The Princess Predicament

by Lisa Childs

  “I knew she had a crush on him,” Charlotte admitted. “But I hadn’t thought Whit would ever act on her vulnerability to him.”

  “Neither did I,” Aaron admitted. “He’s always been the professional, unemotional one.”

  Charlotte smiled as she thought of her sister. “Gabby has a way of getting to a person, of stealing her way into your heart.”

  But that hadn’t worked with their real mother or with the queen. The person actually had to have a heart for Gabby to work her way inside. From everything Charlotte had heard about him, Whitaker Howell didn’t have a heart either. But he had acted very worried about Gabriella and her safety.

  Charlotte was also anxious about her sister. “I hope she’s had access to medical care. And that she’s not in need of it now.”

  “She’s fine,” Aaron said, referring back to Charlotte’s most recent conversation with her aunt, who had called the palace at Whit’s request. “Whit rescued her at the airport.”

  Charlotte breathed a soft sigh of relief. Whit had saved her. Just because he’d been doing his job? Or because he cared about Gabby?

  In order to board the royal jet and return to St. Pierre, they would have to go back to the airport. And what if the gunmen were waiting there to try to grab Princess Gabriella again?

  “We still should be there, too,” Charlotte insisted. While the doctor had cleared her for flight and work, he’d cautioned her to take it easy. She’d been restrained to a bed for the past six months, so she’d lost some of her strength and stamina.

  “The other jet has already taken off,” Aaron said. “They’re hours ahead of us and may have already landed.”

  “But they’re not you and me,” she pointed out. “And I’m not sure if Whit should trust anyone but you and me.” Not with his life and certainly not with Gabby’s.

  Aaron snorted. “That shouldn’t be a problem since Whit rarely trusts anyone.”

  “That’s what’s kept him alive for the past thirty years,” Charlotte pointed out. But the problem was that he was traveling with a woman who trusted everyone, who always saw the good in people no matter what they’d done. Gabby would forgive Charlotte—eventually. But she wouldn’t be able to do that unless Whit could keep her alive.

  *

  SIX MONTHS AGO Whit had been willing to let her marry another man, but today he had barely let the doctor speak to her before he’d ushered Dominic Delgado back to his Jeep. Dominic was an irrepressible flirt. Was Whit jealous?

  Hope fluttered in her heart—and in her belly as the baby kicked with excitement. Could Whit care enough to feel jealousy?

  He strode back through the doorway. “We have to leave now. The royal jet may have already landed.”

  So he hadn’t been jealous at all. Just impatient to carry out his orders to bring her back to St. Pierre and her father. Disappointment quelled her flash of hope. But then she didn’t want him to be jealous of her. Because if Prince Linus had been acting of his own accord and not his father’s, then it must have been his jealousy that had cost Charlotte six months of her life.

  She doubted he’d acted alone, though, because she doubted he’d cared enough to be jealous of her.

  “You really want to bring me back to St. Pierre?” she asked. And her disappointment grew.

  She had been right to leave him six months ago. Despite that night they’d shared, he hadn’t cared anything for her—not enough to stop her from leaving. Not enough to stop her from marrying another man.

  “You need to go back to St. Pierre,” he stubbornly insisted. A muscle in his lean cheek, beneath the couple of days’ worth of stubble and above his tightly clenched jaw, twitched.

  “Why?” she asked. Nobody on St. Pierre genuinely cared for her—at least not enough to have ever been honest with her. “So my father can force me to marry Prince Tonio Malamatos?”

  “That is not the reason why the king wants you home,” Whit said.

  She wasn’t foolish enough to entertain any flutters of hope this time. Her question was more rhetorical than curious; despite the secrets he’d kept, she still knew her father well. Too well. “So he’s broken that engagement for me, too?”

  Good thing her question had been rhetorical because he didn’t answer it. That muscle just twitched in his cheek again.

  “Maybe Prince Tonio took my disappearance as a rejection and resumed his engagement to my cousin?” Actually Honora Del Cachon wasn’t her cousin since Gabby wasn’t really the queen’s daughter. Like the queen, Honora had never liked Gabby, either. The night of the ball—when she’d been publicly humiliated—instead of blaming the king, Honora had glared at Gabby with such hatred that she shuddered even now, remembering it. “They could actually be married by now.” And she fervently hoped that they were.

  Whit shook his head. “Prince Malamatos refused to break your engagement until he had proof that you were dead.”

  “He waited for me?” she asked. Unlike Prince Linus, he didn’t even know her. They had only met a few times over her lifetime, and had rarely spoken more than a couple of words to each other. So his loyalty wasn’t personal.

  Was her country that important to him?

  Whit jerked his chin up and down in a rough nod. And for a second she wondered if he’d read her mind. But he probably only meant that the prince had waited for her.

  “So he still intends to marry me when I return?” Panic rushed up on her now, so that she struggled to draw a deep breath. “And my father will expect me to obey his royal command and marry the prince.”

  “You can talk to him this time,” Whit said, “instead of running away.”

  His words stung her pride. “You think I ran away six months ago?”

  He gave a sharp nod. “I know that’s what you did.”

  “I was threatened,” she reminded him. Physically and emotionally. “And Charlotte thought I would be safer here.” From both threats.

  “Charlotte thought wrong.”

  “I was safe for six months,” she said. And happy, despite feeling like a fool for giving her love to a man without a heart and for believing her family’s lies. “I was safe until you came here.”

  He flinched but didn’t deny that he might be responsible for the danger she’d stumbled into at the airport. “You’re not safe anymore,” he said. “We need to leave.”

  Distress attacked her again, making her heart race and her stomach flip. “You don’t care about me.” She’d realized that long ago but it still hurt to know she’d given him so much and he’d given her so little.

  She touched her belly. Actually he’d given her much more than he’d realized.

  “Gabby,” he said, his breath expelling in a ragged sigh of exasperation. Then he lifted his arms and reached for her, as if he intended to offer her comfort or reassurance.

  But she held up a hand between them, holding him off. “And that’s fine. I don’t care that you don’t care what’ll happen to me on St. Pierre. But what about your baby? Don’t you worry what will happen to him?”

  There. She’d done it—she’d told him the truth. He was about to be a father.

  But why would he care since he obviously didn’t spare a thought for the baby’s mother? She would try not to take it personally; perhaps Whit Howell cared about nothing and no one.

  *

  ALL THE BLOOD rushed from Whit’s head, leaving him dizzy while heat rushed to his face. Sweat beaded on his brow. He brushed it away with a shaky hand. Maybe he should have let the doctor examine him, so he could have known for sure that he wasn’t on the verge of having a stroke.

  His heart raced, pounding fast and hard. And his lungs were too constricted for him to draw a deep breath. He had been in some of the most dangerous places and situations in the world, but he’d never felt such panic and fear before.

  “Are you all right?” Gabby asked. Moments ago she’d pushed him away, but now she reached for him, her small hands grasping his forearms.

  He nodded. But it was a lie. He wa
sn’t all right. He was about to become a father—one of several things he’d sworn he would never be: a father, a husband, a besotted lover…

  By leaving them, his mother had destroyed his father, sinking him deeper into the bottle, so that he hadn’t been able to hold a job. Three years ago, when Whit had lost a job and struggled to get another, he’d felt like he was becoming his old man. And he had become more determined than ever to not even risk it. That was why he’d put up with the king and his asinine royal commands—because he hadn’t wanted to lose another job. But now he risked losing so much more than just a job.

  “Are you sure?” he asked.

  She jerked her hands off his arms as if his skin had burned her. Maybe it had. He felt like his face was on fire. And he still couldn’t draw a deep breath.

  But then she lifted her face toward his, and her big brown eyes were bright with indignation. “You know there was only you…”

  His muscles tensed like they had that night when he’d realized she was a virgin, that despite all the media reports to the contrary, she had never been promiscuous. She had never been with another man before. Whit had tried to pull back, had tried to stop, but they’d both been too overcome with passion. And she’d urged him to take her—to take her innocence.

  He’d done it because he’d wanted her so much and because he had really believed she’d wanted him. But the next morning when he’d returned to his room to change his clothes so that no one would realize that he’d spent the night with her, she had packed up and booked her flight to Paris. And he’d realized that he’d probably just been an act of rebellion for her, that she’d used him as revenge against her father.

  “I know that I was the only one before you disappeared.” He heard the Jeep’s engine droning in the distance. “But you’ve been here six months…” Close to a man who had obviously fallen for her.

  She lifted her hand, as if she intended to slap him, but then she drew in a breath and her control. And instead of touching him, she pressed her palm to her belly. “I am six months along. I was already pregnant when I came here.”

  He waited for more, waited for her to assure him that she’d slept with no other man but him. She offered no such assurances about her love life.

  She only assured him, “This baby is yours.”

  But only the baby. She was not his. And she would never be.

  If he brought her back to St. Pierre, her father might very well do as she feared; he might force her into marrying a strange prince. It was King St. Pierre’s country, his rules. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to let his princess become involved with a bodyguard.

  “Where were you going?” he asked.

  She blinked and then narrowed her eyes in confusion. “Six months ago?”

  “No. Today,” he clarified. “At the airport. If you had time to buy a ticket, where were you going to go?”

  “The United States.”

  She’d be safer there than St. Pierre.

  “Any state in particular?” he wondered.

  She pressed her lips together, as if refusing to answer him. Obviously she still intended to give him the slip, and she didn’t want to make it easy for him to find her again.

  “I’m not letting you out of my sight,” he said. Especially not after what had happened at the airport. She could have been kidnapped or killed. And if he took his eyes off her for a moment, she would try to lose him again—leaving herself and their baby vulnerable.

  Their baby?

  He waited for the panic to surge back, but he could still breathe. His heart was beating—strong and steady—instead of the frantic pace it had when he’d first realized her baby was really his.

  “Then why does it matter where I was going?” she asked with a slight shrug.

  He fought an internal battle between following the rules and following his gut, between betraying friends and betraying her. His shoulder throbbed, as if his struggle had been physical as well as emotional. Or maybe it was infected. He really should have let Dr. Dominic examine it. But he ignored the pain and mimicked her shrug. “Because I want to know where we’re going when we get to the airport.”

  She gasped in surprise over his admission. “You’re not taking me to St. Pierre?”

  He couldn’t. Even before she’d told him the baby was his, he doubted he could have brought her back to the people who’d betrayed her—who’d manipulated and lied to her for her entire life. She deserved better than that.

  She also deserved better than him.

  Maybe he should leave her here with the doctor and Lydia—people who were able to love and already loved her. That would be the right thing to do, but Whit rarely did what was right. Because even if it was right, it wasn’t safe to leave her in a country where a man had already tried to abduct her and had nearly shot at her.

  “No,” he replied. “But we can’t stay here, either.”

  “Because everyone knows where we are,” she said, as if she’d read his mind again. But she continued to stare up at him, as if debating whether or not to trust him.

  After discovering how many people had lied to her and for how long, she shouldn’t trust anyone. Ever. Again.

  He could figure out another place for them to go. During his years in the service, he had traveled so much that he had discovered some places where a man could hide. But a pregnant princess?

  “I was going to Michigan,” she said.

  “Michigan? How did you know that’s where Charlotte was held for six months?” Had she already forgiven her sister and wanted to check on her?

  Her brow furrowed with confusion. “I didn’t. Where in Michigan was she held?”

  “At a private psychiatric hospital called Serenity House.” He nearly shuddered as he remembered the place that had been Charlotte’s prison for six months and had nearly been where Whit had breathed his last.

  She flinched with obvious regret and embarrassment. “I told Linus about Serenity House.”

  “How did you know about it?” he asked. She was inquisitive by nature; his men had told him that she’d often asked them about him. But he hadn’t realized how knowledgeable she was.

  “Someone told me about it,” she replied, evasively avoiding his gaze.

  Nothing had been less serene than a pregnant woman being held captive there for six months, restrained to a bed. It was also where Whit had been shot and would have been killed had it not been for Charlotte. He owed her his life. Could he keep her sister from her?

  “Who did you talk to?” he asked, more worried than curious.

  She shrugged. “Just somebody who lives near there.”

  “Did you meet her through Charlotte?”

  She nodded. “Charlotte met her while she was still a U.S. Marshal. I think it was on her last assignment that they met.”

  And Whit’s last assignment as Aaron’s partner before they dissolved their business and their friendship. “Josie Jessup?”

  Gabby shook her head. “That’s not her name.”

  “It probably isn’t now,” he said. “But I bet it sure as hell was. I know who she is. And I’ve always known where she was in northern Michigan—not that damn far from Serenity House.”

  He had betrayed Aaron to make sure that Josie stayed safe, when he’d helped Charlotte fake his and Aaron’s former client’s death to put her in witness relocation. So to make sure she was safe, he’d found out where the U.S. Marshal had hidden her.

  Gabby nipped at her bottom lip and then nodded. “Charlotte called her JJ.”

  “Charlotte shouldn’t have told you anything about her.” A man had been killed trying to find out where the woman, heiress to a media mogul’s empire, was hiding. Whit had been forced to kill the man in order to save Aaron’s life and Josie’s. His shoulder throbbed just thinking about the danger her knowledge put Gabriella in.

  “Why the hell would Charlotte tell you where she is?” he asked. “Nobody should know.” Maybe that was why the man at the airport had tried to grab Gabby—not b
ecause of who she was but of what she might know. It was information that someone had already killed for—information over which Whit had nearly died. Before he’d killed the man, the man had had gunmen try to kill him and Aaron. That was when Whit had taken the hit to the shoulder.

  “She trusts her,” Gabby explained. “And if anything happened to Charlotte, she trusted JJ and me to help each other.”

  While he’d been protecting her over three years ago, Whit had figured out that Josie Jessup was a smart, resourceful woman. What he hadn’t realized was how smart and resourceful Gabriella St. Pierre was.

  “We can’t go there,” he said.

  “Of course not now,” she agreed. “Charlotte would look for me there. That would have been a stupid place to hide.” She shook her head, apparently disgusted with herself for considering it.

  Gabby had yet to realize how intelligent and capable she was. She must have read and believed too much of what was printed about her. Whit knew, intimately, how wrong the media had always been about her.

  “If Charlotte was still missing, you would have been smart to go to Josie,” he admitted.

  With the former U.S. Marshal’s help, Josie had learned how to disappear. And maybe that was what Gabby needed to do—not just for six months but for the rest of her life. It might be the only way she would escape her father’s archaic insistence on ruling her life like he ruled his country—as a sole dictatorship.

  “Why didn’t you go to Josie earlier?” he asked, wondering why she hadn’t the minute she’d discovered Charlotte had been keeping secrets from her.

  Gabby glanced around that primitive hut. “I didn’t want to leave here.”

  It obviously wasn’t the conditions that had made her want to stay. So it was either the orphans, her aunt or Dr. Dominic. He hoped like hell it wasn’t the doctor.

  *

  WHAT DID HE think about becoming a father?

  Gabriella kept studying Whit’s handsome face, but he revealed nothing of his feelings—after the initial shock. Maybe he was still in shock. But that could have been from the gunshot wound more than over what she’d told him.