Topher frowned. “Was it bad?”
“Was it bad? Is the sky blue?”
“Sometimes.”
“Seriously, Toph. You have to admit you were a bit of a dick with her.”
He nodded his head, taking another swig of beer. “Yeah, yeah, I know. And I’m sorry about that. I froze. I didn’t know what to do. We were all stuck on that tiny boat, and I couldn’t do it.”
“Even though it was your own doing.”
“I know. I was a complete asshole and I deserve your wrath. I deserve her wrath. And I feel awful about it. But it’s probably better. You know me, I’m not one to stick around.”
“Yeah, well, maybe you should work on that. It’s fine to wander, but at some point you have to figure out what makes you keep running.”
Topher squinted his eyes. “I’m not running away from anything. I’m totally running toward things. It’s a big world out here. I’m just eating it up.”
“Yeah, well, in your haste to run toward something, maybe you can think about who you’re hurting and leaving behind. I know one woman who suffered for it.”
“Damn, Zander. I already felt bad enough about it. You’re not helping matters.”
“Dude. I’m calling it like I see it,” he said. “Pippa has been my closest friend since forever, and I hate to see her hurting.”
“She’s still upset about things? It’s been like six weeks. I figured she’d be well and truly over me by now.”
“Don’t flatter yourself that she’s sitting home pining for you,” his brother said. “She’s been traveling for the foundation. So she’s been busy. But I know you probably set her back relationshipwise for a long time. It’s a good thing she got a puppy, because I can’t see her bonding over much else for a good while.”
For some reason that made Topher feel slightly happy to know Pippa wasn’t with another guy. Which was entirely selfish of him. But the idea of her with someone else roiled his stomach. For whatever reason, he wasn’t prepared to keep her in his life, but he also wasn’t ready to watch her start anew with someone else. And yeah, he knew that he was a total dick for wanting to have it both ways.
“So, yeah, I’ll stay in touch and let you know if I can make it back for Christmas,” Topher said, feeling the need to get off the call. “Give Mum my love, and give Bella a squeeze.”
It was definitely easier for Topher to shut out his other life than to figure out what he was actually afraid of. And he knew he’d need to figure that one out. Someday.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“I need you to get over here like, yesterday,” Pippa texted to Clementine. “I’m talking faster than the speed of light. Hurry!”
Clementine tried to call as soon as she got the message, but the calls went straight to voice mail.
She pulled up to Pippa’s house and raced inside, but Pippa was nowhere to be found.
“Pips!” she called as she wandered from room to room. She even checked the home theater, but it was empty.
Finally she found Pippa, curled up in a ball in her huge walk-in closet, her black Labrador puppy, Muffin, clutched in her arms, tears pouring down, and a plastic stick in her hand.
“Honey,” Clem said, racing over to give her a hug. “What can be this wrong?”
“Pink.” Pippa said through loud wails.
“What?”
“It’s pink,” she bawled.
“What’s pink?”
“The stick,” Pippa said, gasping for air between her incessant crying jags. “It’s pink.”
Clementine stared at the stick, and it started to sink in. “Oh crap and a half. Topher.”
Pippa nodded hard.
“Baby.”
Pippa nodded.
“Fuck.”
Pippa nodded especially hard.
“But I thought everything was fine,” Clem said. “You didn’t tell me you were having any problems. Wouldn’t you have been getting sick or something?”
Pippa frowned.
“You were getting sick?”
She nodded.
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“It’s called deep denial,” Pippa said, her sobs subsiding momentarily. “I think I thought if I ignored it, it wouldn’t be true. I mean what are the chances?”
Clementine pursed her lips. “I’d say pretty good, judging by that stupid pink stick.”
Pippa started to cry again.
“I can’t be pregnant,” she said. “I can barely take care of a puppy who wakes me up every night. What would I do with a baby?”
“At least a baby won’t have sharp puppy teeth.”
“If you’re trying to make me laugh, it’s not working,” Pippa said. “Plus at least a puppy turns into a self-sufficient dog in a short period of time. A baby is like, forever. I’ll have this thing needing me till I’m ninety!”
Clementine laughed lightly. “Maybe not that long, sweetie,” she said. “But yeah, a baby is needy. No question about that.”
“What the hell am I going to do?”
“For starters, have you told Topher?”
Pippa shook her head. “God, no. Are you kidding me? He shook my damned hand. I’d say he pretty much has no interest in being anything in my life.”
“Yeah, but a baby is a game changer,” she said.
“I’m not having any part in forcing myself on the man simply because one stupid damned sperm of his got drunk over cocktails with an overzealous egg of mine and they took it too far. That, my friend, is no reason to force a man who made it abundantly clear he wasn’t interested in a relationship into a relationship. For bleeding ever.”
She started to cry again.
“Gosh, Pips, how long have you known something was wrong?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. I think I must’ve known for a few weeks things weren’t right. Remember I said my boobs were killing me? And then I got so damned tired. And then wine—wine!—started to taste horrible. I mean I can’t imagine a scenario for me that wine would taste horrible. And then I started throwing up.”
“Oh, Pippa,” Clementine said, giving her a hug. “What can I do to help out?”
She shrugged. “Hell if I know,” she said. “I don’t know the first thing about pregnancy, let alone a baby.”
“Have you told anyone?”
“Not a soul. Nor will I. Until I have no choice in the matter.”
“At some point you owe it to Topher to let him know.”
She shook her head. “Honestly, it will only make it harder for me to get re-rejected by the guy. I mean the great news is I can afford to do this on my own, you know? Think about how many women don’t have that luxury.”
Clementine nodded.
“And I’ve got plenty of room around here,” she said, spreading her arms out. “I mean not like my folks are ever here. For that matter, I could probably raise a child and never even see the thing in this place.”
“I like your attitude with this, Pips. So let’s start looking at some more pros, here,” Clementine said, enumerating with her fingers. “First, it’s not like you’re a teenager. You’re plenty old enough to be a responsible mum.”
“I was fast approaching being too old, for that matter.”
“Oh, stop,” she said. “And you have so much love in you. Look how much you adore this puppy.”
“Yeah, but the puppy has soft fur. I love soft fur.”
“I’m sure your baby will have some attribute that will attract you to it with equal fervor.”
Pippa shrugged. “Hard to imagine. I’m a big fan of baby animals, but baby people? I don’t have the slightest idea what you do with them.”
“Well, neither do I. But we can figure that out. I’m sure there must be books.”
“I’m too tired to read.”
“Okay. Well, we’ll deal with that later. So how about this is a chance for you to reinvent yourself from a family perspective. Make up for where your parents went wrong. You can be the mother you never had.”
“And the father,” Pippa said, tears welling up in her eyes as she stroked her puppy.
“You’ll be the best father with a vagina that there’s ever been,” Clementine said, which at least elicited a laugh from her friend. “And you’ll finally be rooted to a family, your very own family, once this baby comes, so even if you have to raise it on your own, it’s okay. After all, like you said, you’re blessed to have the resources to do that. You might not have had a lot of overt love in your family growing up, but at least now you have family money to help when you’re gonna need it most.”
Pippa gave her a hug. “If you came here to cheer me up, you’re doing a pretty damned good job of it. Curse you.”
“It’s what you pay me the big bucks for,” she said. “Now, let’s start practicing to be a good mum by feeding this puppy some dinner. She’s gnawing on my fingers, so she must be starving.”
“Fine,” Pippa said. “But if I need a substitute husband to help out, can I count on you?”
Clem smiled. “I already promised you I’d be your forever babysitter, didn’t I?” she said. “I didn’t realize I was going to have to watch an actual baby so soon, but that’s okay!”
“I can live without a man, but I could never live without my best friend,” Pippa said, giving her another hug as she picked herself up, dusted herself off, and dropped that cursed pink stick in the wastebasket.
Chapter Twenty-Six
TOPHER and Sebastian were hours from their home base in Airlie Beach, navigating around shallow reefs in the Whitsunday Islands where Topher had been tasked with checking on tagged tortoises, which was a bit like searching for a needle in a haystack.
“What say we take the rest of the day off and head over to Whitehaven Beach,” Sebastian said. The beach was famous for its gleaming white sand that combined with a multitude of shades of aqua water to create an almost portrait-like swirl of unsurpassed natural beauty. Hundreds of thousands of tourists each year sought out the breathtaking pristine scenery of the protected Whitehaven Beach.
They anchored a few hundred yards out and motored onto the beach on the dinghy. The sand was so white it was nearly blinding in the brilliant midday sun. As they wandered onto the shore, Topher couldn’t believe how soft the nearly pure silica sand was. The place was teeming with birds and butterflies and crabs skittering about. The wildlife combined with the white, white sand set against a brilliant blue sky and crystal clear waters in every shade of azure and turquoise imaginable created an environment that was simply magical.
After a while, they decided to walk into the bush on the island, where they were treated to spying on gargantuan monitor lizards and even a few wallabies. Eventually, they trekked to the Tongue Bay lookout, where they could best view the dramatic ripple effect caused by the shifting sands and tides. The view was impossibly spectacular—truly a natural wonder of the world.
They spent an hour or so hanging out in the shallow waters, relaxing under the warmth of the sun. The water was so clear that from their vantage point they were able to spot green turtles, a lemon shark, and even a graceful ray gliding nearby.
“This sure beats a day job,” Sebastian said with a broad grin.
“You’re not kidding,” Topher said, even though a day job wasn’t something he’d have to give very serious consideration to. At some point, royal duties, even for a prince who would likely never be king, would become the expectation for him. But until that time, he was happy to check out of the everyday world in favor of this fantasyland. He would be mercifully spared the duties of a desk job.
As the sun began to get low in the sky, the two men decided to head back to the catamaran for the night, hoping to enjoy sunset from the comfort of the cat’s trampoline, cocktails in hand.
Sebastian had boarded the dinghy, and Topher was just about to jump in when he felt something sharp pierce his foot.
“Crap, that hurt,” he said to Sebastian, assuming he’d stepped on a broken shell, or maybe a crab had pinched him. But within seconds a debilitating pain inched its way from his foot, through his calf, past his thigh, and within minutes was coursing its way through his entire body. He had no idea what had happened, but never could he imagine pain like this, and he knew he’d stepped on something deadly.
“Get help fast!” he screamed to Sebastian, who pulled him the rest of the way into the dinghy and sped out to the boat. Once there, he contacted emergency services on the satellite phone.
Meanwhile, Topher was writhing in complete agony, screaming as if someone was gutting him from the inside out.
“Toph, man, hang tight,” Sebastian said, wringing his hands. “They’ll get here as soon as they can.”
Topher’s body became rigid, his eyes wide with terror. His screams pierced the silence that had till then only been broken by seabirds and water lapping at the boat. He lapsed in and out of consciousness.
“Sebastian,” he choked out. “Do something. Knock me out so I can’t feel this pain anymore. I can’t take any more of it. I’d sooner die than have to experience one more second.”
Sebastian grabbed his hand and held tight. “Toph, I don’t know what I can do, but I have to try to keep you awake. The emergency medical folks said it was crucial I not let you pass out.”
“I’m fucking dying. And I’m not exaggerating. Please, I’m begging you. Just kill me and get it over with.” Topher’s cries could likely be heard for miles, carried over the open water above the sound of waves or motors or squalling gulls.
It took what seemed a lifetime for the helicopter to arrive and get out to the boat. Immediately, they administered a shot of morphine to stop the pain and three shots of pain medicine in his foot to lessen the torturous pain at the site of whatever this sting was. His foot had swollen three times its size and looked like it belonged to a cartoon character.
Soon Topher was deeply sedated and stabilized enough to be evacuated to a hospital. Sebastian had to stay behind to deal with the sailboat and take care of reaching out to Topher’s family.
He wasn’t looking forward to that call, and it would be hours till he could join Topher at the hospital, the whole time not knowing if he’d be alive by the time he got there.
He wasn’t even sure whom to contact but decided Zander would be his go-to man, so he called him first.
“Z, it’s Sebastian,” he said, his voice shaking with nerves.
“Sebastian! What is up?”
“I’m really sorry to call you,” he said. “I don’t even know if I’m waking you up. But I wanted to be sure you knew so you and your family could get here immediately.”
“You all right?”
“It’s Topher.”
“What happened?”
“We were having a perfect day in the most perfect place on the planet,” he said. “He was pushing the dinghy into deeper water and was about to jump on board when he stepped on something. Something venomous. The emergency medical team is pretty sure it’s called a cone snail. It’s a type of snail that launches a deadly poison-filled spear at its prey. And unfortunately, it thought your brother’s foot was dinner.”
“Is he there with you?”
“He just got medevaced out to hospital,” Sebastian said. “I couldn’t go with him; no room on the helicopter, plus I have to deal with this sailboat. But he’s not doing well, Zander. I don’t know if he’s going to live through the night.”
“Fuck,” Zander said. “Listen, text me everything I need to know. I’ve got to get hold of my family and notify them all so we can leave immediately.”
“Hurry, Zander. I don’t know if he can last.”
~*~
Zander wasted no time tracking down his entire family, and they were headed to the airport in record time. But right before he left the palace, he knew he had one more call to make.
“Pips,” he said when she picked up the phone. “Come quick. There’s been a bad accident. I’m not sure if Topher will live through the night. We’re flying out within the hour. Meet u
s at the airport.”
One last thing Zander took care of en route to the airport: he had to get his mother and father up to speed on the Topher-Pippa romance, so that no one questioned the need for her to be there for this dire emergency. His brother was going to need all the support they could muster.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
PIPPA couldn’t focus. Everything was swirling in her mind: Topher. Accident. Near death. What the hell? This was completely impossible. And where was he even? And who was we? Was the entire family going to be there? If so, why would they want Pippa? The last thing Topher needed was her coming along for the ride.
But Zander was certain when he said it, no doubt about it.
She threw a few things in a bag, called Clem to come get the puppy, grabbed her car keys, and left. She took the cliffside curves from her home toward the airport ridiculously fast, but no way was she going to miss this flight.
At the airport, she was diverted to the tarmac where the largest of the royal jets stood waiting, and a flight attendant immediately ushered her on board.
She raced up the steps, out of breath, and arrived to see the entire family there: Queen Ariana, her eyes swollen from crying; her husband, Prince Enrico, who held her in his arms; Adrian and his new wife, Emma; Zander and his serious girlfriend, Andi; Isabella and Luca. Everyone but Topher, who was lying somewhere—she didn’t even know where—in a hospital bed, fighting for his life.
Ariana rushed to Pippa and wrapped her in her arms. “Pippa, dear, we’re so glad you could make it,” she said, dabbing at her damp eyes with a tissue. “I know Christopher will be so happy to see you.”
Christopher would be thrilled to see her? And how did the queen know that? Was there a lot of information shared that she wasn’t aware of?
She looked over at Zander, her brows furrowed.
“Sorry, Pips,” he said. “I had to spill all. Toph needs all the support he can get right now.”
Pippa gulped. Good thing Zander didn’t know “all.” Clearly this was not the time to share that surprising news with them.
Love is in the Heir Page 12