Contract Wedding, Expectant Bride

by Yvonne Lindsay

  Anguish streaked her face.

  “She’s the one who’s lying. Look at Andrej!” Sonja pushed past him and knelt at her son’s side. “He’s unconscious. What have you done?” she shrieked at Ottavia. “I’m calling security and a doctor,” she continued, pulling her ever-present cell phone from a pocket and dialing.

  “Rocco, you have to believe me. He tried to force me—” Her voice trailed off into a sob.

  “Oh, that’s very convincing,” Sonja said, straightening from the floor and grabbing a throw to put over her son’s prone and naked body. “You’re quite the actress, aren’t you? And I suppose you told Andrej the sob story about your past that you fed to His Majesty, also? Your version of it, at least.”

  Rocco stiffened and looked from Ottavia to Sonja and back again. “What are you talking about?”

  “I didn’t tell him anything except that his interest wasn’t welcome,” Ottavia cried out. “And who told you about my past?” She turned to stare accusingly at Rocco, and he felt his aggravation burn even hotter. She was the one who’d betrayed him—not the other way around.

  Sonja looked Rocco straight in the eye. “She’s the one who lies, Sire. I have proof.”

  “Proof?” Nausea rose from the pit of his belly. He turned and headed for the door. “I’ll be in my office. Bring me your proof.”

  “And Ms. Romolo?” Sonja asked.

  “Have security stay with her here.”

  He did not look back as he headed down the carpeted hallway. Two security guards raced past him as he strode along. He turned and watched them enter his chambers and felt a pang of remorse as he heard Ottavia’s voice rise in obvious distress. Hardening his heart, he resolutely continued to the end of the hall and took the stairs to the lower level where he kept his office.

  Once there he sank into the leather chair behind his desk and rested his head in his hands. To think he’d rushed back here tonight simply so he wouldn’t have to wait another moment to be with her. And all along she’d been playing him for a fool.

  Twenty minutes later, Sonja Novak was at his door.

  “I’m sorry you had to witness that,” she said, coming into his office.

  “Andrej—is he all right?”

  “He will be fine. The doctor thinks the combination of his painkillers for his shoulder and the wine he had at dinner tonight may have overcome him. Unless of course that woman drugged him. They’ve drawn blood for testing and he is being monitored.”

  Painkillers. For the injury he’d sustained protecting Rocco’s sister. “See to it that he gets the best care.”

  “Of course.” Sonja nodded.

  Rocco got up and paced to the window. He stared outside into the darkened gardens and beyond to the lake.

  “You say this has been going on between them for a while?”

  “Unfortunately, yes. Andrej tried to dissuade her but I suppose even he is not completely immune to a determined woman.”

  “You said you have proof that she cannot be trusted.”

  Sonja sighed audibly. “I do.”

  “Then tell me.”

  “The recent leaks to the media—I believe she is responsible. I ordered her laptop to be confiscated again and our IT security specialist found several deleted documents—one was an email from her to the national newspaper from two days before the reception for the princesses.”

  “And?” he prompted when she hesitated.

  “The guest list for the reception was attached.”

  Rocco’s hands clenched into fists of frustration. “Did you find anything else?”

  “The photos of the two of you on the boat that day—”

  “She could hardly have taken those photos herself,” Rocco protested, still wanting to believe there had been some kind of mistake. Yet how could there be? Sonja and Andrej—he’d known them his entire life. Believing Ottavia would mean accepting that the Novaks were lying to him, and that couldn’t possibly be true.

  “No, but she certainly knows how to wield her seductive powers and her beauty to coerce someone into it. You do know one of your helicopter pilots resigned, effective immediately, on the same day? Suddenly, it seems, he has sufficient funds to establish his own charter business.”

  Rocco spun around to face Sonja. “But she can’t possibly have been behind the sabotage of the boat,” he said.

  “Couldn’t she?”

  The seeds she planted were poison in his mind but he couldn’t refute them. The information she’d presented just now was damning. Ice ran in his veins.

  “If that is all, I would like to be alone.”

  “There’s more.”

  How much more could there be? He’d been duped most thoroughly. A fool, led by his desire, just like his father had been and his father before him.

  “She has a child.”

  “A child!”

  “A girl, apparently. Clearly motherhood does not rank high among Ms. Romolo’s attributes—her daughter has been institutionalized since birth.”

  So it had all been lies. Everything she’d shared with him, Rocco thought with a weary swipe across his eye. If none of it was real, then how was it able to hurt him so much? It shouldn’t be so painful to give up the idea of a woman who’d only been a facade, after all.

  “Have security bring her here and then when I am finished with her please see to it that she is escorted away from the palace.”

  “Do you want charges brought against her?”

  “No, I just never want to see her again after tonight.”

  Five minutes later, Ottavia stood before him. While her cheeks were still streaked with the evidence of her tears and her hair was a tangled mess, at least she was dressed.

  “Close the door and give us privacy,” Rocco ordered the security team.

  She didn’t even wait until the door was closed before speaking. “Please tell me you’re willing to hear me out,” she begged.

  “Hear more of your lies?” He gave a cynical laugh. “I don’t think so.”

  “Rocco—”

  “You will address me as Your Majesty!” he bit back.

  He crossed his arms and stared at her, trying desperately to project indifference. She’d been unmasked as a fraud, a liar—someone who had actively conspired against him. So why did he still want to reach out to her, soothe away the false distress covering her features?

  She took a step toward him, one hand outstretched.

  “Stop!” he said. “You may not touch me. You’ve done your worst and you’ve been caught out. I want you out of my castle and out of my life.”

  “No, you can’t mean it. Don’t you see? I was set up. Sonja, Andrej, they must have conspired together.”

  “Really? Even now you continue to lie to me? You expect me to believe you over the two people who have supported me since childhood? And not just me, my father, as well. And at what point were you going to tell me about the child, or did you just hope I would never find out that you had one stashed away?”

  “My sister? What does she have to do with any of this?”

  Sister? But Sonja had said the girl was her daughter. Perhaps Ottavia was lying—but it was a peculiar lie, one that would be easy to expose. And her confusion seemed genuine.

  For a moment, he started to doubt. Could Sonja have been mistaken? Was there some other explanation for all of this? Surely it was only logical to listen to both sides of the story...

  No. He pushed the doubts away. That wasn’t logic speaking, it was his foolish heart that wanted desperately to believe that Ottavia could not have betrayed him. He would not listen to it. Could not risk being seduced into trusting her ever again.

  “You will leave tonight and a flight will be arranged for you to return to your home in the morning,” he announced, walking to the do
or to let the security guards back in.

  “You’ve got it all wrong,” Ottavia pleaded behind him. “Please, don’t send me away—let me explain. I love you!”

  “No more lies, Ottavia. I have had enough.”

  * * *

  Ottavia stared at him in disbelief. How had it come to this in the space of little more than twelve hours? Why wouldn’t he believe her? Had she misjudged him so badly? She’d found him autocratic from the start but she believed there was more to him than that. Underneath the imperiousness, she thought she’d found honor, decency, even tenderness and protectiveness toward her. She thought she’d found someone who could love her. She couldn’t believe she’d been so incredibly wrong.

  She pulled every last thread of dignity she had left and injected a harsh note in her voice. “Our contract is over then?”

  “The contract was void from the moment you lay with Andrej,” he said bluntly.

  Ottavia absorbed his words as if they were blows, each one worse than the pain Andrej Novak had inflicted on her with his brutal hands. She’d given herself to Rocco, all of herself, in a way she’d never believed she would have the strength or courage to do with any man. And now he’d thrown it back in her face as if it was worthless. As if she, too, was worthless.

  Tears of grief threatened to blind her but she would not give him the satisfaction of seeing them fall. A guard stepped forward to take her arm.

  “That won’t be necessary.”

  Her words were sharp, a mask for the pain that was tearing her apart inside. She’d trusted him, loved him, and it had come to this. She’d been an absolute fool.

  The rest of the night passed in a blur. She was returned to Rocco’s chambers where she packed her things, removing every last trace of her existence from his life except for her copies of their contracts, rent in two, which she deliberately let drop to the floor.

  There’d be no more roses in the morning, no more verbal sparring at breakfast, no more walks at the lakeside. No more passion. She would never trust another man with her heart again.

  In the days and weeks that followed, she struggled to hold herself together. It was all she could do to gather her thoughts for her visits with Adriana, dodging the assembled media who continued to congregate outside her building.

  She couldn’t seem to pull herself together. It was even making her physically ill, causing her to vomit what little breakfast she could manage to eat each morning. Finally, fed up with herself, she went to the doctor.

  Ottavia arrived back at her apartment after her appointment not remembering a thing of the cab journey that had brought her home. At least she wasn’t sick, she told herself over and over, but in so many ways an illness would have been easier to deal with than the news she’d just been given.

  Pregnant.

  As much as she wished she could avoid it, she had to tell Rocco. It took some time and a lot of finagling with several of her old contacts but finally she had a number through which she might be able to reach him. It was no surprise when Sonja Novak answered the telephone.

  “It’s Ottavia Romolo, I wish to speak to His Majesty,” she said as assertively as she could.

  “You have a nerve.” The woman’s voice dripped icicles.

  Ottavia swallowed her pride. “Please, it’s vitally important.”

  “King Rocco has no desire to speak with you, and I’m quite sure his instructions toward you were clear that he wished for no further contact,” Sonja responded. “Goodbye, Ms. Romolo. Do not bother the palace again.”

  “Wait!” Ottavia blurted out. “Just wait a second... I’m pregnant.”

  Sonja Novak was the last person she’d wanted to tell, but she needed to reach Rocco and if it meant going through his rottweiler then that’s what she’d do.

  “Did I hear you correctly?” the woman said.

  “I’m pregnant,” Ottavia affirmed.

  “And this should be of interest to King Rocco, why exactly?”

  Ottavia closed her eyes and silently willed the other woman to believe her. “Because the baby is his and he needs to be informed.”

  Sonja’s voice was terse when she eventually spoke. “Give me your number.”

  Ottavia rattled off her telephone number and listened as the other woman repeated it back. “I will pass on your message to His Majesty. It will be up to him whether or not he calls you.”

  And with a click the call was severed. It took two days, forty-eight agonizing and excruciating hours, before Ottavia’s phone rang again. She checked the caller display. Private number. Hope flared.

  “Hello, this is Ottavia Romolo speaking,” she answered, injecting a confidence she was far from feeling as she took the call.

  “So you claim to be pregnant?”

  His voice filled her ears, but not the tone with which she was most familiar. The one that had shared his childhood memories as they’d walked beside the lake, or the one that had murmured to her in the darkness when they’d made love. No, this one was devoid of all gentleness or warmth. This was the voice of a distant monarch, not a lover, not a friend.

  “I have no reason to lie to you, Rocco,” she said softly. Her hand gripped the handset of the phone so tight the plastic creaked.

  “Why should I believe the child is mine?”

  “I did not sleep with Andrej. You are the only man I’ve had sex with in over a decade. It cannot be anyone else’s. Why won’t you believe me?”

  “Because you lied to me about everything else. You should know that I’m well aware that you shared information about our guest list with the media, and coordinated the sale of photos of us on the lake.”

  “I did none of those things!”

  “The proof was in your own computer. Do not attempt to contact me again.”

  The sharp click of a receiver followed by a disconnected beeping in her ear signaled his end to their conversation. Slowly Ottavia replaced the handset of her phone and sank to her knees. She hadn’t stood a chance. Thanks to the manipulation of Sonja Novak and her devil spawn, he didn’t believe her. He wouldn’t listen. Ottavia’s heart shattered into a thousand pieces.

  Fifteen

  Days later, her life almost resembled normal again when she got a call one evening that changed everything.

  “Ms. Romolo?” the caller asked the moment she picked up the handset.

  “Yes, who is this?” she responded.

  The woman identified herself. “I’m a nurse at the Queen Sophie Memorial Hospital. You are listed as next of kin for a patient we have just admitted.”

  “Patient?”

  “Yes, a Miss Adriana Romolo?”

  Ottavia felt a hand grip her heart and give it a squeeze. When she’d video-called Adriana last night she’d seemed a little out of sorts and her caregiver had mentioned afterward that Adriana had a cold and was running a slight fever. Given her medical conditions, any illness had to be monitored carefully, but her caregiver was a qualified nurse. The situation must be serious if Adriana had been taken to the hospital.

  The caller continued. “She’s been diagnosed with pneumonia. We would like you to come as soon as you can.”

  Ottavia got the details from the nurse then quickly gathered her things and called a cab to take her to the hospital. Traffic was heavy through the city center and she sat perched at the edge of her seat for the entire journey as if doing so could make the cab drive faster. The second they pulled up outside the main entrance, she flung a fistful of notes at the driver and scrambled from the vehicle. She found her way to the nurses’ station where she identified herself.

  The nurse introduced herself. “Hi, I’m the one who called. Come with me,” she said and gestured for Ottavia to follow her.

  They were nearing a room when an alarm sounded, its insistent beep drawing staff from all corn
ers of the ward.

  “Wait here!” the nurse instructed.

  But Ottavia couldn’t wait. This had to be Adriana’s room. She slipped in behind a white-coated doctor and watched in horror as she heard him instruct the nurse to drop the back of the bed. Lines and monitors were systematically checked, and a team started CPR on the small frame lying on the hospital mattress. They worked on her for what seemed like hours. Ottavia’s eyes remained riveted to the machine, willing it to jump into life, but all it reflected back was a flat line and that awful monotone.

  No heartbeat—no matter what they did, there was no heartbeat.

  She’d known that Adriana’s heart was weak—her long-term prognosis had never been good. Losing Adriana prematurely was always something she’d known would happen in the future. She just never expected the future would be now.

  Numbly she heard the doctor call time of death and, one by one, the staff began to peel away. Somehow she coped through the condolences and the medical explanations that were offered. Somehow she held herself together—right up until they left her alone in the room with her baby sister.

  She drew up beside the bed, lifted a hand to smooth away the dark tumble of hair that framed Adriana’s round face. Tears poured from her and Ottavia made no effort to hold them back.

  From the moment she had known of her sister’s existence she’d done all that was within her power to keep her safe, to provide a decent life for her. When she was only eighteen she’d taken a then three-year-old Adriana from the government institution where their mother had abandoned her. A Down syndrome child, especially one with high needs like Adriana’s, was not the kind of accessory a woman like their mother had wanted hanging around and, regrettably, their country provided minimal care for such children.

  Ottavia had spent every cent she could toward her upkeep. Maximizing her earning potential had always been foremost in her mind because without it, Adriana would have had next to no happiness or comfort in her life at all. The plan had always been for Ottavia to save until she could retire and then get a place for the two of them together. She had the money now—the king had had the money from her initial contract with him deposited into her account as a final insult. And she was more than ready to retire. But it wouldn’t be the same without Adriana.