Claiming His Pregnant Princess

by Annie O'Neil

  She stared at him for a moment. As if processing the accusations. The facts. But he knew it wasn’t as if any of this rang true with the woman he’d once known. The time he’d spent with Beatrice had definitely been a fairy tale compared to this nightmare.

  Beatrice sat up in the bed, pulling her shirt closer around herself even though the monitors were all still attached. She reached unsuccessfully for a blanket at the foot of the bed, and for one not very nice second Jamie felt like picking it up and throwing it over her. Just hiding her away from sight.

  “The treatment was anonymous.”

  He blinked and forced himself to pull her back into focus. Her eyebrows tugged together, then lifted, her expression changing into something a bit brighter. “I did stipulate that, whoever he was, he must have at least a drop of English heritage.”

  The words slammed him in the chest and sucked out the oxygen when he heard himself echoing Beatrice. “English?”

  “English,” Bea repeated, her eyes solidly on his as she gave a wicked little laugh. “That was my little secret at the clinic. No one knows—well, now you know...but no one else knows.” She gave her stomach a reassuring pat and pulled her top down close, as if to warm it.

  If possible, the atmosphere in the small exam room flexed and then strained against the swirl of information Jamie was trying to make sense of.

  A flash of a future that might have been his slammed into his solar plexus. He should be the one fathering that little boy or girl growing in Beatrice’s womb. He should be the one to soothe it, rock it to sleep while his wife caught up on her sleep. He should be the one to tickle its nose, read stories in the middle of the night even though he or she wouldn’t be ready yet to hear about Treasure Island or Cinderella. Holding the tiny infant in his arms.

  The tug of longing he felt in his chest near enough suffocated him. The harsh reality was that it wasn’t his child. And it wasn’t his future to dream about.

  “Your fi—how did he become infertile?”

  Bea’s shoulders lifted and collapsed in a deep sigh. “I’d love to make a joke about Italian men and tight underwear, but it’s a bit more complicated than that.”

  “He didn’t—he wasn’t unsafe with you, was he? Did he hurt you at all?”

  Jamie fought the urge to go to her, pull her into his arms, instead channeling all his energy into tightening his fingers along the counter’s edge—as if pressing the blood out of himself would make her revelations hurt less.

  Why hadn’t he done more to keep her by his side?

  You just let her go.

  “No.” Beatrice shook her head, her upper lip curling a bit, as if she were reliving an unpleasant memory. “We never consummated our relationship. For a number of reasons.”

  Her features changed, as if even saying the words was akin to tasting the most sour of fruits.

  As quickly as she’d sunk into a sigh she sat up tall, charged with an invisible shot of energy. “I need to get out of here.”

  She tugged off the monitor tabs and turned her back to Jamie. Shirt buttoned and tucked into her trousers, after a quick swipe and clean of the gel that had so recently helped give them access to that little baby inside her, she turned to him with a renewed sense of purpose flaring in her dark eyes.

  “Jamie, listen. My cousin has offered me the use of his chalet in the next valley over. It’s blissful. I went there once in the winter season. I have a couple of days scheduled off. Is there any chance I could convince you to come with me? Let me explain everything. Give you a chance to ask all the questions you must have.”

  A knock sounded on the door. The nurse called in and said that she had an update about a couple of the children who had been flown to Milan and one who was here at the clinic.

  Jamie wanted more than anything to ignore it. To go to this “blissful” chalet and start asking the pileup of questions jamming in his throat. See if there was even the tiniest sliver of hope that they could start something new.

  But he wasn’t there yet. Couldn’t pair the woman he’d loved with the one in front of him—drowning him in a flood of off-key information.

  “Sorry.” He pulled a fresh white coat off of the back of the door. “Duty calls.”

  * * *

  An hour, later Bea felt ready. Refreshed after a restorative walk along the lakeshore and a power nap that seemed to have supercharged her.

  She was ready to fight for her baby. And for her man.

  When Jamie stepped out of the back door of the clinic he looked exhausted. More tired than she’d ever seen him. And she knew it had nothing to do with work. The second their gazes connected, she knew her battle to win him over was already lost.

  “Shouldn’t you be at home? Resting?”

  The words in another context, another tone would have been soothing. Caring even. But at the sound of the brittle tone they’d been delivered in all the impassioned reasons to try again Bea had planned to stack at his feet like Christmas presents were swept away.

  “I thought I’d come in and do a couple of hours. Relieve anyone who was at the crash site.”

  “I think it’s best if you don’t.” Jamie squared his stance to hers. “I know your contract runs until the end of the summer—early September, wasn’t it?”

  She nodded, her tongue weighted to the bottom of her mouth with disbelief. He was going to fire her.

  Not wanting to hear what was coming next, she shook her fingers in a wide just-stop gesture that anyone with half a brain could have read.

  And yet he continued, as if purging a poison from his own body.

  “I think it’s best if you don’t come in anymore. I’m sure we’ll be able to get through the next few days with relief staff. Until we can get someone permanent in.”

  He spoke as if in a trance. The words coming out in the dull, staccato tones of an automaton. As if his hollowed-out heart would never know the joy of love again.

  Part of her wanted to rush to him. Take her hand and press it to his chest, feel for the beat of his heart. She knew it was there. Knew blood pumped through his veins the same as hers. And yet...

  This Jamie frightened her.

  This Jamie was saying goodbye.

  “If you’ve left anything, I’ll get someone to bring it by. I presume you’ll stay in town overnight?”

  Her shoulders slumped with defeat as she watched his cool gaze drop to her lips, then to the dip of her clavicle. The swoop of bone and flesh he’d used to trace with the pad of his thumb before dipping his head to press hot kisses into the hollow at the base of her throat.

  Heat clashed with icy cold as the sensation of his gaze and the memory of his touch collided.

  She shut her eyes against the memory, willing herself to focus on the child she was carrying. The love she and Jamie had once shared. And when she opened her eyes again...willing to bare her soul to him for one last shot at being together...he was gone.

  CHAPTER TEN

  BEA PULLED THE covers around her shoulders, not quite ready to admit that it was morning even though the sun was already peeking through the shutters she could never bring herself to close.

  Bah! Who needed another sunny day when it was raining inside her head?

  Pragmatism told her that her behavior was bordering on depression.

  Her heart said otherwise.

  She’d laid it on the line. As good as reached into her own chest and handed Jamie her heart with a ribbon and bow on it and a little tag attached. Take me.

  She pulled the sheet up and over her head and gave a small groan. She’d already cried as many tears as her body would allow. Cried until she’d fallen asleep. And even then it had been restless, fraught with terrifying dreams. Darkness. Unseen dangers. Cliff edges. Racing vehicles. Natural disasters. Anything and everything she’d ever been fr
ightened of gathered together in a dream to lure her into the most harrowing of chases for survival.

  Well...

  She cracked an eye open and let the morning sounds of the town register.

  She’d survived.

  Just.

  There was a part of her that still wanted to curse Jamie. Scream at him for not standing by her at this time of crazy, urgent need. The other half of her knew she had no right. All of this was a nightmare of her own making.

  All of it save her inability to stop loving him.

  It was time to let go. She knew it now.

  No matter how cruel his looks, how callous his words, she knew she would love Jamie until the end of time. It was as if the first time she’d met him, he’d lit a single candle in the center of her heart. A pure flame that had refused—no matter what she had thrown at it—to be extinguished.

  True love could never die.

  But perhaps it could change form.

  The harsh, unforgiving speeches she would normally be giving herself were impossible to drum up.

  Had she...? Was this her first step in forgiving herself?

  Her hands slipped to her belly. The only way she could go on was to forgive herself for all she had done. Everything—no matter how insane it had seemed—had been done with love in her heart.

  Had it landed her in the deep end?

  Most definitely.

  Would she make it to the other side?

  A smile tweaked at the edges of her lips.

  Of course she would.

  No matter how down she felt, it was time to find the reserves of strength lying somewhere deep within her and protect and care for the baby she was carrying on her own.

  The phone rang and she let out a groan. Anyone who knew her would hear that her throat had been rasped raw with sobbing the night away. Maybe she should call in sick.

  A fresh bloom of tears clouded her eyes.

  There was no work.

  She’d been unceremoniously fired.

  Sighing, she batted her hand about on the bedside table until she hit the phone and pulled it under the covers.

  “Pronto?”

  “Don’t go out this morning.”

  Bea sat straight up in bed, pulling the covers around her as if they would shield her from whatever news he was about to spill.

  “Jamie?” She knew it was him, but the message he was conveying wasn’t computing at all.

  “The press. They’re all around your baita. The clinic, too. They got a photo.”

  “Photo?” She shook her head, the information still not entirely registering.

  “Of you... Me. Your hand on your belly.”

  She shook her head again, willing her brain to play along. Sort everything into the right place.

  “When?”

  One-word responses seemed to be all she was capable of this morning.

  “Yesterday at the accident scene. There was press everywhere.”

  Her fingers flew to her mouth. Of course there had been. She’d been so engrossed in work she hadn’t even thought to consider...

  The accident scene came back to her in vivid snapshots.

  Emergency tape cordoning off the onlookers... Had there been photographers among the crowd? Mobile phones?

  Definitely.

  The flash of cameras as they lost the light?

  Paparazzi at a crash site?

  Or a keen-eyed tourist trying to make some extra money.

  Had anyone called out her name?

  She shook her head again. It was so hard to remember.

  Helicopters flying in and out.

  One helicopter hovering... Something a medical chopper would never do... Press.

  A man on a motorcycle, trying to talk his way past the polizia di stato overseeing the slow flow of traffic trickling down the mountainside past the crash site. He’d had a camera, long lensed, resting on his thigh...and then she’d stumbled.

  She squeezed her eyes tight against the memory.

  “Beatrice?” Jamie’s caramel-rich voice was edged with worry. “Are you still there?”

  “Si—yes.” A logjam of words caught in her throat, and in the end all she achieved was a cry for help. “I—I’m not sure what to do.”

  “I know what you’re not going to do...” And in a steady, assured voice, Jamie began detailing how to get out of this outrageous predicament.

  She let his voice do what it always did. Pour down her insides like warm caramel, pooling at the base of her spine where it turned molten. Fiery. A lava-hot core of resolve.

  Bea swung her legs out of bed, pressing her toes against the cool wooden planks of her apartment, taking strength from his assured tone that she would be fine.

  “Close your shutters. Take a nice shower. Put on a loose-fitting dress. Find a hat. If you don’t have one, I’ll bring one.”

  “You’ll bring one? What are you talking about?”

  “I’m coming over. Don’t open your door to anyone but me.”

  “Jamie, what are you talking about? I thought—”

  I thought you wanted me out of your life.

  “Never mind what I thought. I can’t have my patients’ welfares compromised because of the press outside.”

  Ah.

  The patients. Of course.

  “I’m going to drive up to the back door. Your landlord will let me in. Don’t even be tempted to leave your apartment until you’re certain it’s me.”

  “It’s really not your concern.”

  “It is now,” he bit back, his voice as grim as she’d ever heard it. “You made it my concern the second you stepped into my clinic.”

  He was lashing out. She knew that. He’d never asked for everything she’d brought in her wake.

  Her eyes worked their way over to the suitcases she’d already packed, the clothes she’d set out to make an early departure, before the full impact of Jamie’s demand that she leave had kept her cemented to her bed.

  She would leave on her own. No matter how hard it would be not to fight for the man she loved with all her heart, the life she’d thought they could share together, she would leave so he could survive.

  “I’ll get a taxi.” She flicked an app open on her telefono. “There’s a train leaving in a half an hour. I’ll be on it. Just—” She swallowed back the tears stinging her raw throat. “It’s really okay.”

  “It really isn’t, Beatrice.”

  Why was he making this more difficult than he had to? For both of them?

  “I’ve already spoken to the local police about an escort. Do you know the fastest way to your cousin’s chalet? The one you mentioned yesterday? I can get some security in place before we arrive if you let me know what the address is.”

  “Wait! We?”

  Leaving on her own was going to be harrowing enough. She’d just made the tiniest of baby steps toward making peace with herself and already it was torn to shreds. Deep breath in...

  “Jamie. Surely I can get past a couple of paparazzi on my own? I know I’m no pro, but I have managed a few in my time.”

  “Beatrice, there are dozens of them.”

  Jamie’s words crystalized in her brain as he spoke...then froze icy cold as he continued.

  “Even more here at the clinic. You’re trapped.”

  The phone clattered to the floor as her hands instinctively wove around her belly, protecting the tiny life inside. The fist-sized baby she’d vowed to take care of no matter what.

  Something fierce and powerful rose within her. A mother’s elemental chemistry at work, protecting what she and she alone could give life to. This was her battle. And hers alone.

  She scooped the phone from the floor, took swift strides to the win
dows and pulled the shutters closed against the invasive glare of the tabloid press. There was an underground garage she could leave through. Calls she could make.

  Part of her felt like striding out in front of them all, holding a press conference, pouring her heart out so the world would know once and for all that being a princess was far from living “less than a whisper away from heaven,” as one of the tabloids had put it right before her disastrous wedding.

  “I got myself into this mess. Thank you for your help.”

  She parted her lips again to wish him well in life, but stopped herself because the only words she knew would come tumbling out if she continued would be the three most beautiful and yet cuttingly painful words of all...

  I love you.

  She held the phone away from her ear and with great remorse pressed the little red symbol that would end the call. Then swiftly, through the blur of tears now flowing freely down her cheeks, she deleted the number.

  It felt like cutting off a limb. But at long last she felt pride at her decision. A long-awaited fragment of self-respect that she knew would only continue to grow.

  * * *

  Jamie stared at the phone with an equal mix of terror and fury churning through his veins.

  She’d hung up on him.

  He was trying to help!

  Surely she could see he was trying to help.

  He stuffed the phone into his pocket, his gaze snagging on the tabloid newspaper in front of him. The picture took up nearly three quarters of the page. Beatrice was front and center. She was wearing the regulation emergency-care jumpsuit, so it wasn’t obvious she was pregnant. Even now he knew it was still difficult to tell. There was a soft arc where he’d scanned her belly yesterday, but nothing so pronounced it was obvious. And yet...

  He shook his head, willing himself not to relive the moment where he’d first laid eyes on the child growing inside Beatrice’s womb. Useless. No matter what he did—eyes open, closed, half-mast—none of it worked. He could still see that baby—still feel the thread of empathy... No. It wasn’t empathy. He’d seen hundreds of babies inside hundreds of wombs in the course of his medical career, and held even more in his arms as a pediatrician.