Pregnant with the Prince's Child Read Online Free Page A

for weeks.
    “Uh…what is your condition exactly?” she asked, knowing she might be opening a can of worms she wasn’t going to be able to control, once opened. She wanted to hear from him just what he felt was damaging and dangerous—and why he didn’t seem to remember things he should know by heart.
    He grimaced, looking annoyed at the question. “Shrapnel from an IED. Most of it removed, but some slivers still close to the spine. Broken collarbone that’s already mostly healed. Traumatic brain injury that doesn’t seem to be as bad as they first thought.” His voice took a bitter tone. “But either that, or the induced coma they put me in, seems to have wiped out a chunk of my life. Like, the last two years. Hope to get them back at some point.” He looked at her wearily.
    “You…you don’t remember anything?”
    “Nope. All gone.”
    She stared at him, speechless. He had amnesia? Their love, their marriage, the things he’d caught her doing—everything gone, like wiping a slate clean? She could hardly breathe. And she could hardly believe it was true.
    His face darkened as he watched her reaction. “You’re a funny sort of medical guard,” he said, almost angry. “Where’s your hard, Nurse Ratched attitude?”
    Still stunned, she was having trouble working up anything coherent to say. She shook her head, blinking rapidly.
    He made a gesture of disgust. “Listen, just go and leave me alone,” he said, shifting against the pillows. “I really don’t need anybody here. I’m okay. Just get out, why don’t you....”
    His voice broke and he gasped, turning to find relief from whatever was torturing him. She bit her lip. Obviously, the pain medication hadn’t kicked in, or wasn’t working. His eyes were closed and he was breathing unevenly.
    She stared at him, still so beautiful, but with a line of bitterness around his mouth and a slow, smoldering sorrow that she’d noticed in his blue eyes. He looked like a man who’d had too much suffering and didn’t want to have any more.
    What had happened to him? What had made him lose his memory? And why didn’t he respond to her the way she still responded to him? Had it all been a sham from the beginning? That thought made a bitter taste rise in her throat and she pushed it away.
    He began to look better again. Whatever had been torturing him seemed to have weakened and she decided to attribute his bad attitude to pain and leave it at that. In another moment, he took a deep breath and straightened, looking almost normal.
    “What shall I call you?” she asked as he blinked toward her in the light.
    “Are you still here?” he asked, looking surprised. “I gave you every opportunity to go.”
    “I don’t scare all that easily,” she told him with a twisted smile. “What shall I call you?” she asked again.
    “Mykal will do.” He didn’t smile back but he didn’t look angry anymore. “If you really think you can handle it here, we might as well operate as though we were friends.” A shadow passed over his eyes. “God knows it’s going to be hard to find a friend soon. I’m afraid I’m being drawn into a world where such things can’t last.”
    She had no idea what he was talking about, but she didn’t ask.
    “So what is the deal with your memory loss?” she said instead.
    He gave her a mock wounded expression. “Do you know how hard it is to talk about something you can’t remember?” He shifted his position carefully. “I lost over two years of my life. But it doesn’t really bother me unless someone brings it up.”
    “Oh.” She made a grimace of apology. “Sorry.”
    He grinned as though happy to be able to set her back a bit. “No problem,” he said. “Troublemaker,” he muttered, just to tease her.
    It warmed her, this back and forth. It was very like what they’d done together all the time in the old days.
    “You don’t wonder what you did?” she asked him. “All that time.”
    “I’ve been told what I did.