The Royals of Monterra: Royal Delivery (Kindle Worlds)

by Rebecca Connolly

  I met my own eyes in the mirror, and nodded firmly.

  I could do this.

  I turned and opened the door to the bathroom, then walked out with my head held as high as ever, smiling at my very pretty husband, tying his tie in the mirror on the wall.

  His blue eyes met mine in the reflection and his hands paused. “Well?” he asked with forced indifference.

  I shrugged with the same sort of air. “Negative. I thought it would be, but you never know.”

  He nodded and went back to his tie. “Are you going to test again in two days like you did last time?”

  My mouth popped open and I put my hands on my hips. “How did you know about that?”

  One side of his mouth curved up in a smile. “Really, bella, you didn’t hide it. You tossed both into the trashcan in the bathroom where anyone could see them. I figured you would tell me if you wanted to, and since you didn’t, I didn’t ask.” He shrugged lightly and straightened his tie. “Tell me, did you actually think you were pregnant or were you just eager?”

  I sat down on our bed with a heavy sigh, actually kind of relieved that he knew. “Eager,” I admitted. “I just wanted to know if it worked this time.”

  He smiled fully at me as he folded his collar down. “Guess not, then. Well, we’ll just have to keep practicing until we get it right.” He winked at me, grinning now.

  I rolled my eyes and stood up, bringing his suit jacket over. “All you ever think about is practicing,” I muttered as I helped him put it on.

  He looked appropriately outraged. “I do not!” he protested, smoothing the jacket and adjusting the sleeves. Then he turned and took me by the waist, pulling me up against him. “Sometimes I think about gelato in the kitchen in the middle of the night with a certain queen I happen to be in love with.”

  I nudged my nose against his with a smile. “Oh, yeah? What is she wearing?”

  “My pajamas.”

  My head dropped back with a laugh and he kissed my neck, which somehow forced my hands to slide into his hair. “And what were you wearing, my king?”

  He smiled against my skin. “The other half of my pajamas.”

  Now I really laughed as he kissed me again, then brought his mouth to my lips for a quick succession of kisses. Nico loved kissing me, and I still wasn’t over the habit either. It was just too much fun.

  He pulled back and cupped my cheeks. “It will happen, Kat. I’m not worried. We’ll have a family soon, I promise.”

  I nodded, unable to do anything but believe him. “All right,” I replied, smoothing the bit of hair that I had tousled.

  He smirked at the loving strokes and stepped out of my hold, latching his fingers into mine and looking me over. “You were supposed to wear something demure, Kat, not striking. Who in the Parliament is going to be listening to me when you look like that?”

  I looked down at my perfectly acceptable ensemble, which wasn’t even that form fitting, and gave him a look. “Nico, this is almost exactly what I wore to meet the ambassador last week.”

  “I know,” he said with a groan, “and I barely remembered that I speak French, I was so busy staring at you.”

  I shook my head at my ridiculous husband, and let him pull me from the room, nerves and stress forgotten, and pregnancy worries… Well, those were almost forgotten.

  Nico and I had just returned from Parliament, where he had received a five minute standing ovation for his three minute speech, when Lemon knocked on the open bedroom door, looking almost timid, which was very un-Lemon.

  “Um, Kat, you got a sec?” she asked, tucking a strand of blonde hair behind her ear.

  Nico and I shared a startled look. “Yeah,” I said slowly, turning back to her. “I don’t have anything on my schedule until three.”

  She nodded, and I could have kicked myself. She knew my schedule. She practically orchestrated the whole thing.

  Nico excused himself and quickly left the room. Lemon and I didn’t even look at him.

  “What’s up?” I asked when she didn’t say anything.

  She looked at me for a long moment, then turned and closed the door behind her. “I have something I need to tell you,” she said, still facing the door.

  “I kind of figured that…”

  She glared over her shoulder. “Don’t mess with me, I’m already jumpy as a cat in a room full of rockin’ chairs.”

  That was odd. Lemon had stopped with her completely out-there Southern phrases lately, probably because nobody in Monterra got them any more than Americans north of the Mason-Dixon line did. If she was slipping back into that habit, she must have really been worked up.

  “Okay, I’m sorry,” I replied immediately. I sat on the bed and patted the spot beside me. “Come over here, we’ll talk.”

  Lemon came over and sat, looking so uncomfortable it was eerie. She didn’t look at me, the three inches between us felt like five miles, and she was so still I had to check to make sure she hadn’t actually frozen in place. Unless my best friend was about to break up with me, I couldn’t see any reason why she should be like this.

  When she still didn’t say anything, I started to freak out. “Lemon, spit it out,” I almost barked.

  She exhaled shortly then lifted her chin and met my eyes. “I’m pregnant.”

  There was maybe a three second beat where my heart skipped and my stomach dropped, but then I started smiling and couldn’t stop. “Really?”

  Lemon’s expression didn’t change at all. “Yep. Really.”

  “Oh my gosh!” I squealed, almost falling over as I tried to hug her and wasn’t getting a response. “How far along?”

  “Seven, maybe eight weeks. Not really sure.”

  I sat back, my hands still on her shoulder, thinking back quickly. “Wait… honeymoon baby?”

  She winced and looked away. “Yeah. I don’t know what to say, Kat, we didn’t even mean to. It just happened.”

  “That happens,” I assured her, confused. “That happens all the time.”

  “It wasn’t supposed to happen to me,” Lemon said stubbornly, picking at my pristine quilt. “You were supposed to have the honeymoon baby.”

  I laughed at that. “We tried,” I insisted. “I promise, I did everything I could possibly do to get that. You don’t want to know.”

  “You’re right, I don’t,” she said at once, smiling a little for the first time. But then it was gone and she looked down at her hands. “I’m so sorry, Kat.”

  My fun mental replay of my honeymoon with Nico screeched to a halt in my brain at her apology, and I stared at her, waiting for the punch line of whatever joke she was pulling. “Sorry?” I repeated. “What in the world are you sorry for?”

  Lemon gave me the sort of look that clearly tells me I’m stupid. “Because this totally steals your thunder. You and Nico were supposed to be the fairytale story. The prince falls in love with a commoner, marries her, makes her his queen, and they love each other so much they have babies right away. The world would love you two so much that they would flock to Monterra and totally overthrow our finances and blow our minds.” She shook her head with a derisive snort. “I knew I should have waited to marry Dante. I would never have been that stupid if we were only dating.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I protested, shaking her a little. “Uh uh, no way. You guys were going crazy, that absolutely had to happen. And as for stealing my thunder…” I shook my head. “That’s just ridiculous. You’re not doing anything of the sort. Please don’t tell me you’re actually mad about this.”

  She sighed and rubbed her head, then played with her hair a little. “Not mad, technically. I’m really happy about the baby, and Dante is too. It’s just faster than we were planning, and we both wanted you guys to go first. I know how badly you guys want a family and that you’ve been trying, so my ‘whoops’ is just so unfair.”

  I grinned at her and gave a little laugh. “I don’t think fairness has anything to do with it. And it’s not like we’re infertile or
anything, there’s no way to know that yet. It’s only been a few months, so we’re not hypersensitive. Don’t tiptoe around us just because you got it to work and we’re still trying.”

  Lemon looked at me for a long moment, searching my eyes. Then she exhaled loudly, her shoulders dropping. “You’re not upset?”

  “No!” I half-shouted. “Not a bit! You’re pregnant, Lemon! Oh my gosh, does your mother know yet?”

  She made a face and shook her head. “You’re the first person I’ve told except Dante. You know my mama, she can’t keep a secret if her life depended on it. Dante wanted to tell everybody, but I wouldn’t let him.” She smiled a little. “We’ve been fighting about that ever since.”

  Now that was hysterical. Lemon and Dante were both very spunky, emotional people, and while they had been known to spat from time to time, it was always in good fun and exuded all kinds of will-they/won’t-they sexual tension that the entire family bet on. Serafina didn’t quite know what the bet was actually about, but she joined in anyway.

  We’d all known something was up with the two of them over the last few days, but it wasn’t the same. There was no teasing about it, nothing fun surrounding either of them, just cold, hard tension. It was uncomfortable to the extreme, and all of us were talking about it behind their backs.

  Rafe still thought it was funny, and Nico and Violetta were amused, but the rest of us were just waiting to see what was going to happen.

  “Is that what that whole thing was all about?” I laughed, leaning back on my hands.

  She nodded, grinning sheepishly. “I blamed him for all of this. I might have accused him of getting me pregnant on purpose.”

  “Lemon!”

  “I know,” she said with a wave of her hand. “It’s ridiculous, and Dante’s favorite comeback is that he didn’t hear me complaining about it at the time, but I can promise you, no woman on earth would have complained about that, so I wasn’t sure what he expected me to do.”

  “Didn’t need to know that,” I muttered.

  Lemon either didn’t hear me or flat-out ignored me. “Anyway, so I haven’t talked to him in three days.”

  I couldn’t help laughing at that. Lemon was a talker, and so was Dante. The imposed restriction would have been torture for both of them. Ruthless, but probably effective.

  “You need to talk to him, sweetie,” I told her when I’d stopped laughing. “You’re pregnant, and that has got to be hard. This is fine, really. Look at England. Alex’s cousins had kids before he did.”

  Lemon made a disgusted noise. “That’s what Dante said, and I will tell you the same thing. They were Alex’s cousins, not his brother.” She huffed and folded her arms.

  I knew a lost cause when I saw it and raised my hands in surrender. “Okay, I get it, big deal. But this is okay, Lemon. Really, it’s fine. More than fine!” I bit my lip on a totally un-queenly squeal. “You’re having a baby!”

  She returned my smile shyly. “I’m having a baby.”

  I hugged her again and she hugged me back this time, which made me hug her harder.

  “Okay,” I said, pushing her away before I could cry. “Go make up with your husband, then we can tell the family.”

  “I have a plan for that,” Lemon insisted firmly as she got up. “I know exactly what we can do to minimalize things.”

  I almost rolled my eyes. Of course she did. “I knew you would. Can’t wait to hear it.”

  She nodded and fairly skipped out of the room.

  Lemon was pregnant.

  That was the most insane thing ever. She’d never really talked about having kids, although I knew that she did want some, and certainly that Dante did. But they had things they wanted to do first, and they had always said so. Nico and I were the ones who wanted a family now, and I was pretty sure everybody knew that, too.

  Were all of our plans going to go off-script? Was I a horrible person for actually feeling a little bit upset by this development?

  Probably. I was a horrible person. I wanted babies. I wanted the honeymoon pregnancy. I wanted the big family and I wanted it now. I… was a horrible, selfish person.

  My best friend was having a baby, and I was having a pity party.

  Way to go, Queen Kat.

  I shook my head and left the room to go and find Nico. We needed to talk.

  The entire family had gathered for the announcement, and, as we thought, everybody was shocked. Rafe swore that he thought Nico and I were going to make an announcement, not Dante and Lemon.

  He wasn’t alone.

  Aria kept looking at me, waiting for some reaction, but I’d prepared myself for this. I wasn’t anything but happy and thrilled and ecstatic and every other positive emotion I could think of. This was not about me.

  Lemon explained her plan to everyone, which wasn’t anything more than keeping it quiet and not announcing anything at all. When she started showing, she would wear baggier clothes and restrict her appearances. People might suspect, but no one would know for sure until the palace made an official statement. Which, she insisted, would only happen when it absolutely had to.

  Nico and I shared a look, and I glanced at Dante, who saw and gave a slight hint of rolling his eyes, but the way his arm was tightly wrapped around Lemon, I knew he wouldn’t say anything against any of her plans. He loved her in a way that people in the movies did, crazy quirks and all, and now that they were apparently talking again, he wasn’t about to mess that up.

  I didn’t blame him.

  Nothing got in the way of Lemon’s plans, and heaven help the fool who did.

  Once the serious part of the meeting was over, Lemon relaxed and we were actually able to celebrate the fact that she was pregnant. We all sat around while she Skyped her parents, which had become a favorite Fiorelli family event, and Sue Ellen swore on the grave of her dog Lulu, which seemed significant from the way Lemon sucked in a breath, that she wouldn’t even tell her church friends, which apparently was a big deal, and then proceeded to try and kiss both her and Dante through the screen, which resulted in hilarity.

  I really didn’t know what Lemon expected to happen; there was no way anybody was going to be upset about this but her. Violetta was sincere in her congratulations, but hardly exuberant. She wasn’t as moody as she’d been before rehab, but was somehow more reserved and composed now, and it took a bit to get her going. She liked me well enough, mostly because we related on a different level, but with Lemon, she had almost nothing in common. Still, they were getting better.

  Chiara and Serafina were obsessed with the idea of being aunts, so they were just fine, and were already making up lists of baby names.

  Rafe watched Dante with a little bit of envy, but wasn’t saying anything about it. I felt bad for him, knowing what he’d been through and what serious guy he was. Rafe probably would have loved becoming a father, no matter when it came in his grand plan for life. He was that kind of guy. He wouldn’t be anything but thrilled for his twin and protective of the baby, but I wondered if he might be feeling a little bit of what I did.

  He caught me watching him and raised a questioning brow, which I just smiled at.

  Rafe wasn’t Dante, but I liked him just as much. Maybe more.

  I had no plans to ever tell him that, though.

  Later that night, I was in bed, pretending I wasn’t crying, and hoping to get all of the tears out of the way before Nico showed up. He had some last minute phone calls to deal with, and I was “too tired” to wait.

  I felt guilt welling up with every tear, but since no one would know but me, I could deal with that.

  What if I couldn’t get pregnant? What if the entire succession of the Monterran throne got messed up because of me? Then Dante would inherit, and his baby, and everyone would forget all about Nico and his barren American wife who couldn’t do the one job she was supposed to.

  That was stupid. Nico would be remembered for all of the good he would do and the great man that he was. I, on the other hand, would be th
at one American who snagged the king and messed everything up.

  I knew I was being dumb, but I couldn’t help it. It hurt that Lemon was pregnant from one “oops” and I wasn’t after months of intentionally trying. I knew that it took time to get pregnant, that you couldn’t actually know if you were infertile until you had tried for a full year and then go see a doctor (I’d looked it up just to be sure) and I wasn’t there yet.

  But what if I was?

  The door to the bedroom opened and I kept my back to the door, trying to wipe my face and clear my throat without Nico noticing. He kept up a steady stream of words as he undressed, something about what his phone calls had been about and a problem with some bureaucratic aspect of his charity, but I wasn’t listening. I was focused on steadying my breathing and not showing distress.

  He slid into bed behind me, wrapping his arms around me automatically. I snuggled back against him and held his arms to me.

  “You can cry, cuore mio,” he whispered into my hair. “It’s okay, I won’t tell.”

  “I’m h-happy for them,” I managed, squeaking and stuttering a little. “I really am.”

  He kissed my shoulder. “I know. But you are allowed to be a little bit sad for yourself, too.”

  That did it. I turned in his hold and buried my face into his chest, crying about not being pregnant and about feeling jealous of Lemon and about the guilt I felt about all of it.

  Nico held me all the while, murmuring softly in Italian and kissing away all of my tears, then kissing me more just because he could.

  Practice makes perfect, I guess.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The First Trimester

  “Bella, what can I do? Is there anything I can do for you?”

  His voice was so sweet, so concerned, and I loved what his hands were doing along my back. Despite my abject misery and bonding with the porcelain throne before me, I arched back into his magical hands and moaned a little.

  He took the hint and pressed a little harder, running his hands up and down the muscles, stroking and kneading and…