As the wheels lowered, Gabe stared out the window. The islands were gorgeous, set against the blue of the Sargasso Sea. The Ancora Palace could be seen on the eastern coast of Ancora, the largest of the islands that made up the nation and housed the capital city, named, as it was, after the main island as well.
A sense of peace settled over Gabe, a sense of home. As much as he was often made to feel less than because of his birth order, he had a feeling it would be different here.
At least until his wife became queen.
Then he’d be an extra all over again.
* * *
Esme settled into the chair behind her desk two weeks after returning to Sargasso. She was finally starting to get comfortable in her increased administrative role. She didn’t have anything to do with the running of the country, not yet, but she had taken over the running of the palace.
There was a head administrator, but it was Esme’s job to oversee her and make certain everything was being run properly.
In between her own charity duties.
And trying to have a relationship with her husband.
He’d been spending long hours trying to get up to speed on everything he needed to know for the Games.
Every evening, he’d come back to their apartment, have dinner with her, then go back to work, kissing her before he collapsed into bed. His days were spent on locations, learning everything he needed to know about the venues. After dinner, he went to his office.
Esme was proud of him, of the work he was doing, but it didn’t leave much time for a relationship to blossom.
For a brief time, she’d begun to wonder if a relationship wasn’t the only thing about to blossom. They needed to have that conversation, or a variation on it, but she didn’t know when.
“Ma’am?”
Esme looked up to see Judy in the doorway. “Yes?”
“The prince has asked if you would like to have dinner and watch a movie tonight.”
A smile crossed her lips. “That would be lovely.”
“He’ll meet you in your private dining room at six-thirty.”
“Thank you.”
Esme had a hard time concentrating for the rest of the afternoon, but she had a few personnel matters that needed her attention. A couple who both worked in the kitchen were divorcing and now unable to work together. The chef said the work environment had become increasingly hostile.
Both were excellent at their jobs, which meant one of them needed to be reassigned. It would be a demotion for either one of them. Who should get demoted?
After reading through the paperwork several times, a potential solution came to her. She called the head chef who reluctantly agreed he didn’t have a better idea and would handle breaking the news to them himself when their shifts ended in a few minutes.
Esme went on to tackle the next problem when shouting outside her office door caught her attention. Even as she knew she should find some sort of safe place, she found herself walking toward the door.
“Demoted!” The word came through quite clear.
The man involved in the divorce wasn’t happy with the outcome.
“I want to see the princess!” he demanded.
Esme pulled herself up to her full height and opened the door. “I am right here. However, I will not entertain appointment requests from those who insist on screaming at my staff.”
He glared at her. “I’ve served the crown faithfully for over fifteen years. She has only been here five.”
She clasped her hands in front of herself. “If the two of you could have remained cordial, or at least not antagonistic, while at work, you both would have been able to retain your positions. Since neither of you can, you have both been reassigned.” One would go work for Esme’s grandmother. The other had been assigned to the palace where Esme’s father often stayed.
The man, still wearing his white chef’s jacket took half a step toward her as he opened his mouth. Before Esme could react, a member of her security team stepped in front of the man.
“I did not reduce your pay to go along with the change in assignment, however, if you insist on being belligerent, that can be arranged.”
Another member of her security team approached, whispering something to the man who muttered and grumbled, but turned and left, two of the security men flanking him.
Esme turned to Judy. “With that, I think I’m going to call it a day. I’ll tackle the rest in the morning.”
Judy smiled at her. “You handled the situation well, both of them. I think you’ve earned a soak in the Jacuzzi before your dinner with the prince.”
Esme turned back to her office. “I think you’re right. Let me straighten my desk, and I’ll be done for the day.”
With a wave of her hand, Judy dismissed Esme. “Go on. I can handle it.”
“Thank you.”
The walk to her apartment didn’t take long and before she knew it, Esme sank under the bubbles in the tub. This was just what she needed, at least until the massage therapists arrived the next morning. Gabe told her, in one of their short dinner conversations, that he was having them flown out a few more times, but actively looking for someone competent locally.
They’d come once, two days after they returned from Auverignon. It shouldn’t have surprised Esme how much better she felt, but somehow it did.
A close second had been the neck rub from Gabe, but that hadn’t been repeated since the plane.
Her phone chimed, letting her know the time had come for her to get ready for dinner. At least she didn’t need to dress up. When they both came straight from work, the attire didn’t change from the office, especially since Gabe would be going back. The rest of the time it was casual.
Esme went a little more casual than she had been with black yoga pants with a pink stripe down the side and a couple of sheer cutouts on the calves. Her tank top was the opposite, though without the sheer in the front. There was a little in the back.
She pulled her hair into a high ponytail and slipped on a pair of sandals rather than her trainers. She went to the dining room to find Gabe waiting for her.
He stood, still wearing his dress shirt and slacks, though his tie and jacket had been dispensed with. “You look relaxed.”
As he pulled her close to him, Esme lifted her face for the kiss she knew was coming.
“You’re not going back to work this evening?”
Gabe shook his head as he held her chair for her. “No. I probably shouldn’t have sprung it on you, but I think it’s probably time we had that discussion we put off a couple of weeks ago.”
Esme didn’t say anything but stared at her plate. She’d been thinking the same thing but hadn’t made a plan to actually do anything about it.
Gabe sat to her right. “There’s something I have to ask, something I’ve never had to think about before, though I probably should have despite precautions.”
More reminders that he had a more colorful past than she did. Esme pushed them out of her mind and tried to focus on what he was saying.
“Is there any chance you could be pregnant?”
14
Waiting for her to answer had to be one of the longest minutes of Gabe’s life.
“What do you mean you’ve never had to worry about it before?”
She would pick that bit to focus on rather than just giving him a yes or no, but sometimes chickens came home to roost. You reaped what you sowed. And he’d sowed a life filled with women for too many years. His wife deserved to know the answers to the questions she might have. “I’ve always been careful. Always. For a lot of reasons. I was disappointing my family enough with how I was living. I couldn’t add a child to that. Even when I was shirking my responsibilities, I knew I wouldn’t be able to be the kind of father a child would need.”
A member of their staff walked in carrying their dinner. Gabe stopped talking except to thank him for the meal.
“And you never double checked anyway?” Esme poked at her salad with her fork.
Gabe shook his head. “I will always be completely honest with you. You won’t like some of the answers. I don’t like giving them. Even at the time, I knew better than to live the life I did.”
He needed to warn her. “I’ll answer almost any question you have, tell you almost anything you want to know, but if you aren’t sure if you really want to know the answer, don’t ask.”
She nodded but didn’t say anything else.
“No. I never double checked. The truth is, some of them I barely knew their first names. Second, very, very few of them were the types to go quietly into the night if they were having my baby. If they couldn’t parlay that into a marriage proposal, they would have at least turned it into being taken care of for life.”
Esme nodded but didn’t say anything.
“So no. No children as far as I know, and I think it’s extremely unlikely that there is a child out there.”
“But not impossible.”
He took a sip of his wine. “No. Not impossible.”
“And if some woman shows up someday saying she had your baby?”
“We deal with it then. Together, I hope, but I don’t think it’s going to happen.” Maybe he needed to think about that. Find a reputable private investigator and have them look into the women from his past, just to make certain there was no one who could come back and cause problems.
Esme took another bite of her salad. She didn’t respond, promise to stick by him if something should come up.
He took another sip of his wine. “You still haven’t answered my initial question, though.”
She reached for her water and took a big drink. “Why didn’t you use precautions that day?”
Gabe knew he could turn it back and ask why she hadn’t thought about it, but that didn’t sit right with him. “A couple of reasons. First, I didn’t think it would happen, so I wasn’t prepared for it. Second, you’re the first woman to be in my suite who wasn’t an employee doing her job. Third, we have an actual relationship, or the beginnings of one anyway. You’re my wife, not a one-night stand. Fourth, and probably the least important, we’re expected to have children as soon as reasonably possible.”
“No.”
“What?”
“I’m not pregnant, but the thought had occurred to me as well as something we need to discuss. The plan for children that is. I think it would be best if we waited about a year, have a couple of children fairly close together, then hopefully, they’ll be a little older before I become queen. That way I’m not raising small children and learning my mother’s job at the same time.”
“You won’t be raising them alone.” He reached over and covered her hand with his. “I’m not your father. I plan to be a very active and involved parent.”
“I know, but the point remains. I don’t want to be so busy first learning my role as queen and then being queen that I miss the ball games and polo matches and recitals.”
He squeezed her hand. “Sometimes you will have to choose one or the other, but in general, you can work your schedule around those things. If you make it a priority.”
“My parents didn’t, either one of them. My mother was there occasionally, but my father never was.”
“Then be better than they were.”
“After my grandfather died, we rarely had a family dinner, not even my mother with my brother and me. I ate alone, then with my brother, then alone again, for the most part.”
Gabe seldom enjoyed the family dinners, but they had one almost every week. “If that’s important to you, we make a concerted effort. Sometimes, it might be like the last couple of weeks where one or both of us goes back to work afterward, but we make family dinner time sacred. Other times, one of us will be out of town or have a dinner event to attend, but we make sure not to schedule more than say one a week if at all possible.”
“We make family a priority.”
“Yes.” He picked her hand up and kissed the back of it. “Because of who you are, there will be conflicts. It’s unavoidable. But we’ll minimize them as much as we can and work through them together.”
“I can live with that.”
“Good.” He winked at her. “I know you’re not ready yet, and neither am I, but we will have to be a lot closer more often for us to have children.”
Her face turned the most becoming shade of pink.
He leaned closer and whispered. “We might even need to sleep in the same room sometimes.” They’d been sleeping apart since their return from Auverignon.
That caused Esme to tug her hand away from his. “I told you...”
“I know,” he interrupted. “When it’s time, we will.”
He wanted that time to be now, but he also knew he couldn’t push her too far, too fast. It would never work.
“And when it’s time, I’ll get pregnant.”
The not before was implied, but Gabe heard it, loud and clear.
* * *
Staring at the ceiling wasn’t going to help anything, but Esme couldn’t sleep. Gabe’s words echoed in her head.
We will have to be a lot closer more often for us to have children, and we might even need to sleep in the same room sometimes.
Esme knew he was right, could even admit she missed having him by her side, but that didn’t mean she was ready for the intimacies those words implied.
Yet here she lay wishing he warmed the bed next to her, his soft snores reassuring her she wasn’t alone anymore.
After tossing and turning for what seemed like an eternity, she finally fell asleep.
She dressed with extra care the next morning, knowing it was unlikely she’d see Gabe before he left to work in his office, but a meeting with her mother meant she had to look her princess-y best.
A light breakfast was enough. There would be a large lunch with members of the Council later. Now that she was married, Esme was allowed to sit in on some of their meetings, though she didn’t get a vote until she turned thirty or became queen.
A smile, nod, and greeting to her mother’s assistant, Esme walked into the office, despite the assistant calling after her.
The door swung silently on its hinges.
“I take this one once a day?” Her mother’s voice floated over to Esme.
She could see her mother talking to the doctor who nodded. The queen popped a pill in her mouth and took a drink of water.
“It’s not getting better, is it?”
Esme backed out of the office, the door gliding shut after her. She glanced over at the assistant whose look of sympathy caused Esme to smile slightly.
He reached for the phone. “Ma’am, Princess Esmeralda is here to see you.”
“Send her in.” Her mother’s voice sounded as strong as ever over the intercom.
When she entered the office again, the doctor was nowhere to be seen, and her mother sat in her chair behind the desk. Esme made up her mind that she wouldn’t get too worked up over it. Most likely her mother was fighting off a bug of some kind and just didn’t want anyone to see her in a weakened state.
“Are you ready to get to work, darling?” Her mother motioned to one of the chairs at the conference table while she took another fully customized chair at the head of the table.
“How are you?” Esme asked. “You look a little tired.”
Her mother gave her a knowing look. “And you look very well rested.”
Given what Esme knew about her parents’ relationship, the comment surprised her. “Then Karen did her job this morning. I barely slept last night.”
“It’s good the Council won’t see you looking tired, then.”
The implication in there somewhere was that her mother’s stylist hadn’t done her job, not if the queen looked so tired.
Her mother slid a folder toward Esme. “This data is classified. It will not be found in a digital format. There are only a few copies, including this one, two for the Council, and several in the different parts of Parliament.”
Esme flipped the folder op
en to find plans for the defense of the islands in case of invasion. “Do we really need these? When was the last time someone tried to invade us?”
“That’s why we start with them. They’re classified, but of low... importance isn’t the right word, but there’s little likelihood they’ll be used. It’s a good place to cut your teeth as it were.”
For the next two hours, they went over the plans. It all gave Esme a headache. She’d never been in the military, though she held several honorary commissions. Most of it didn’t make enough sense to her for her to know if something didn’t make sense or needed to be changed.
“When I’m queen, will Gabe have access to this information?” It seemed like something he would understand better than she would. Perhaps he could teach her more about it.
“Technically, he can now. There are very few things that you will be required to keep from him, though there are some.”
“Can I take these with me? Or does he need to meet me here or another secure location?”
“It does need to be secure, but any of the security team can handle it for you. It could be brought to your apartment if you’d like.”
Esme nodded as she flipped the page up and tried to put her finger on what felt off about it. Could it be some sort of test? Show the princess something that’s wrong, but don’t tell her what it is and see if she picks up on it by herself.
Her mother’s phone buzzed. “That’s all the time we have at the moment. The Council members have left the capitol building and will be arriving momentarily.”
The two of them walked together, though Esme stayed half a step behind, toward the entrance hall by the main portico. The walk took long enough that the doors were ready to be opened when they arrived.
They stood just inside. In all probability, they could be seen by the cameras situated on buildings across the street, but the Council members would have to come to them.
It was all very choreographed in how it took place. Her mother had told her once it was set up to give the monarch at least an illusion of power and control, though there wasn’t much the monarch could do without the advice and consent of the Council.
The Spare and the Heir Page 11