"What did you say?"

"I had a baby. Nine months after I left."

He paces back and forth in the small room, letting my words sink in.

He swings his head toward me. "How do you know it's ours?"

"There was no one before you. For a long time. And no one after you at all."

"You are certain?"

"A hundred percent." I watch him nervously, waiting to see how he'll react.

He frowns. "Why did you not tell me this before?"

"You kidnapped me away from my home. I wouldn't do anything to put my son in danger."

"You think I am a danger?" he says, his voice rising. He balls up his fists by his sides, the veins in his hand popping out. He definitely has a temper.

"No," I say, picking my words carefully. "I just had to be... careful. Had to see whether you would make good on your promise to help your people. I had to know what kind of man you are."

His face is shocked, surprised I am questioning his integrity. But I feel completely justified. What woman would bring her child around a man who breaks his promises?

"And?"

"So far, you're proving you are. That's why I'm telling you this now."

He paces back and forth in the tiny room.

Then, he looks at me and his face lights up with happiness. It's like a neighborhood of Christmas lights coming on all at once. It's like nothing I've ever seen from him before. His happiness is contagious.

He seizes me in a bear hug. "My little pet!" he exclaims. He steps back and looks at me, his hands on my shoulders. "You are the mother of my child."

I nod, and although I still feel nervous about bringing the baby here, I can't help but crack a grin.

"You," he says, shaking his head in disbelief. "This is incredible. A boy or girl?"

"A boy. Are you happy?"

"I have never heard better news in my life," he says with a grin. "What did you name him?"

"Josh."

He nods his head. "A good biblical name."

"Yes."

"We must bring him here at once." I can see the gears start to turn in Nikolai's head.

"No. Not yet," I say. I replay in my mind the scene of the two men breaking into my apartment. I don't want them anywhere near my child.

Nikolai grits his teeth. "You tell me I have a son, and now you wish to keep him from me?"

"I won't let you send your cronies to take my son like you took me," I say. "You have to do it my way."

"What is your way?"

"No traumatizing events. No men in black suits. No cargo planes."

"If he's truly my son, a bumpy plane ride won't harm him."

I almost chuckle at his logic. Almost.

"My way. Or I don't tell you where he is. Send a woman. Send Marcha."

"Our son," he corrects me. "You think you have sole authority over this child?"

"No, I don't think that. But you weren't here for me when he was born." Just thinking about it makes me mad. All the sleepless nights in my shitty new studio apartment. My lost job. All the spaghettios.

"Jenna," he says, stepping toward me and taking my hands in his. "I let you go because I wished to do right by you. I tried to give you what you wanted."

"Whatever." I frown. I can't bring myself to forgive him for that. Not yet, at least. "You can bring our baby," I say. "But you have to order your men to be gentle. And you have to send Marcha with them."

He stops pacing and sits down. "Very well. Alright. It will take a while, then. Ten days, maybe. We have to go slow, be careful."

I nod. "Safety first. Our son can't protect himself like you can. Yet."

The men leave with Marcha the next day, and the following week passes slowly. I try to sleep the days away. I don't see much of Nikolai, who's busy with a corruption probe into the Caprion mayor's finances.

In the middle of the eighth night, Nikolai comes to me in my quarters. He gently shakes me awake and his face is the first thing I see when I open my eyes. He's freshly shaved and showered and his damp hair is tussled on his head. Damn, he's sexy.

"My little pet, I had to tell you the news. The baby is safely in North Molvania with my people. They'll arrive in the morning."

I can't sleep the rest of the night. I get out of bed, make it, and spend the early hours of the morning roaming the halls of the palace. I try to focus on anything but the slowly passing time.

Eventually, after hours of walking, I run into one of the guards who's usually posted outside Nikolai's quarters. He's obviously been looking for me. "M'lady," he says, "the Crown Prince wishes to see you in his quarters at once."

I follow the guard to Nikolai's room. He's waiting in the doorway, and ushers me in. When I'm inside, he locks both deadbolts.

"Come," he says, his voice excited. We enter the secret room through the closet.

There's Marcha, smiling and holding my baby.

Tears well up in my eyes as I take Josh from her arms. "Nikolai," I say, "You got our baby here safely."

He puts an arm around my shoulder. "I will never let you down."

I look up at him, cradling the baby in my arms. "Who else knows he's here?"

"Only three. My two most loyal men, and Marcha."

I look at Marcha and nod, thankful. "Your secret safe with me," she says, before excusing herself.

"My little pet," says Nikolai once she's gone, "I would like for you to move into my quarters starting tonight. You and the baby."

I think about his words, but my immediate reaction is no.

"I'm not ready for that," I say to him. I feel his temper rising, and I try to pre-empt it. "We'll see what happens. But I'm his mother, and I just want to be with him for now."

"We share responsibility for this baby. You agreed before I brought him here."

"I—we—just need time to acclimate." In this moment, I realize I don't sound anything like the old Jenna who used to work for EDGE. I guess becoming a mother is one of those things that changes you, calms you down. "Do you understand?"

He is silent for a minute, but eventually speaks. I can tell it's hard for him, but he forces a nod. "Very well," he says.

It feels so good to have Josh back in my arms. There's no crib in my quarters, so he lays with me in the king-size Victorian bed the first night. I feed him, and one of the female nannies brings me some diapers. They're the old-style cloth kind, thick and soft. They sure beat the Pull-Ups that I used back in the States.

I'm going to need a crib for the room sooner or later, because he's starting to crawl on his own. Can't have him crawl off the bed when I'm not looking.

The bond I feel with my child is unlike anything I've experienced before. I never saw myself as the type of girl to have a baby at all, and certainly not the baby of a man I hardly knew. But there's something about Nikolai. Something very special. I guess my genes just can't resist him. But my baby is the most precious thing to me in the world.

And that's why I'm not comfortable bringing the baby into Nikolai's quarters. I mean, I'm sure he'll protect the baby. It just feels too soon.

Still, I want him to be a part of Josh's life.

I decide to start with baby steps.

Three days after Josh is back in my arms, he and I meet Nikolai in his quarters for a late catered dinner. We've been staying out of the dining hall to avoid attracting the King's attention.

"Hey," I say to Nikolai, "What do you have on deck for tomorrow afternoon?"

"Meeting with Caprion city planners in the morning. That's all."

"Wanna go for a walk with me and the baby?"

He laughs, as if the idea of a walk is ridiculous.

"Huh?" I ask. Josh is in my arms, squirming. He's getting stronger every day.

"A walk is simply... so pedestrian."

"Yeah. That's the definition of pedestrian."

He ignores my jab. "A royal baby ought to do something more dignified than a mere walk." He ponders for a few seconds. "An equestrian outing is what we shall do."

"A what?"

He shakes his head at me. "Commoner girl."

"Hey," I snap at him, before he interrupts me.

He winks at me. "Just a joke. A horseback ride. On my prizewinning, thoroughbred racehorse, Buick."

"I don't know," I say apprehensively. "Horses are huge. Unpredictable. No place for a baby."

"Nonsense. A properly-trained horse is a tame and mellow beast. You will see."

The next afternoon, Nikolai's drivers take us out to a meadow beyond the borders of Caprion. There's a horse stable with five or six horses. They're all huge and strong. It doesn't take an expert to tell that they're top-quality animals.

"Wow," I say. "These all belong to you?"

He laughs. "They do. But each of them has been bequeathed to friends of mine. Except for one," he says, pointing to the single bright white one. "Buick is the strongest of the lot, and he is the one we shall ride."

Nikolai wears khakis and a golfing polo shirt. He looks surprisingly western for being the dictator of North Molvania. I think about poking fun of him for it, but I think better of it. He's so handsome though. Put him in the corner office of an office building in the States, and he'd have all the secretaries' eyes on him the first day on the job. The more I look at him, the more I realize he has those classic good looks. The kind that attracts women by the bushels, but also the kind that makes for... well, a damn hot dad.

But I'm having second thoughts about the horse ride. "I don't know," I tell him, clutching Josh against my chest in a baby sling. "What if he falls?"

Nikolai looks incredibly self-assured, to the extent that it actually inspires confidence in me. "My little pet, do you think I would do anything to hurt our little boy?"

"Accidents can happen," I point out. God, I sound like an ancient fossil now. I was never concerned about what was safe before having the baby. I was only concerned with blowing up the status quo, exploring, and having fun. I feel like that part of me is gone now, but I dare not let anything happen that could hurt my little boy.

"Watch," says Nikolai. "This beast is tame." He swings up onto the horse, his body lithe and powerful, successfully mounting the horse from the ground. I'm taken aback by the air he gets on his vertical jump.

"The horse doesn't even have a saddle," I say, looking up at him. He's six-foot-six on a short day, but up there on the horse, he must be nine or ten feet tall. But I get the feeling that's how tall he feels on a daily basis, the entire palace and country under his thumb.

He rides confidently, and I see his calf muscles bulge through his pants as he clamps down on the horse between his legs, latching himself onto the animal.

I've never been a big horse person, but damn, there's something really sexy about seeing a man like him taming a giant beast like Buick. He doesn't need any equipment. Just his bare hands and his body.

"Hiya," he barks, his voice gruff and low. He slaps the horse with his bare palm, and it takes off across the meadow, bounding through the tall grass. I'm deathly afraid that he's going to go flying off the animal without a saddle to keep him put, but he doesn't. Instead, he expertly navigates the animal around the meadow with just his bare hands, not even using reins.

When he completes a circuit around the meadow, he returns to where I'm standing with Josh in my arms, and slows to a stop. The horse's gallop is magnificent.

I reach out with one hand and pet its nose. It licks me with a very sandpapery tongue.

"My little pet," he says, "are you yet convinced?"

I am genuinely impressed. I nod. "I've never seen anything like that before."

He grins and winks at me from atop Buick. "One of my many skills."

"Okay," I say. "Josh can do it, but I'm going up there with him."

Nikolai shrugs. "Then follow me. You will mount the horse from a platform. I'm not taking risks with my child either."

He trots the horse slowly to a platform with metal stairs pushed up against it. I climb up, and it puts me high enough to step onto the horse. I clutch Josh in my arms tightly as I do. Nikolai puts his strong hands around my waist, guiding me onto the horse like I weigh nothing.

I have to admit that I had doubts when we first came to the stable. But when I feel his strong, capable arms around me, it melts the fear away like ice on a summer day.

He trots the horse slowly, holding me steady in front of him. I've only ridden horseback once in my life, when I was a little girl. The sensation of being on this thoroughbred beast is completely different. It feels powerful, dangerous. But Nikolai's presence assures me everything will be okay.

He speeds the horse up to a gallop, and soon we're circling the field. I grin, feeling the air wash over me. Josh makes cooing noises, enjoying the ride. Nikolai moves one hand off my waist, and puts it on my hand. I squeeze back as we thunder through the afternoon, all riding together on Buick.

When we finish up, we go into the air conditioned stable. I unwrap the sling from my shoulder and hand Josh to Nikolai.

"Here," I say, "Hold him while I wash up."

I don't know if I've ever seen Nikolai's face beam so widely.

I wash up in the bathroom, and when I come out, I crack the door to watch them. Nikolai is holding Josh in his strong hands, gently rocking him, looking down into his eyes lovingly.

Yeah, I think to myself. That baby is safe in his arms.

The night after the horseback ride, I'm back in my quarters snoozing on my bed. Josh is laying on my chest, and he's finally fallen asleep. I do my best not to wake him. When you have a baby that young, any minute of peace and quiet is sacred, not to be interrupted.

But we're both interrupted, rather forcefully, by Nikolai busting through the door. He enters unannounced just like he always does.

Josh starts to cry, and I bolt upright.

I soothe him, bouncing him up and down in my arms, glaring at Nikolai.

"Why?" I say, annoyed.

But the look on Nikolai's face tells me that something is very wrong. He's holding a folded up paper in his hands—a newspaper, but printed on much lower quality stock than what we have in the United States.

He tosses it onto the bed in front of me, and it lands face up.

I can't read the Molvanian script that the articles and headline are written in, but I don't need to. The headline picture says it all.

It's the very same one that destroyed my career back in the United States. The one of me and Nikolai naked in the hammock on the roof of the palace.

And this time, the story is being carried not by tabloids—those don't exist here—but by the one newspaper that does exist. 

The official state newspaper.

“Damnit!" I say, and Josh starts to bawl again on my lap. Exasperated, I hold him against my shoulder, patting him on the back, trying to calm him down. "Is there anything about the baby?"

He shakes his head. "No. Thank god."

"How the hell did this happen? This regime has an iron grip on the information crossing the borders."

"It does," says Nikolai wearily. "And that's exactly the problem."

"What do you mean?"

"Think about it. It's in the paper because someone high up wanted it there. Who," he says, looking straight into my eyes, "would want that?"

I instantly know what he's getting at.

The King.

“Oh, man,” I say. "He really wants me gone."

Nikolai nods grimly. "I haven't spoken with my father in months. We've been at increasing odds. He seems hell-bent on destroying you and I. But this goes beyond us. I suspect he is lining up another successor to the throne. He does not trust me to carry on the legacy he has built."

"And you're not going to, are you?"

He shakes his head. "You have changed me. This baby has changed me. I could not stand to see him grow up in a country such as this. We must open our borders. Liberalize. Bring this country into the 21st century."

I almost can't believe the words coming out of his mouth. "You realize that if you step down from power, you will cement your place in history as one of the greatest and wisest leaders. Dictators never give up their power."

He winces at the word "dictators."

"It was never my intention to rule with an iron fist. I was born into a royal bloodline and I make no apologies for that. But you have opened my eyes. The people of North Molvania deserve better than what the government gives them now."

My trust in Nikolai is building rapidly. I'm amazed by the words coming out of his mouth. I spent four years studying world politics, and not once did I read of a monarch willingly ceding power.

He's nothing like I thought before I met him.

"How is this going to go down?" I ask.

Nikolai sighs, running a hand through his thick dark hair. Then he uses the back of his hand to wipe beads of sweat off his forehead.

"A parent's love is strong," he says, "and so is a son's." He looks at Josh, who's finally stopped crying in my arms.

"Do you think he could ever turn against you one day?"

"Don't say that!" I exclaim.

"Exactly. The King is a problem that must be dealt with. But whatever else he is, he is still my father."

I nod, understanding what he's saying. Damn. What a position to be put in. Going up against your own father.

"But I see no alternative. A coup is required."

"A coup? You mean, seizing power from him?" 

"Yes. And my hope is that it can be a bloodless revolution."

I nod. "So what do we do?"

"That is the difficult part," he says. "My father, he has feelers and informants all throughout the government."

"You do, too."

He nods tentatively. "That is true, but not nearly to the extent he does. You must understand, he's had a lifetime to entrench his own power. He will not willingly give it up, nor will he be easily displaced."

"So?" I say.

"We need someone close to him. Someone who will cooperate with us. But I fear that the only option we have may prove impossible."

"Who is it?"

"We must enlist my mother, the Queen. If she can be made to see our point of view, and to turn on my father, only then do we have a prayer."

I swallow hard.