The call came at 7:03 a.m. Paris time.
I was curled against Theo's chest, still sticky and half-asleep, when his phone vibrated so hard it nearly fell off the nightstand. The screen lit up with a single word: Maman.
He stared at it like it might explode.
"Answer it," I mumbled into his skin, tasting salt and last night's sex on his throat.
He exhaled a curse in French, swiped accept, and put it on speaker.
"Marguerite," he greeted, voice gravel and dread.
A pause so sharp it cut. Then the dowager princess's voice (cool, precise, lethal) filled the bedroom.
"Theodore. You have exactly thirty seconds to explain why I woke to photographs of your hand on a pregnant woman's stomach splashed across every gossip site from here to Tokyo."
Theo's arm tightened around me. "Because I'm in love with her and she's carrying my child. Next question."
Another deadly pause.
