by Sparks, Ana
“You know they’re not going to let you stay in the hospital with me,” I said, repeating the same argument I’d made several times over the past two weeks.
He gave me a sideways look—which meant he was going to say the same thing he’d said every time I’d pointed out that the local hospital didn’t allow overnight visitors.
“I am the prince of Tarana,” he said grandly, his voice echoing up into the vaulted ceilings of the place. “And they will let me stay if I tell them I need to.”
“God, you’re impossible,” I grumbled. It was an argument I couldn’t win. Because he was probably right. “Let’s go meet our daughter.”
He smiled brightly at me, took my hand, and hustled me out the front door to the car that we’d had waiting there for the last week. Just in case.
* * *
Something like five hours later—though it had felt more like weeks—I was sitting in the hospital bed, staring down at the beautiful face of my little girl.
Ana had wide eyes, and a little tuft of hair that sported the trademark Francisco corkscrew curls, which was the cutest feature I’d ever seen on a baby, though I guessed I was biased. Her nose was teeny tiny, her cheeks enormous, and her brow finally free of the frown she’d been wearing for the first half hour of her life, courtesy of her great displeasure at having been very suddenly forced out into the world.
Francisco leaned over, planted a soft kiss on that brow, and then turned and kissed me gently on the lips.
“She’s determined, this one,” he said quietly. “She’s going to end up telling us both exactly how to live our lives.”
“And it’s a good thing,” I said, looking at him with an expression that was soft with exhaustion and love. “Her father needs someone to keep him in line.”
He leaned in and kissed me again, and I could feel the smile on his mouth as he did.
“I have you keeping me in line,” he murmured, his lips still brushing against mine in a way that made my breath grow still. “The love of my life, who has moved all the way across the world just to make sure I don’t mess things up again.”
“We’re keeping each other on the right path,” I told him, leaning back and meeting his eyes. “And I wouldn’t change it for the entire world.”
He nodded at this, like I’d just told him something he’d already been expecting, and then tipped his head a bit.
“Speaking of…” he said. “I’ve been thinking that we should, perhaps, finally tell your parents that they have a grandchild. And that their daughter is a princess.”
I only thought about it for a moment before I realized he was right. My parents deserved to know. I had found my path in life. It was time to include them in it.
“And that I have an album coming out,” I added.
Because I wanted them to know I was living the life they’d always wanted for me. I wanted them to know that I’d finally done it. And though I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to totally forget the time we were estranged, I had also come to realize that family isn’t something you put to the side as easily as a pair of shoes that you don’t want anymore.
No, family is something that is precious enough to fix, no matter what they’ve done. And if Javier could get over Francisco having caused so much drama when he was younger, and Francisco could get over Javier having been so controlling over his life, then I could forgive my parents for having had a dream for me and refusing to give up on it.
And they could forgive me, I hoped, for having taken a roundabout way of accomplishing that dream.
Because at the end of the day, this was the way it was always meant to be. Francisco, Orlo, Tarana, and baby Ana… This was what my life had always been heading for. I’d just had to go through one seriously crazy adventure and make the decision to include Francisco in my plans for the future to figure that out.
I didn’t think I’d ever made a better decision in my life. Because it had all led me here.
And as I dialed the number for my parents’ house—the number that hadn’t changed since I was a kid—I smiled up at that man, knowing that my parents would be surprised, but happy, to hear from me. And knowing that they would see what I could see.
That moving across the world to a different country, for a man who I’d barely known before I fell in love with him, had given me the happy ending they’d always wanted for me.
The End
* * *
We hope you enjoyed Erika and Francisco’s story! In case you missed it, keep reading for the first chapter of the previous book in this series, The Prince’s Irresistible Offer
Happy reading!
Ana & Layla x
The Prince's Irresistible Offer
Chapter 1
Evie
I lay on Barcelona’s Bogatell Beach and gazed out at the wide, blue expanse of the Balearic Sea, trying to at least sort of take it in. Because the view was freaking gorgeous. Like, unbelievably gorgeous. The sun shining down on me, the deliciously warm wind tickling its way across my skin… all wonderful. All beautiful.
But honestly, I couldn’t care less about any of that. Because there might be calm, blue paradise stretching out in front of me, but the hurricane currently raging through my brain was completely at odds with it.
The waiter standing next to me cleared his throat, and I remembered that I’d called him over so I could submit another drink order.
“Sorry,” I muttered. “Margarita, please, with salt. On the rocks.”
The waiter nodded and left, and I immediately stretched out on my towel, closed my eyes, and did everything I could to will myself to go to sleep. Because lately—and by ‘lately’ I meant for the last year or so—sleep was the only place where I got any peace and quiet.
And peace and quiet was what I was supposed to be here for, right?
I mean, not really. I was here for work. But for today, I was on the beach rather than in the practice arena or the gym to try to get some peace and quiet. And preferably some peace of mind.
After about twenty seconds of trying to fall asleep, though, I opened my eyes again and stared out at the turquoise water in front of me. Barcelona. A city full of romance—or something like that. A city full of history and art, most certainly, and some of the most amazing wine I’d ever experienced. Okay, sure, great food as well. A city where tourists came to take in the sights, relax, and maybe even fall in love.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t here for any of that. As a member of the United States national volleyball team—a traveling team between Olympic years, when we went out on the road and played against other teams, to keep ourselves sharp and bring in money for the program—I was here to work. We’d come to Barcelona to play in a tournament against other national volleyball teams—both local and from overseas—and had been given an extra day after the tournament ended for rest and relaxation.
A treat, our coach had told us, to keep us fresh. Keep us excited about the sport, blah, blah, blah.
I hadn’t wanted to tell him that I would have needed a whole lot more than one day to feel any better about life or the sport of volleyball. Hell, they could have given me an entire week and it wouldn’t have been enough for the reset I needed. A month? Yeah, maybe that would have worked.
Though three months would have been better.
Unfortunately—or fortunately, depending on how you looked at it—we had won game after game, and eventually the entire tournament, which meant we’d played right up until the end of it and had only gotten the one day of freedom. Which led to me sitting here on the beach in front of a resort I would never be able to afford, doing my best to keep everyone else away from me with my best resting bitch face and trying like mad for some relaxation before I had to head home.
I let my eyes go unfocused on the gorgeous expanse of blue in front of me and dug my toes further into the sand, trying to ground myself there. My mind, though, was busy turning all its usual tricks on me. Presenting all the problems, and then flat-out refusing to give me anything th
at looked even remotely like answers. And the list of problems was long. A lot longer than I would have liked, that was for sure. But it all came down to a pretty cut-and-dried situation. I didn’t have enough money.
And I had too many responsibilities.
I’d gone to a top-notch university, on a volleyball scholarship, obviously, but the scholarship hadn’t covered all of my tuition, and my parents had been struggling themselves. I hadn’t wanted to ask them to help with the out-of-state costs for college or the money I needed to, you know, live. So I’d taken on student loans. Lots of them. Which I was deeply regretting, now that I was older, wiser, and utterly broke. On top of that, my younger brother had multiple sclerosis and was unable to work full-time, so was living almost entirely on my dime these days.
Because my parents weren’t in any position to help him. They were struggling, themselves. They didn’t even have jobs right now, which meant I was also making their mortgage payments. Plus my own rent. Plus the rent on Todd’s place, since neither of us had thought it was a good idea for him to move in with me or our parents.
In short, I was paying for three full households. And professional volleyball doesn’t pay as much as you might think. To say I was underwater would be to really, really undersell the situation.
To say I was overwhelmed almost beyond belief would have been the understatement of the freaking century.
I was a professional athlete. A woman who was supposed to have it all: the fame, the money, the good life. And instead, I was more broke now than I’d ever been in my life.
I was also woman enough to admit that I was going out of my way not to ask for help. Because I’d always been the one in charge of everything, and admitting that I couldn’t do this on my own… wasn’t an option. Not even a little bit.
“Jeez, adulting sucks,” I breathed, closing my eyes and deciding to try for a nap again.
Yes, the waiter was theoretically on his way back with my drink, but I trusted that he’d leave it on the table for me to discover when I woke up. And if I was asleep, I could at least forget about everything and just… be.
“It does,” a voice suddenly answered, breaking right through my inner monologue and attempt at sleep and bringing me directly up to a sitting position.
I glared up at the person standing next to me—who was conveniently standing right in front of the sun, so that I couldn’t quite see him.
“Excuse me?” I said.
“Adulting sucks,” he repeated. “I was agreeing with you on that point.”
“And listening in on my private conversations,” I noted, squinting against the sun and trying to figure out who the hell this guy was.
“You often have private conversations with yourself?” he asked.
I would have been a fool not to notice the smile in his voice. But I didn’t let that sway me. I’d been trying to nap on the beach in peace—on my one and only day off in Barcelona—and this guy had interrupted me.
“Aren’t private conversations most private when you’re the only person taking part in them?” I replied.
Yeah, so there was a little bit of flirtation in my voice. Because as annoyed as I was that the guy had woken me up, I’d also managed to look through the sun’s glare enough to see that he was not only tall, but also extremely well-built.
With a pair of flashing eyes that were already laughing at me.
And not even my worst day could eliminate my deep appreciation for a handsome man. Even if I didn’t actually feel like flirting with the guy for long.
When he walked around to a spot where he wasn’t up against the sun, though, my position on that idea changed quite a bit. Because he wasn’t just handsome. He was probably the most gorgeous man I’d ever laid eyes on. Dark brown, almost black hair, and sparkling green eyes that looked like they would turn to blue under the right circumstances. A chiseled jaw and a nose to match. Cheekbones that most women would have paid thousands of dollars to get.
My God, he was a real live Prince Charming. Like seriously, the physical incarnation of the man the illustrators had given to Cinderella. Or was it Sleeping Beauty?
Oh, who cared?
“Do you mind if I share your towel?” he asked. “I don’t have one, and the sand is too hot to sit on without something underneath you.”
Well, shit.
I’d wanted to be by myself, as I said, and I’d been using every tool in my arsenal to make sure that happened. But when a guy who could have been a Greek god in some other life comes up and asks you to share your towel with him…
“Sure,” I muttered, already wondering if I was going to regret it.
* * *
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ALSO BY LAYLA VALENTINE:
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Accidentally Hitched to the Prince
Scandalously Wed to the Prince
The Prince’s Irresistible Offer
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SHE’S IN CHARGE
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Billionaire For Ransom
Call Him Prince Daddy
Taming the Cowboy
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Bidder
Sinner
Breaker
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HOW TO
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How to Have Surprise Quadruplets
How to Wed a Billionaire
How to Propose Accidentally
How to Fall For Your Worst Enemy
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Prince Baby Daddy
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The Baby Plan
Twins For Christmas
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Second Chance Twins
Nanny For Hire
The Baby Bargain
Accidental Triplets
Take My V-Card
Bought by the Boss
Four Secret Babies
My Brother’s Best Friend
Not Marriage Material
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ONCE A SEAL, ALWAYS A SEAL
His Baby Secret
Hot Pursuit
SEXT ME
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My Protector
In Deep
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BABIES FOR THE BILLIONAIRE
Triplets For The Billionaire
Quadruplets For The Billionaire
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