be too hard sharing his bed, all the while knowing that was all of him he’d ever share. Perhaps she was wrong in that, perhaps, over time, he might share more, but she couldn’t risk it. And she couldn’t wait for him to dictate terms. She had to be committed in setting boundaries for the sake of her heart, and her future happiness, especially with a child on the way.