The Princess's Christmas Baby

by Louisa George

  * * *

  He’d been too hard on her, he knew that, and guilt bit.

  But it was a self-preservation thing. If he was going to survive this visit he needed to keep his distance from her. Even so, the need to see her smile again wound itself inside him. She wanted funny and relaxed but he was serious and uptight. It was yet another reason why they were so mismatched. And yet...there was something between them that went deeper, so deep it felt as if there was a real physical connection.

  Indeed, the physicality was so intense it spooked him. How could it be that two people turned each other on so much and yet couldn’t manage more than half a dozen civil words?

  It was his fault. He was trying too hard to protect them both from the fallout of another ill-advised liaison. But should he try to loosen up? Could he be the man he’d been in August when she’d smashed his barriers down? When it had been about the now and not about the consequences?

  Could he be the man she wanted him to be?

  Or would that mean a personality transplant?

  Thing was, he wanted to try, and that shook him more than anything else.

  The car pulled up outside an impressive state-of-the-art glass-fronted building. Given everything that was happening, the new Isola Verde Hospital hadn’t been at the forefront of his mind but he could feel her enthusiasm rising as they stepped inside and he felt a similar prickle of excitement.

  Despite protestations, she’d told Maria to wait in the car, saying, ‘I’m fine. I don’t need babysitting all the time.’ Then she’d rolled her eyes at Lucas. ‘It’s suffocating to have someone in your face all the time.’

  ‘A bodyguard is for your own safety, surely?’

  ‘Please don’t you start too. It’s annoying. Papa likes an entourage, I prefer to go incognito.’ She winked. ‘Besides, no one’s going to bother me with you by my side. One grumpy look and you’ll scare them half to death.’

  He didn’t know what to say to that. Mainly because she was right. There was no middle ground between them; it was either all intense desire or polite and awkward. And that, he knew, was all on him.

  As they walked in a young woman dashed from behind the reception desk and curtsied. ‘Your Highness.’ She added something else that Lucas didn’t understand.

  Giada smiled and replied in English. ‘I am not here on an official visit. An escort from management isn’t necessary, thank you. I’m just showing a doctor friend of mine around the hospital.’

  ‘Yes, Your Highness. Have a good day.’

  ‘We had the official opening a few weeks ago.’ Giada turned back to Lucas, her high ponytail swishing and heels clicking as they walked across the tiled floor. This was only a social visit but she was dressed smartly in a vivid blue silk blouse and curve-enhancing black pencil skirt that kicked out at the knees. And stiletto heels.

  Man, those heels. The stuff men’s dreams were made of. Yes, he may have been grumpy but a lot of that was due to sexual frustration. More than once he’d had to stop himself from touching her. Sure, he’d made up his mind that he would put a stop to any more kissing, but that didn’t mean he wanted to put a stop to it. He was trying hard here...but...stilettoes.

  The place looked like a hotel with comfortable sofas and friendly welcoming staff, only the fresh disinfectant smell and signs pointing the way to Emergency, Cardiac Care and specialist wards giving away the fact they were in a clinical environment. There was a tall Christmas tree right by the front door with piles of Christmas gifts underneath.

  Giada smiled as she followed his gaze. ‘I wanted to make it a place where people felt looked after rather than put off by a sterile cold atmosphere.’

  ‘We try to achieve the same at Seattle General. The annual Christmas display is always eye-catching and the kids love it.’ He felt a pang of homesickness then. How comforting it would be to slip back into his old routine of work, swim, work. Yeah, not much of a life, but it was steady and predictable. Unlike life with Giada so far.

  ‘You look like you’re missing your day job. I imagine being on this island is pretty boring.’ She tugged on his arm. ‘Come see the ER.’

  They followed the sign towards the emergency department but Lucas was stopped in his tracks by a large portrait on the wall. A stunning woman with commanding brown eyes and long dark hair swept up into a loose bun, wearing a tiara, a formal gown of purple and silver and a beautiful smile looked down at him. Giada in all her regal glory. His heart stalled as he tried to read the plaque underneath, but it was in Isola Verdian. ‘What does it say?’

  Her cheeks turned pink as she cleared her throat and read out, ‘“Our nation thanks with all our hearts Giada, the People’s Princess, for bestowing this wonderful facility for the benefit of everyone in Isola Verde.”’ She gave an embarrassed smile. ‘I asked them not to put it up but they insisted.’

  ‘The People’s Princess? They obviously love you.’

  ‘Some do. Some really don’t. Well...’ She held up her sling-free hand. ‘That’s not entirely true. I was popular as a child, but in my late teens and early twenties not so much. It hasn’t always been easy. I disgraced myself more than a few times and I’ve worked hard on my reputation over the last couple of years.’

  ‘This hospital is an amazing achievement.’

  She huffed. ‘I wanted to do something that will benefit everyone.’

  ‘Your father must be very proud of you.’

  Her throat made a funny noise—half laugh, half derision. ‘You don’t know Papa. As far as he’s concerned, once trouble, always trouble. He was so used to hearing bad things about me he didn’t trust the good stuff.’

  ‘So why did you decide to do this instead of partying on yachts?’

  She led him down the long corridor following signs to ER, her demeanour brisk. ‘Let’s just say I had a life lesson that made me realise that my legacy shouldn’t be about the trouble I caused but about the good I could do.’

  ‘Sounds serious. What happened?’

  She shook her head and cast her gaze around, suddenly guarded and serious. ‘Long story. Not for here. You don’t need to know. No one does.’

  ‘Will I need to do an internet search on it? Will our child uncover things I don’t know about you? What happened to being honest?’ He wasn’t sure how far to push it. He was out of his depth when it came to relationships and trust.

  Her eyes closed for a second. ‘I’m not proud of my silly past. But, no, I hope we managed to keep that particular escapade under wraps.’

  He was intrigued. ‘Tell me—’

  ‘Hey!’

  They were interrupted by a young man of about twenty pushing past them, shouting something in Isola Verdian. ‘What’s he saying?’

  Giada froze, concerned. ‘He’s saying, “Help. Help my friend.”’

  Lucas went into autopilot, his focus narrowing in on the guy and already going through a mental checklist of possible scenarios, but assuming nothing. ‘Ask him where. Where is his friend?’

  Giada blinked and spoke to the man, who was white and jittery with panic, and then followed his pointed finger behind them. ‘There. Whoa.’ She grabbed Lucas’s arm tightly. ‘Oddio.’

  Lucas whirled round and saw a side entrance he hadn’t noticed before, the door rattling in the wind. On the ground, curled in a foetal position, was another man. Judging by the thick trail of red behind him, he looked as if he was bleeding out.

  Okay.

  Running to the man, Lucas shouted over his shoulder, ‘Gigi, go to the ER and get help.’

  ‘What?’ Instead of continuing along the corridor, she followed Lucas, her eyes wide and scared as she too bent and stared at the man on the floor as if she couldn’t drag her eyes away.

  ‘Don’t look. Look at me.’ She may have built the hospital but she wasn’t used to seeing the things he had. Straightening, he took her by the shoulde
rs and made her focus on him. ‘Gigi, I need you do something for me.’

  ‘Wh-what?’

  ‘Go to the ER. Quickly. Get help.’

  ‘Okay.’ She nodded, and looked as if she was mentally shaking herself, but she didn’t move. ‘ER. Yes.’

  ‘Are there panic buttons here? Code buttons anywhere on these walls?’ He scanned the walls but there were no tell-tale red buttons anywhere. In other hospitals they had them at strategic points for staff members to get help in an emergency.

  ‘I... I don’t know.’

  ‘The ER, Giada.’ He inhaled and blew out, biting back the retort that she’d insisted on leaving Maria at the car. ‘I don’t have a pager to send a code to the trauma team and I can’t leave him. You have to go. Now, Giada.’

  ‘Sì.’

  He pushed away his emotions and focused back on the emergency at hand. He couldn’t get to grips with how to act with Giada, had no idea how to be a decent father, how to fit into this Royal family, was making a bad fist at being a friend. But this? This he could do.

  He knelt on the floor, doing a quick visual assessment of their patient. Losing consciousness. Pale. Glasgow Coma Scale... He was trying to work it out, and hoped the team here used the same terminology as he did. ‘Hey, what happened? Damn. I don’t speak your language. Doctor.’ Enunciating slowly, Lucas pointed to his chest. ‘I’m a doctor.’

  The teenager’s eyes flickered open then closed again. The friend hovered just out of Lucas’s peripheral vision.

  Lucas turned his head. ‘What happened? Tell me.’

  ‘Parkour.’

  ‘English?’ Lucas demanded. ‘Do you speak English?’

  The man rotated his shaking hand from side to side. A little English. ‘Parkour.’

  Just as the man said it, Lucas peeled away his patient’s hands and saw a railing spike had perforated his abdomen on the left side. He tried to prise the man’s hands further away so he could see the entry point and try to stem the bleeding. The spike would need to be surgically removed to prevent further damage, although judging by the blood loss they’d be fighting an uphill battle.

  The man’s pulse was thin and thready and he was already sinking into unconsciousness. There was a lot of blood. And, probably, very little time to save him.

  ‘Giada!’ he called to her back as she hurried away. ‘Tell them to hurry. We need a trolley. Manpower. Fluids. Large-bore IVs. Resus.’

  ‘Okay. Got it.’ She nodded again and disappeared around the corner.

  ‘Hey, buddy. Hey.’ Lowering his face to the man, Lucas checked for breathing.

  Nothing.

  Cursing at being knee-deep in blood with no equipment, he laid the man flat, preparing for CPR. ‘Okay. You’re not going to die on my watch.’

  He needed to somehow stop blood loss and do chest compressions at the same time. He could jump from one to the other and it could be manageable on his own, but not realistic for long. The friend was sitting on the floor now, head in his hands, incapable of anything but sobbing into his knees. ‘Hey. Friend! Come here.’

  The man didn’t even raise his head, just shook it.

  Not good enough. Lucas knew he was scared, but this was literally a life and death situation. ‘I. Need. You. Please.’

  But no dice. Lucas clenched his jaw. It wasn’t the first time he’d had to improvise. He crawled to his patient’s side and placed his hands over the man’s ribcage.

  And then, just as he thought he was going to have to go solo on this, he heard the rattle of a gurney, raised voices and fast footsteps. In a break between compressions he glanced over and there was Giada, running in those damned high heels, leading a team with trolleys and equipment.

  His belly did a sudden leap. He didn’t think he’d ever been so pleased to see her.

  But he wasn’t sure it was because she’d brought the cavalry.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ONCE SHE’D SETTLED the frightened friend with a nursing assistant and a hot drink, Giada sidled back to the corridor to watch Lucas in action. Truth was, she couldn’t take her eyes off him. He commanded the space and the staff who had come running, stopped and listened and then did as he asked.

  He was gentle yet affirmative. Completely in control and yet listening to input. Decisive and yet compassionate and totally in his element.

  How could she even entertain the thought he might want to come and live in the palace and play at being consort when he could work miracles like this? The man was more at home elbow deep in blood than with Da Vinci paintings and public receptions.

  He directed the CPR effort. He took control of the count to lift the man onto the gurney. He slid the IV bore into a vein. He did something to help the man breathe—a tube into his throat she thought she saw—and attached him to a portable oxygen tube. He gave the briefest satisfied nod when they got a trace on the ECG.

  He sent someone to get a portable X-ray, asked another to arrange a CT scan, then told yet another to page the general surgeons as they all filed into the ER department with the trolley and the equipment and a sense of being in total control. The last thing she saw as the resuscitation room door swung closed was his gaze on her. Just for a moment.

  Even from here she could see the buzz in his eyes.

  And something else...something that simmered when his guard was down. Something that made her hot all over. Power, control, authority, command. He was in his element and it suited him. Very much.

  Then she was locked out of the room and quite right too. No one needed a silly princess messing things up in there.

  And, unfortunately, everyone was very aware that she was here. She had to make polite small talk with the staff and the patients and pretend she hadn’t just seen a man almost die. The hospital chief had heard she was here and came to talk to her about budgets. There was an invitation to a hospital bed push charity event in the new year. Then the one thing she’d been avoiding...a question about her father.

  ‘He’s...he’s stable.’ She reiterated the words her brother told her every day, twice a day, when they spoke.

  ‘Bring him home, Your Highness,’ one of the senior nurses said as Giada sat down at the nurses’ station and waited for Lucas to be finished. ‘We’ll look after him here. Where is he?’

  ‘In very good hands.’ With his son. The future King. Across the world. Her heart twisted and she suddenly understood how it felt to be her brother, torn between duty and wanting to be somewhere else entirely.

  ‘That is good.’ The nurse exhaled. ‘I am praying for him. For you all.’

  ‘Thank you, Bianca.’

  After dropping a curtsey, the nurse’s eyes flicked over Giada’s body and she could have sworn Bianca’s gaze stopped at her breasts and then went down to her belly. ‘And can I say how well you look, Your Highness.’

  Oh.

  Was her pregnancy so obvious? Was she showing? Giada’s cheeks burned and she fisted her hands to stop herself running them across her abdomen. Smiling as sweetly as she could, she nodded to Bianca. ‘Isola Verde always makes me feel better.’

  She heard laughter and was grateful for the distraction, but when she turned to see where it was coming from she was surprised to see Lucas, his head tipped back, laughing at something Alberto, the head of ER, had said. Laughing?

  She watched as the two men chatted. Alberto did an action as if he was kicking a ball, then his eyes widened and he hid his head in his hands... Missing a goal? She didn’t know. Sport didn’t interest her. Lucas shook his head and raised his hands at Alberto, then laughed again.

  She was surprised to feel a jab of hurt. Was Lucas only a stuffed shirt with her? She noticed he’d changed into the hospital scrubs, a bag saying ‘Hospital Property’ in his hand, which no doubt contained his stained clothes.

  At the palace, in her territory, he was out of his comfort zone and probably fe
lt as if he needed to be polite and formal. With the baby business he was reserved and trying to do the right thing. As was she. All of which amounted to stiff conversation and frustration, because they were both trying to be things they were not.

  But she’d helped him relax before... And she was going to do it again.

  Yes. She decided at that moment she would find the Lucas she’d fallen for.

  Wait. Fallen for?

  Didn’t she mean fallen pregnant with?

  Yes. That was what she’d meant.

  He shook hands with Alberto then made his way over to her. ‘Hello, I didn’t realise you’d waited for me.’

  ‘I didn’t know how long you’d be, so I thought I’d hang around. As it is, I managed to see a couple of the managers and we arranged some meetings.’ She stood up. ‘You look relaxed. I’m assuming everything’s okay?’

  ‘Yes, and you were great, thank you, Gigi. Um...’ His eyes flickered to the nurses who were watching them and he corrected himself. ‘I mean Your Highness.’

  ‘Gigi is more than fine. How is he?’

  Lucas gently took her elbow and walked her towards the ER department exit. ‘He’s gone to Theatre. He’s actually very lucky, apart from the huge blood loss which would have killed him. The spike missed most of his internal organs. We’ll have to remove his spleen and possibly fix a laceration to his kidney, but he’s going to recover well.’

  She looked up at him, glad he was holding her arm, glad he was steady and capable and not like the friend who hadn’t been able to cope. Not like her, who had been initially too shocked to move. ‘You were magnificent, Lucas.’

  He raised a shoulder. ‘Just doing what I’ve been trained to do.’

  ‘You do it well. You’re buzzing. Glowing.’

  He looked thoughtful for a minute and stretched his fingers out in front of him, his eyes glittering. ‘I guess I am...er, buzzy. You get such an adrenalin hit and it takes a while to wear off. I thought I’d got used to it, but here...it’s a new environment. I didn’t speak the language or know the staff, but we still saved him.’