Royally Unexpected 2: An Accidental Pregnancy Collection (Surprise Baby Stories)

by Lilian Monroe

  “It’s your grand re-opening,” I smile. “Of course they’ll come back.”

  “Even after people were hospitalized because of me?”

  “It wasn’t because of you,” I answer, leaning the broom against the wall. I put my hands on my sister’s shoulders. “It was my dickhead agent, Hunter. You were a victim of his maliciousness.”

  “I know, but you know what I mean. People will still blame me. Hunter hasn’t been charged with anything—besides his confession to you, there’s no evidence that he was even here.”

  I smile. “It’ll be fine. Word has gotten out that he planted the bacteria. I’ve been looking at the response online, and it doesn’t look like people blame you at all. All kinds of shady stuff Hunter’s done is surfacing, now. If anything, the extra publicity will be good.”

  “Not for the people who were hospitalized.” Ivy grimaces, and my chest squeezes.

  I try to swallow past the lump that’s lodged itself in my throat. “I’m sorry, Ivy.”

  Her eyes turn back to me, and she shakes her head. “You know it wasn’t your fault.”

  “If I’d been more supportive…”

  “You had just gotten home. You’re in recovery. You were taking care of yourself after supporting me your entire life. None of this is your fault.” Ivy wraps her arms around me, and my chest tightens some more.

  Guilt is a useless emotion. It doesn’t serve any purpose. It doesn’t push me to be a better person, it only drags me down further into my own anxiety. Feeling guilty doesn’t change the past.

  Logically, I know this, but the guilt persists.

  It snakes in and out of my heart, creeping into my thoughts whenever I feel like I’m doing well. Guilt is a group of little gremlins, hiding in every corner of my mind. They poke their heads out once in a while to remind me that I’m a terrible person.

  Even when I spend a week helping Ivy out at her bakery, Spoonful of Sugar, and endorse her publicly when she announces that she’ll re-open it, I still feel bad.

  It was my agent who poisoned her food. It was my agent who put her in the hospital. It was my agent who tried to ruin her new business.

  Guilty, guilty, guilty.

  The back door of the bakery bursts open, and Ivy’s boyfriend, Prince Luca, comes through. He gives me a broad smile, hooking his arms around both Ivy and me.

  “Today’s the big day!”

  Ivy’s face breaks into a grin, and she nuzzles her face into his chest. The Prince kisses the top of her head.

  My heart melts. There was a time when I was jealous of Ivy. It wasn’t long ago, either—only about four months. They were the darkest days of my life, right before I learned the truth about my diagnosis. Before I hit rock bottom. I saw the relationship budding between the two of them, and I thought it should be me that Prince Luca wanted, not my sister.

  I was in a haze of self-medication, depression, and anxiety. My mind was a mess, and it landed me pregnant, overdosing in hospital, and forced to retreat to an intensive therapy course in the middle of the Farcliff wilderness. I was unhealthy, selfish, and wrong.

  I know that now, but it doesn’t make it any easier.

  I reach for my bottle of water on the counter, and my hand shakes slightly. I look at the tremor in my hand, and fear pierces through me like an ice pick. I ball my hand into a fist to hide the shaking. Glancing at Ivy, I breathe a sigh of relief when I see she hasn’t noticed.

  I reach for the bottle again, knocking it to the ground.

  “Shit,” I say under my breath.

  Ivy laughs, shaking her head. “Always the clumsy one. How your publicist manages to hide that from the public is beyond me.”

  “She’s a magician,” I say, laughing nervously as I pick up the water bottle with trembling hands. “Being an oaf doesn’t exactly fit with the image of a ‘graceful blonde goddess.’” I grin, making air quotes around the last words.

  Ivy giggles. I turn away from her, using a precious moment to take a deep breath and compose myself.

  Four months ago—on the same day I somehow overdosed from laced heroin, which I don’t remember at all—I tested positive for Huntington’s disease. It’s the illness that killed our mother.

  Ivy and I watched her degenerate slowly over the last twenty years of her life, her brain slowly falling apart from the mutated proteins the disease pumped into her grey matter. She died of pneumonia, which ravaged her weakened immune system, but not before her whole personality transformed into something negative, angry, and sometimes violent.

  That’s the fate that is awaiting me, too—and no one knows, except me.

  Ivy doesn’t know about the diagnosis, but she does know about my pregnancy. She thinks I’m just a regular old messed-up celebrity. She thinks life will continue as it has been, and we’ll all live happily ever after. She’s excited that her child will have a cousin to play with.

  I’m trying to think like her. I go to therapy twice a week and I’m taking care of my body with yoga and weightlifting. I’m eating healthily and spending more time with Ivy. I don’t stare at my social media quite so much. I’m really, really trying. My therapist says I need to forgive myself for my mistakes, and I can’t cling onto the guilt that eats away at me.

  My hand moves to my stomach, and I draw strength from the life that’s growing inside me.

  A gremlin pokes his head out from the recesses of my mind, his giggles echoing off my skull.

  Guilty, guilty, guilty. Your baby could get the disease, too. Did you think of that when you decided to get pregnant?

  Squeezing my eyes shut, I try to talk myself down. The baby was an accident, but also a gift. I wouldn’t be as dedicated to my recovery if I didn’t have a child to take care of.

  I will be a good mother, Huntington’s or not.

  “You okay, Margot?” Prince Luca glances at me, and I realize I’m gripping the edge of the stainless steel counter with both hands. My knuckles are white.

  I force myself to relax my shoulders, painting a smile on my face. “I’m fine. Just a little dizzy, is all. Might need a muffin to keep me going.”

  “I never thought I’d see the day when you actually eat the things I bake,” Ivy laughs, grabbing a banana chocolate-chip muffin from a tray for me. “It makes me happy to see you eating my stuff.”

  “You’re a rare talent,” I answer, taking a nibble of the muffin and groaning as the taste hits my tongue. “I can’t believe I’ve been missing out on all this goodness just in the name of being skinny.”

  Ivy grins, then takes a deep breath. Her eyes shine as she stares at me. “Will you come open the doors with me? It’s time. I want you beside me.”

  My heart thumps, and I nod. “I’d be honored.”

  We open the doors to the bakery together, smiling for the cameras that are waiting to snap photos of us. I hook my arm around my sister’s shoulders, pointing to the sign above our heads.

  Spoonful of Sugar is officially re-open for business.

  This time, I’m happy about it.

  The gremlins in my mind are blissfully quiet. The anxious thoughts that plague me all the time are absent, and I’m truly, completely happy for my sister.

  Ivy opens the front door to our house, and I glance up from my seat on the couch. Melissa, my hair stylist, is working on my blonde hair extensions, moving the wefts up closer to my scalp. She’s been by my side for years, and is the closest thing I have to a friend.

  “How was the rest of the grand re-opening?” I ask my sister.

  Ivy smiles sweetly. “It was great. Lots of press. It meant a lot to me that you were there.”

  “You’re such a star, Ivy,” Mel says, tugging a strand of my hair.

  I wince.

  “Sorry,” she says, patting the sore spot. She glances at my sister. “I tried one of your salted caramel brownies today. Oh. My. Lord. Ivy, you’re incredible.”

  Ivy blushes, nodding. “Thank you.”

  “Let me do your hair this weekend,” Mel says.
“Take it as payment for all the baked goods you’ve fed me over the years.”

  “This?” Ivy says, flicking her black hair over her shoulder. “I don’t know what you could do with this.”

  “Don’t underestimate her,” I grin, glancing at my hair stylist. “If she can make me into a long-haired blonde, she can make you feel like a princess.”

  Ivy’s smile widens. “Well, okay. I’d like that.”

  My heart squeezes. Ivy is so…good. She’s spent her whole life being by my side, not asking for anything. She’s supported me through years of fame, never holding my status as a celebrity against me.

  Me, though?

  I resented her. When she opened her bakery, I thought she was using me and leaving me behind, just like everyone else.

  It wasn’t until she was hospitalized that I realized what an ass I was being.

  The gremlins cackle in my mind, amplifying my insecurities.

  You’re a horrible person, and you don’t deserve a sister like Ivy.

  My sister flops down on the couch, letting out a long sigh. “Thank you for your help. I couldn’t have re-opened the bakery without you.”

  I put my arm around my sister’s shoulders. “Of course you could’ve. I didn’t do anything except say the truth—that you’re the best damn baker Farcliff has ever seen.”

  Ivy blushes. She’s never been good at receiving compliments.

  Melissa zhuzhes my hair one last time, and then pats my shoulder. “I’ve got to go. Keep that wrapped in a silk scarf while you sleep.”

  I give my friend a kiss on each cheek and watch her walk out through the front door. Glancing at myself in the reflection of the window, I let out a breath.

  Melissa makes me look like a movie star, but inside, I still feel broken.

  From the seat beside me, Ivy stares at me with those two-toned eyes of hers. One blue, one green. Just like our mother. I hold her gaze for a moment, and then I have to look away. Looking at my sister’s face is too much like looking at Mama’s.

  Thinking of Mama makes me think of her death. Her death makes me think of my own diagnosis.

  I wasn’t even there when our mother died. I was on a photo shoot for Vogue Magazine.

  What kind of person does that? Chooses work instead of family?

  The rational part of my brain tries to stop the whirlwind of anxiety that threatens to drag me down. Logic tells me that it was my father who pushed me to work so much. He would guilt-trip me into taking more jobs, saying that the only way we could afford Mama’s treatment was due to the money I made modeling and acting.

  When you’re just a young teenager, and your father says those kinds of things to you, you believe him. Being the main breadwinner for your family at age fourteen has a way of twisting your view of the world.

  But even as I say those things to myself, the gremlins in my mind gather together and laugh at me.

  Stop making excuses, they sneer. You’re just bad, bad, bad.

  Ivy takes a deep breath, pulling me from my thoughts. “You still don’t want to tell me who the father is?”

  She nods to my belly. My heart clenches. “It’s not important.”

  “It is important, Margot,” Ivy says softly. “Does he know, whoever he is?”

  I shake my head. Ivy sighs.

  I bite the inside of my cheek until I taste blood. I know exactly when I fell pregnant, and I know who the father is: Prince Beckett of Argyle. The man who tried to kill his half-brother, Prince Luca. The man who’s currently on the run and has the entire Kingdom of Argyle looking for him.

  I found out about my pregnancy when I was at the retreat. The doctor who told me was gentle and kind, but it didn’t stop me feeling like the world was ending. Only Ivy and Luca know that I’m carrying a child—and the doctors, of course—and it still doesn’t quite feel real.

  My pregnancy is more fodder for the snarling voices in my mind.

  What if I hurt my baby by injecting my body full of poison before I knew about the pregnancy? What if he or she doesn’t develop properly because of what I’ve done?

  What if the baby gets Huntington’s?

  Taking a deep breath, I reel my mind back in. My therapist tells me to name my anxiety, to treat it like an intruder in my mind. So, I try.

  Those thoughts aren’t serving me. Instead, I turn my mind inward, to the child growing inside me. Before I found out I was pregnant, I was only in that facility because I thought I needed to be. My anxiety was out of control, and I was afraid I’d do something to hurt myself. I didn’t know how I overdosed, but I’m sure it was my own fault.

  Guilty, guilty, guilty.

  Once I found out I was pregnant, everything changed.

  Now, I could never relapse. I could never do anything to willingly hurt my child. Never, ever, ever.

  But Prince Beckett…

  Maybe we’re made for each other.

  Bad, bad, bad.

  “Have you taken your medication today?” Ivy asks.

  I smile at my sister. “It’s probably time for me to take it. Thanks for reminding me.”

  “I can see those wheels turning in your head. You need to stop torturing yourself.”

  “Easier said than done.”

  Ivy smiles sadly, wrapping her arms around me. “Everything will work out. That’s what Luca always tells me. So far, he hasn’t been wrong.”

  I nod, forcing a smile, but I know the truth. As soon as people find out I’m pregnant and who the father is, my career will be over. I’ll lose my endorsements, and I doubt I’ll ever land another acting gig.

  Then, my body will slowly break down over the next ten, fifteen, twenty years.

  I’m staring at the face of the grim reaper.

  Everything will most definitely not work out.

  2

  Dante

  As soon as I step off the plane, my teeth start clacking. Cold air whips through my thin jacket and chills me to the bone.

  It’s not often that I leave the tropical, Caribbean island of Argyle—especially not to come up to somewhere as far north as Farcliff. Nestled between the United States and Canada, just east of the Great Lakes, Farcliff is a stunning country. Lush forests, clear lakes and rivers, healthy wildlife. Farcliff looks like a postcard brought to life.

  But damn, it’s cold—and it’s not even November yet.

  A driver is waiting next to a luxury sedan. He opens the back door for me, nodding as I slide into the car. I lean back, thankful for heated seats.

  The driver gets in, glancing in the rear-view mirror. “Where to, Your Highness?”

  I give him the address that Luca provided and then settle in for the drive. I don’t often leave Argyle, so being driven to a strange address in a foreign Kingdom is a rare occurrence for me.

  I’m on a recovery mission. Get Luca out of Farcliff and bring him back home.

  Since I’ve always hated being in the public eye, King Theo of Argyle, my brother, has given me different responsibilities. I’m able to stay away from the cameras as long as I deal with most of the day-to-day goings-on in Argyle. That leaves him free to travel to other countries and Kingdoms, work on international relations, and be the face of Argyle.

  It helps that I’ve always been good with computers. I developed a state-of-the-art security system for the Argyle Palace, upgrading everything tech-related on our royal premises. Now that Beckett is on the run, I’m glad that my family is safe. No one except a select few people know that I’m the one behind the upgrades to the security in the Palace.

  Anonymity has its advantages.

  For one, I don’t get mobbed if I go outside the palace gates. I can travel unhindered, and I don’t have to deal with lies and stories about me in the media. They call me the ‘reclusive prince,’ but I don’t mind.

  I am a recluse.

  Another advantage is a situation like this one. With our half-brother Beckett on the run, there are precious few people that we can trust. Theo sent me to Farcliff to bring Luca bac
k to our home Kingdom of Argyle. He’ll be safer at home.

  Luca’s girlfriend just re-opened her bakery, but I’m hoping I can convince him to choose safety and common sense. We don’t know who we can trust in Farcliff, so it’s better if they both come back to Argyle.

  Typically, I wouldn’t leave my home Kingdom, but things are tense back home, and I was the only one who could make the trip without causing a splash in the media.

  Since my face isn’t plastered over every media outlet in the world, and few people know what I actually look like, the task to bring Luca home has fallen to me.

  I watch the streets of Farcliff whizz by. People walk quickly with their chins stuffed in their jackets against the cold. It’s getting dark already, and the days are only getting shorter. I’d rather be on a tropical island, that’s for sure.

  The driver pulls up outside a tall gate. I can just see the top of a house behind a row of trees. He rolls his window down and reaches for the buzzer, exchanging a few words with a security guard. The gates swing inward, and I’m taken up the driveway to my temporary new home.

  Hopefully it has good heating and insulation.

  Stepping outside, I nod to the driver as he takes my bag out of the trunk. “I’ll take it from here,” I say.

  “Are you sure, Your Highness?” He hesitates, not wanting to hand the suitcase over.

  In Argyle, all the staff in the castle is used to me. I don’t like being coddled or treated like…well, like royalty. I dress myself, I drive myself, I do most thing without the help of my staff.

  This driver obviously isn’t used to that. I smile at him, slipping some money into his hand as a tip before grabbing my suitcase. I packed light, because I don’t own any cold weather clothes, and I don’t intend to be here long.

  If Luca will listen to reason, I’m hoping we can get out of here at the break of dawn tomorrow and be back in the sunshine and warmth by noon.

  Easy, right?

  Setting my small suitcase on the front porch, I ring the doorbell. I take a step back, clasping my hands behind me as I wait for the door to open.