by Holly Jacobs
“Passed out. Parker mentioned that,” Shey said.
“I was fine. Tommy said—”
“Wait, who’s Tommy? Maybe I’m getting old, or maybe this wedding stuff has addled my brain, but I can’t keep up.”
Cara sighed. She’d wanted to get the explanation over as quickly as possible, but backtracked. “Tommy’s a doctor. And then Michael figured out I was pregnant, asked me to marry him and of course I said no.”
“Of course?” she echoed.
“Of course. There are so many reasons why I can’t say yes. Mainly he just asked because he’s an honorable man who wants to be with his baby. So, I plan to tell everyone Professor Stuart is the father.”
“You’ve got another man?” Shey raked her hand through her short red hair. “And we always thought you were the shy one. Let me get this straight, not only are you expecting the prince’s baby, you’ve got another man on the side I didn’t know about.”
“No, there is no Professor Stu. I made him up. But Michael can’t really have an illegitimate child, so the professor will be the father, and Michael can be the baby’s godfather or something. My connection with Parker will make that seem reasonable. And,” she said, reaching the part that she hadn’t discussed with Parker yet, “I will be making plans to move to Eliason so Michael can be with the baby as often as he likes.”
“You’re leaving the Square?”
“Look at it this way,” Cara said, “Amar is practically around the corner, so you and I will see each other. And Parker will be coming to Eliason, so I’ll see her, too.”
“But you’re moving to a new country and having a baby on your own?”
“I can’t take the baby away from Michael. He has responsibilities here and can’t come to Perry Square, so I have to come here. Maybe we can open a second Titles and Monarch’s here. We’ll be an international chain.” Cara was babbling, but she couldn’t stand the way Shey was staring at her. She felt like she was under a microscope.
Shey ignored talk of international chains and zeroed in on the real issue. “You love him.”
Cara couldn’t lie to her friend. “Yes. But he doesn’t love me. He’s a good man. A noble man. But he doesn’t love me.”
Shey shook her head and looked disgusted. “That’s crap.”
“Pardon?”
“Come with me.” Shey grabbed her hand and pulled her out the door.
“Where are we going?”
“To find Parker. The three of us have to talk. We’ll figure something out.”
Cara pulled her hand from Shey’s and stopped cold. “We won’t figure anything out. I’ve already decided what I’m going to do.”
“But—”
“Don’t interrupt. I love you both, but I have to do this my way. Yes, I love Michael, but I won’t ever marry him when all he feels for me is obligation and a healthy dose of lust. When I marry it will be to someone who loves me as much as I love him. That’s not going to happen with Michael, so the best I can do is make plans that will be as fair to both of us as possible. I’ve made up my mind. There’s nothing for the three of us to figure out.”
She turned to leave. A grand exit.
“Michael’s right, you sure did learn to be stubborn,” Shey called. There was more than a hint of pride in her voice.
Cara turned and smiled at her, then left. She needed some time to pull herself together before Michael caught up with her again.
She was going to have to be as firm with him as she’d been with Shey.
She wasn’t going to marry a man out of obligation.
When and if she ever married, it would be for one reason only…because they both loved each other.
Ten
It was a comedy of errors. Every time Cara finally caught up with Michael, something or someone interrupted.
The queen would appear with a matter that needed her attention right away.
The king would drag Michael off to a meeting.
One of the growing number of guests would join them, not realizing they were interrupting.
At this rate Cara figured they’d be celebrating the baby’s first birthday before they had time alone.
Michael’s home might be huge, but it felt crowded.
And here it was, the day before the wedding, and Cara knew they wouldn’t solve anything soon. She had a list of things to do a mile long, and she was sure his mother had given him one of the same length.
The queen had turned into a bit of a wedding tyrant.
Cara was trying to decide what needed to be done first, when she practically ran into him.
“Michael,” she said, drinking in the sight of him.
“Hurry, before someone spots us. In here.” Michael pulled her into a small office Cara had never seen before.
“Is this yours?” she asked.
“Yes.” He took her folder and set it on a table, then lightly brushed his hand over her stomach.
“How are you?”
“I’m fine. It’s been crazy.” She studied the room. “I pictured your office as something more ornate. Gilt, antiques. This is…”
She looked for a word to describe the room. The desk was old, but not an antique sort of old, but rather a someone-was-about-to-leave-it-out-for-the-rubbish way. There were plain but functional shelves on all four walls. They were crammed with books and papers. Files even.
She’d been to his private quarters and knew they were neat and tidy. She’d have expected his office to be much the same, but this…this was chaos.
“Do the cleaning people know where this room is?” she asked.
“Yes, and they know it’s off-limits. This is my personal space. You may have noticed that privacy is a luxury here. And I like it as is. It’s close to the center of things, but private. That makes it the perfect place for us to talk.”
“There’s—” Cara was going to finish the sentence with nothing to talk about, but she couldn’t because Michael had pulled her into his arms and kissed her. And rather than break off the kiss, she welcomed it. She’d missed being in his embrace.
When he finally released her, she said, “You’re trying to kiss me into a stupor, hoping I’ll be so muddled I won’t be able to argue with you.”
“I have no doubts that no matter how muddled you are, you’ll find a way to argue. When I first met you there was a blaze of awareness, desire. But now that I’ve gotten to know you better, there’s more. You’re an aggravating, stubborn woman and I’ve been waiting for you….”
His voice trailed off and they realized they weren’t the only ones in the area. There were voices in the hall. The door burst open and Pearly Gates barreled into the room, the ambassador on her heels.
The ambassador looked embarrassed. “I’m so sorry. We thought the room was empty.”
“Cara, tell this lily-livered cad to stop followin’ me,” Pearly said.
“Cara, tell this stubborn, won’t-listen-to-reason, old woman that I—”
Cara didn’t have time to tell either one of them anything. Pearly turned on the ambassador. “Old? I happen to know which one of us is older, Buster boy.”
“Which is why we don’t have time to waste,” the ambassador said. “We’ve waited too long as it is.”
“Waiting?” Pearly asked. “I know all about waiting. I’m good at it. After all, I waited for years for him to say the words, and he never did.”
“What words?” the ambassador asked, looking confused. “All through school all I could think of was coming home to you, of building a life with you.”
“And all it would have taken were those words. I loved you so much, and you didn’t love me at all. You were used to me. I couldn’t go into a lopsided relationship. Loving you, knowing you desired me, even liked me, but didn’t love me…It would have killed my love eventually.”
“Didn’t love you?” He closed the space between them and took Pearly into his arms. “Didn’t love you? I worshipped the ground you walked on. No one then, or since, has ever stood up to
me the way you did, do. No one’s ever made me feel half the things you have. Didn’t love you? Pearly Gates, you’re a fool. I loved you so much. All these years I’ve loved you. I’ve never met any woman who could make me feel half of what you did…do.”
“Too late,” Pearly whispered. “It’s too late.”
“Not too late, you fool. Say yes now. As soon as we see these children married, I’ll whisk you off and make an honest woman of you.”
“But—”
“Make an honest man of me, Pearly. We’ve both grown over the years. There are so many new things we have to discover about each other. But under all that we’re still Pearly and Buster, still meant for each other. I still love you.”
Pearly Gates, a woman known on Perry Square for always having something to say, stood speechless.
“Pearly?” the ambassador prompted.
“Yes,” she said, her voice firm.
“Is that a yes, what-do-you-want? Or is it a yes-I’ll-marry-you-and-make-you-the-happiest-man-on-earth?” he asked.
“The last one, the I’ll-marry-you one. I love you, you old fool.”
The older gentleman pulled Pearly into his arms and kissed her right and proper.
“I think we’re embarrassing the children.” Pearly looked at them as if she suddenly remembered she wasn’t alone in the room with Buster. “Cara, honey, thanks for helping us sort that all out.”
“I didn’t do anything,” Cara assured her.
Pearly walked over and hugged her. “You’ve done more than you know. And let me do you a favor. Don’t make the same mistake I did. Don’t let pride stand in the way of your happiness. Tell the boy what you need from him, don’t leave him guessing.”
She walked back to the ambassador and took his hand. “Come on, Buster. I think we interrupted a long overdue conversation.”
She led him out of the room and closed the door firmly.
“Well,” Michael said. “That was interesting.”
Cara sniffed. “That was beautiful. Just beautiful.”
“What about Pearly’s advice? Are you going to leave me guessing? Tomorrow’s the wedding. I want to be there with your friends. The two of us in front with them. Just say the words. Say you’ll marry me.”
“This is getting old. I can’t.”
“You won’t, despite the fact you want to. And it’s not just the fact I’m a prince that’s scaring you off. It’s not just that you don’t want to have to get married. It’s more and you know it. It would have been more honest if you’d told me up front you don’t care about me the way I care for you.”
“Care? You think I don’t care? If you only knew the half of it.”
“Then why? Tell me what you need from me,” he implored, his voice ragged.
“It’s the—” She searched for a reason, one that didn’t involve her begging him to love her. “It’s the whole prince thing.”
“Parker’s marrying a private investigator, and your friend Shey is marrying a prince. Why can’t we be together?”
“Don’t you see I’m nothing special? Parker is a princess, but she’s also a very practical woman who is strong enough to buck expectations and go after the life—the man—she wants. Shey’s the same way. Strong. She has causes, ideas she’ll fight for. She’ll be a wonderful princess, despite not being born into the position. But me? I’m just Cara. Shy. Quiet. A bookworm. I’m more at home reading about life than living it. What would I have to offer your country?”
“Cara, what would you have told our baby if you hadn’t found me?” he asked, ignoring her comments entirely. “Would you have kept the professor alive?”
That’s it? No arguments. No list of reasons why she could be a princess? Just asking what she’d tell their baby about its father.
“I would have told him or her—will tell him or her—that I met their daddy on a magical night. That we had so much in those few hours it was enough to last me a lifetime. Because like all magic, it faded the next day. But there was a little magic left behind. Our baby.”
“Magic. That about sums it up for me. But you’re wrong, sometimes the magic doesn’t fade. Sometimes it lasts.” He took her hand. “I think you could be happy here, with me. But if you can’t, if you really can’t, then I’ll stand by and let you go. Professor Stu can be resurrected. I’ll let you both go.”
“You’d do that? Just let me walk away with the baby, when I know how much you already love it?”
“I’d do that and so much more for you because I love you. I want what’s best for you and our baby. I’d like to think that’s me, but if it’s not…” He let the sentence hang a moment, then added, “You’ve seen what a life here would be. Being a part of the royal family has its perks, but it also has its burdens. I can’t walk away from it.”
“Say it again,” she murmured, not sure she’d heard him right.
“Magic—”
“No, the other part.”
“Love. You have my heart. My love. Surely you knew that.”
“Surely I didn’t.” Tears welled up in her eyes. There was no blaming pregnancy this time. Her heart was overflowing and there was no place for all those emotions to go except out.
“Of course, I love you. I wouldn’t have asked you to marry me if I didn’t.”
“For the baby. You said you wanted to raise the baby here and I figured I was just part of the package.”
“Cara mia, that night…It sounds trite, impossible even, but that night I fell in love with you. You showed me a glimpse of what my parents have had all these years. I never believed in love at first sight, until the moment I looked in your eyes and knew in the center of my soul that you were who I’d been waiting for all these years. And the more I’ve been with you, the more I’ve known you, the more that feeling has grown. I would have asked you to marry me if you weren’t expecting our baby because I can’t imagine a life without you.”
“I—”
“Say yes. I know it’s fast, I know it’s scary, but trust in what we have and say yes.”
“I was going to say I love you. Then I was going to add, yes.”
He reached in his pocket and pulled out a ring. Not just any ring. A huge diamond surrounded by topazes. “This was my father’s mother’s ring. My mother gave it to me when I told them about marrying you.”
“And the baby?”
“Yes, they know. They haven’t said anything at my request, but they’re bursting at the seams.”
He slid the ring on her finger. “If you don’t like it, we can get another.”
Cara just studied it. “It’s beautiful.”
“I’ve had it in my pocket every day. Just waiting for you.”
“All I was waiting for was the words. I do love you,” she assured him, wrapping her arms around him.
“Do you think you can get ready to get married tomorrow?” he asked.
She laughed. “It seems I have connections in Eliason. I’m pretty sure I can swing it.”
Cara stood in the front of the chapel, surrounded by friends and family. Her heart was full as she glanced at the man by her side.
“Do you Cara Marie Phillips take this man, Antonio Michael Paul Mickovich Dillonetti…”
She looked at Michael, her baby’s father, the man she loved, and said, “I do.”
The question was repeated. “Do you Marie Anna Parker Mickovich Dillonetti…”
And one last time, “Do you Shey Ann Carlson…”
Each of her friends echoed her, “I do.”
Cara glanced over her shoulder and saw her mother and father sitting in the front pew with the rest of the parents. Michael had flown them in as a surprise. Right behind them, Pearly was sitting next to the ambassador.
Cara knew that sometimes something was just too strong not to be, no matter how long it took.
Call it magic.
Call it fate.
Call it destiny.
Call it love.
Her eyes met Michael’s and he mouthed the words I lo
ve you.
Cara knew just what she planned to call it….
“I now pronounce you husband and wife….” The minister paused, and chuckled, as he added, “And husband and wife, and husband and wife.”
Cara looked at her friends and their husbands, then stepped into her husband’s open arms.
Yes, she knew just what she was going to call it….
Happily ever after.
Epilogue
“Prince Paul Michael Stuart Ericson Mickovich Dillonetti.” Cara cradled the hour old dark haired baby who seemed far too small for such a grand name.
“Cara,” Michael said. She could tell he was trying to be stern, but neither of them had stopped smiling since the baby was born.
To be honest, she wasn’t sure she’d stopped smiling since the wedding. She couldn’t believe how happy the last few months had been. And now, holding their baby, her happiness level seemed to be expanding exponentially.
“Oh, come on, Michael. It’s a great name. Nice and long like you royals seem to require. There’s one name for your father, one for you—”
“But Stuart?”
“Of course, Stuart. After all, he was instrumental in getting us together.” She laughed simply because her joy needed somewhere to go. she felt giddy with it.
Michael reached out and gently stroked her cheek. “Stuart it is, then. After what you went through bringing him into the world, you could call him Bubba for all I care.”
“Honey, I meant it as a joke.” Michael had seemed to suffer more than she had through the delivery. Holding the baby, the memory of the pain had all but faded.
“Cara mia, there was nothing remotely funny about labor. You’ll never go through it again.”
She handed the baby to him, noting he—the father—did look rather pale.
“He’s perfect, Michael. I don’t want to have him be an only child.”
“Cara—”
“Fine. We’ll wait at least a year before we start on a sibling.”