The Queen's Baby Scandal. Maisey Yates

      Astrid drew back, her heart thundering. Because he was so close to the truth, it cut her close to the heart. He wasn’t wrong. She had imagined him as a chess piece. Capable of strategy, certainly, but she had also imagined that she could see ahead to every move he might make. That she understood what sort of man he was, and what he might want. But his standing here had proved already that he was not anything like she had anticipated.

      She had thought of him as a barbarian, as a conqueror so many times. But in a vague, fantastical sense. In a sexual one. She had not thought in concrete terms about what it would mean to go up against this man.