He was going to die. Slowly and painfully, and at my hands. Actually, I had people now. Honest to goodness people, some of whom were quite dangerous. I could have my people kill him and I could just sit here and pretend I wasn’t going to be the size of Jupiter for the rest of my life.

“And are you excited about the upcoming birth, Your Majesty?” asked the smarmy man in the bad suit with a thick German accent.

It was so tempting to unleash an attack of snark on him. The birth itself? Nope, not that excited to be screaming my head off while shoving a child out of my body and feeling like I was ripping in half from it. Having a baby? Sure, or else I wouldn’t be competing with the humpback whale for largest creature on the planet. And I had really, really enjoyed that whole baby-making process. Had been really excited about that. Whew, yeah, that was a good time.

But queens didn’t say stuff like that.

Or so I had been told.

So I did what queens do. I smiled my prettiest smile, blushed a little, and said, “Of course. The king and I are thrilled about welcoming this child into our family. We are very excited to be parents; it’s a wonderful thing. We couldn’t be more delighted.”

I could have vomited from my own sweetness.

He nodded as if he had been listening to what I had said, and jotted down something that probably said “the queen is an inflated cupcake” in German.

I glanced across the room at Lemon, hanging off to the side with some of her staff and mine. She was watching the interview with a wary sort of smile, and she widened her eyes at me meaningfully. She had promised this was the last interview I would have to do and that I could spend the rest of the month with my awesomely swollen ankles up, but I had to do it right.

You know, being queen and all.

That was so ridiculous. Queen Katerina of Monterra. I’d been crowned alongside Nico back in March, and I still wasn’t used to it. I mean, that’s not exactly something that a girl from a trailer park gets used to. The country seemed to like me well enough, probably because I was Cinderella living happily ever after with her prince.

King, I reminded myself. I was married to the king. Cue terrified fangirl squeal.

Nico, of course, was perfect at it and had more fans than he’d ever had before. Everybody adored him. Even those weirdos that didn’t like him had to admit that he was dang good at his job. He could charm a garbage can into becoming a disco ball in less than three sentences.

And he was mine.

I smiled to myself as a now familiar burning started taking over my skin and internal organs, the usual Nico induced symptoms; tingly toes, fluttery stomach, and all.

Then my hips groaned, creaked, and otherwise acknowledged their presence, and my massive invader went through a Tae-Bo routine that probably damaged a few things, and muscles I didn’t know existed in certain regions screamed in protest from sitting too long.

Yep, I was excited for the birth.

So. Frakking. Excited.

More like “get this thing out of me before I explode” excited.

Which apparently was normal.

Whatever.

Lemon cleared her throat none-too-delicately and I glared at her, which made her grin in her perfect Marilyn Monroe way, and she cheekily cocked a narrow hip in my direction.

It was a good thing she was my best friend or she would be dead too.

And she was the public relations consultant for the royal family, so I sort of had to be nice to her.

And she was my sister-in-law, so Dante might have some objections to her being dead.

She tilted her head at me, gesturing towards the foul little German with the distracting bristle mustache.

Right. Interview.

He looked up from his notes and smiled at me the way irritating reporters do. “And are there any concerns, Your Majesty, with regards to the birth of Princess Eva occurring before your own child?”

The soft humming of other voices suddenly stopped and everyone stared at him in horror. Obviously, someone had forgotten to prep him on Questions Not To Ask The Queen, and if the suddenly confused look on his face was any indication, he had no idea.

I glanced briefly over at Lemon, grateful to not be on camera.

Poor thing, she was as pale as I had ever seen her, but I knew that set of her mouth.

She was livid.

And honestly, I couldn’t blame her.

It was the most awkward thing ever, and we’d been doing everything we could to minimize the fallout, and so far, things had gone really well.

Apparently we lived in a bubble.

Giacomo and Lemon stepped forward, but I held out a hand that stopped them both and turned my most benevolent and queenly smile to the idiotic reporter.

“The king and I are not at all concerned about our niece arriving before our baby,” I told him in no uncertain terms. “It was a joyous occasion to have her delivered safely and she’s a beautiful, perfect child that adds so much to our family. We certainly hope that she and our baby will be the best of friends, not just cousins. We’re a family, Mr. Baumann, and there are no contests between us. Except for when it comes to second helpings of dessert.”

That seemed to do the trick, and he laughed, which I tried to echo, except my heart and head were pounding and that was making other parts of me hurt, and I just wanted to send everyone away.

“And you still won’t tell us if it’s a boy or a girl?” Mr. Baumann asked when he’d gotten his amusement under control.

My smile was tight now, but at least I still had one. “I can’t tell you what I don’t know, Mr. Baumann.”

He smiled beneath the bristle. “Ah, well. It will make a lovely Christmas present for you, ma’am, to have a baby on such a day.”

I almost snarled at him. I was not having a Christmas baby. My anniversary was Christmas, I first met Nico over a Christmas vacation, and Christmas was, you know, Christmas. I was not, not, NOT having a Christmas baby.

But nobody knew my due date, and I had to keep it that way.

“Oh, Fritz, you sly dog,” Lemon drawled in her Southern accent that was still somehow wrong in a Monterran palace. “You know very well that’s just gossip. We’re not telling anybody when Her Majesty is due; stop fishing!”

He laughed warmly at Lemon and let her and the rest of the staff usher him out of the room.

At last, I could drop my act and sit back in my chair and sprawl out like the fat, lazy girl I was, no matter what sort of outfit Violetta and Lemon had shoved me into. It didn’t matter how awful I felt; I always looked classy and put together.

What I wouldn’t give for sweats and one of Nico’s t-shirts right now.

I closed my eyes and rubbed my forehead with one hand, my stomach with the other.

“Is there anything I can do for you, Your Majesty?” Giacomo asked me from somewhere nearby.

“Find somebody to carry me up to my bed?” I asked hopefully, still keeping my eyes closed.

I thought for a second that he laughed, but Giacomo didn’t know how to laugh, so that was obviously the pregnancy crazies going on again.

“I believe you will have to walk, ma’am,” he said in his usual voice. “And you have luncheon with the princesses in an hour.”

Despite my misery, I smiled at that. “Think they would let me have a picnic in my room?”

“Perhaps.”

“Ask them for me, would you, Giacomo?”

“Of course, Your Majesty.”

I heard him walk away, and someone else came by, but this one smelled like citrus, so I didn’t even have to look. “Who forgot to brief him about Eva?”

There was a disgusted snort and I felt more than heard her flop down onto the loveseat beside me. ”Honey, that is not my fault. My people know the rules; I can’t control everybody.”

“You try anyway.”

“True.”

We snickered for a minute and then I sighed and looked at my best friend. “I know you hate when they do that. Sorry.”

She shrugged. “Serves me right. I go through all the trouble of waiting until you and Nico get hitched and make the most of that before letting Dante get me to the altar, keep things tastefully subdued by comparison…” She broke off for another snort and looked at me, which made me grin. Dante and Lemon had a fairytale wedding for Valentine’s Day, and compared to what mine had been, it had been subdued. For Lemon.

“…and then we friggin’ have a honeymoon baby,” she continued, shaking her head. “Not sure I’d have cared about that before, but you guys were supposed to go first, and my ‘oops’ ended up being a nightmare for us.”

I whacked her on the arm. “It was not! And Eva is certainly not a nightmare.”

Lemon smiled like I’d never seen her smile before. “She’s not. My baby is the most angelic of things, and looks just like her daddy. She is the apple of my eye, and God love her, I’ll give her anything she wants, just watch.”

“You will not,” I scoffed. Then I grinned. “Dante, on the other hand…”

Lemon burst out laughing. “Good lord, that man… Eva might as well be a fairy for all he knows. She’ll have a pony before she’s walking.” She sighed and got this dreamy look on her face that just made me shake my head.

It was the best thing in the world to have my best friend be my sister-in-law and it cracked me up that she was so swoony over him. I mean, I was a big fan of Dante myself, but this was just hilarious. If I ever thought Nico and I were getting to be too much, I reminded myself of those two, and I felt so much better.

At least we had restraint.

Sort of.

If Dante and Lemon had been anyone else, the situation this year would have been a lot harder. Nico and I had started trying for a baby pretty much right after we said “I do” and nothing was happening. It was fine, we both knew it could take some time, and we were content to practice until we got it right. More than content. We loved practicing. Practicing was awesome and Nico was quite the tutor for my complete ineptitude.

Then Dante and Lemon got married, which was a really fun time, and then things were gearing up for the coronation. King Dominic and Queen Aria were gracious and wonderful, considering they were about to abdicate, and I spent so much time being prepared by Aria and her staff that I barely had time to worry about my lack of pregnancy-ness, even though it was always in the back of my mind. Lemon wouldn’t even let us fuss over her for being a new bride. She and Dante had taken a very quick honeymoon, not even a week, and, according to Dante, hadn’t taken a single day off. The coronation and focusing the entire world on Monterra was her focus, and she didn’t want anything messing with it.

The actual coronation was a HUGE deal, and Lemon had a field day with all of the publicity.  She was a perfect storm in her element, and I was convinced more than half of the time that she had actually been the one to convince Dominic and Aria to abdicate just so she could have this sort of control and exposure for Lemon Zest Communications. She had been a little huffy with Nico and I about not having a honeymoon baby like she wanted so we could pump up the tourism for Monterra, and I tried to explain that it was not for want of trying, but that didn’t seem to work for her.

It was not that long after the coronation that Dante and Lemon approached Nico and I, and confessed that they, in fact, had scored the honeymoon baby and didn’t quite know what to do about it. We were thrilled for them, of course, but we weren’t stupid enough to pretend that wouldn’t mean anything for what we had been plotting. Lemon had cried for days about how she had ruined everything, no matter what anybody else said about it.

Personally, I didn’t see what the big deal was. The line of succession wasn’t in question or anything, so why should anyone care that they had a baby first? But Lemon insisted it was going to ruin everything, so apparently it would. Something about optics, she said, but I was pretty sure it was mostly her grand plan for the royal family.

We decided to keep their pregnancy quiet for as long as possible and deal with it when we had to. I would have loved to announce it, but Lemon, being Lemon, assured me that the world would end if we did anything like that.

I’d learned a long time ago not to mess with anything that Lemon said, so I went along with it.

It was funny to look back on now. The last year had just been insane, and we thought Lemon’s pregnancy would just be the next big thing.

Oh man. If only that had been it. We had no idea what was going to happen.

And the circus that followed had been something to behold.