Midwife's Longed-for Baby & the Prince's Cinderella Bride & Bride for the Single Dad (9781488022142)

by Anderson, Caroline; Berlin, Amalie; Taylor, Jennifer

  Another group of people approached from the park’s other path, and the couple who’d been filming stepped to the side to allow them to pass.

  With the path about to become narrower, Anais pressed against him, trying to edge Quinn off the walk with her to make way, but his arm firmed at her waist and he held her to the center.

  “We need to move,” she whispered, and he shook his head, lifting the whole hand he’d earlier freed and waved at the people.

  The group stepped off the path, and Quinn continued forward. “People are used to a kind of deference, and even if it feels strange to me too it’s tradition and I try to keep it up. You’ll have to get used to things again.”

  “It feels rude,” she muttered, her smile faltering for the first time since they’d reached the wide open public space. “I’m no different to them. I think putting myself into that false headspace is part of why I struggled so much with the title. I hate being called Princess.”

  “Next time we’ll move to the side, and you’ll see what happens. The smoothest way of handling things is the traditional route here, doing what people expect. Like this. Courting. The Sip. The wedding.”

  “It’s not really a wedding. We’re still married.”

  “But we never had a proper wedding. This will be a fresh start for us. Starting over, and doing it how we should’ve before. It’s a wedding.”

  Pick your battles, dummy.

  As the path opened to a wide meadow, he steered them to the east where she now saw a small table and servers hovered nearby. Lunch in the park. Let it never be said he didn’t know how to put on a show. Maybe he was right.

  “Shouldn’t fairy tales have picnics on the ground with red gingham blankets?”

  “We can sit on the ground if you want, but you’re the one in the white dress.” The charm and smile returned. “Ben met with the designers for a prosthesis this week. Even met with the vascular surgeon. Hasn’t agreed to surgery, but he’s listening.”

  “How did you manage it?” She went with the subject change. Ben was her patient too and she’d been failing to get him to consider a prosthesis for a month. “Did he hit you with RoboCop jokes?”

  He pulled out her chair. “He hit me with much worse. I just have better ammunition to fight back.”

  The afternoon sun warmed her shoulders and she let her eyes track over the park as he settled opposite her and the servers began to fuss, filling glasses with juice and water, presenting dishes of fruit, cheese, and little meat pastries. No wine. He remembered that too.

  More sweetness and consideration. Fighting for Ben. Fighting for her?

  Looking at him got hard.

  She shifted her gaze toward the pond and, set against the green water, maybe thirty meters from where they sat, he stood.

  A shock of ice shot through her and she heard Quinn urgently saying her name.

  Lanky, tall, gaunt of face, shaggy brown hair, and a deep corded scar across his right cheek.

  It was happening.

  A glass of water shot off the table and Anais saw it, but barely had enough control of her shaking hands to latch on to Quinn’s closest arm. “It’s him.”

  * * *

  Quinn let her glass fall, gaze fixed on Anais’s bloodless face. Even her forever pink lips looked like chalk, but the violent tremble in her hands on his arm just made it worse.

  Her fear summoned his; needles of awareness assaulted the back of his neck and he felt himself tensing, readying for a fight.

  She’d said him.

  “Him?” he echoed, following her gaze to a man loitering some distance away.

  Ratliffe?

  Couldn’t be. He was rotting in solitary in prison an hour from the capital as of two hours ago.

  Quinn forced himself to relax and waved off the approaching security team. He didn’t even know what Ratliffe looked like yet but, even if he had, he was too distant to see much aside from generalities. Tall. Overly thin. In need of a haircut, a shave, and a tee shirt without a hole in it.

  “It’s him,” she said again, then looked at him, then back at the security people. Quinn shook his head at them again. “How did he know we’d be here?”

  “It’s not him, Anais.” Shifting from fighting mode to being gently protective, he disengaged her clutching hands to take them both in his own. “He’s in solitary, remember? That’s not him.”

  “It’s him.”

  The fear rolling off her made him doubt for a few seconds but, unless the man was an escape artist, it wasn’t him. “I’ll go see.”

  “No!” She squawked the word, causing people nearby to look in their direction. Even someone who didn’t know her wouldn’t be able to mistake her panic.

  “I’ll take Mr. Potts with me.” He gestured toward the leader of his security detail and, after rising, obstructed her view of the man until she looked up at him.

  She’d said she hated it when he distracted her from her fears, but it was the only way he knew how to divert her when she got overwhelmed. But it also helped him.

  He tilted her chin up and brushed his lips over hers, increasing the strength of his kiss until she kissed him back, even just briefly. “I’ll just double-check, okay? You stay here. If it’s him, I’ll handle it. I promise.”

  It wasn’t him, but he needed her to calm down. Talking about the man who’d tormented and blackmailed her had just made this fear materialize with the first person who looked passingly similar from a distance. Once he’d made sure she’d feel better.

  He just wouldn’t tell her he hadn’t seen Ratliffe’s photo yet.

  * * *

  By the end of the weekend, Quinn had come to understand the depth of Anais’s fear over the photos and how the specter of Wayne haunted her.

  Their outing in the park had generated the photos and videos online he’d hoped for, but his quiet, but admittedly strange, conversation with the man she’d mistaken for Ratliffe overshadowed their success. He’d been cordial and, despite his confusion, had produced identification when requested. He’d even been polite when Quinn had brought him to Anais for introductions, and through the embarrassment that had brought color back to her cheeks and sent her apologizing profusely—something she hadn’t yet done with him.

  At the charity brunch they’d attended late the following morning, he hadn’t even needed to question the server she’d also mistakenly thought was Ratliffe. By then, he’d seen the man’s file and had his mugshot on his phone to show her quietly, without causing a scene.

  The most important thing for him to do with regard to their relationship had been to sort this situation out before anything else.

  So now, nearing midnight on Tuesday evening, he knocked on Anais’s door.

  “What happened?” she whispered the second she opened the door, one hand shooting out to grab his arm and drag him inside before locking up.

  She’d been asleep when he’d called to tell her he was coming, and her hair was delightfully messed up, but the pink silky gown and robe she wore took the majority of his attention. The low light in the room only accentuated the way the silk draped from her breasts and skimmed her waist. God, she looked good in it. He’d had a mission…

  “I wanted to tell you tonight, as soon as it was done.”

  “So, tell me.” She kept her voice low, pulled the short silky robe tighter around her, and went to perch on the sofa. “Stop dragging it out. Did something happen?”

  He followed the conversation better once she stopped moving around and stopped jiggling. “I got the…”

  The word video almost flew, but he checked himself in time. She’d never once mentioned a video to him—just pictures—and they scared her beyond reason alone. If she found out there was actual footage…

  “You got the pictures?” she filled in, still speaking in lo
w, but now frenzied tones.

  “Yes.” He cleared his throat. “And he’s gone.”

  “What do you mean, he’s gone?” She kept her voice low. “Is he dead?”

  He finally found the wherewithal to look the room over and make sure his mother-in-law wasn’t downstairs with them, and her question solidified. Dead?

  “For God’s sake, I didn’t kill him.”

  * * *

  The sudden exasperation in Quinn’s voice had Anais flipping on the table lamp to better see him.

  Lines she’d never noticed creased between his brows, evidence of a great deal of recent scowling. He looked tired. Exhausted, really. She patted the sofa cushion beside her and looked up at him. “Sit with me. I’ll stop interrupting so you can tell me.”

  He more fell into the sofa than sat and, as soon as he’d settled, reached for her and tugged until she rested against his side. “I arranged early release from his grand larceny sentence; he was escorted with guards to the palace for a long talk, and made a deal that ended with me having the blackmail material, him without access to retrieve any copies and then out of the country with a tidy sum of money.”

  Before his words had a chance to settle, he’d upped the ante by dragging her into his lap.

  Intimate and gentle despite his haggard appearance, he wrapped one arm around her waist and rested the other hand on her bare knee, thumb stroking in a leisurely way.

  Distracting.

  He sounded so certain that Wayne was out of their lives—that it was over. “What…?”

  “I’ve spent the whole day with a loathsome man for you; do I not deserve a little bit of cuddling?”

  The cheeky tone and lopsided grin were impossible not to return, and Anais felt herself smiling despite the subject of only seconds before. She propped her elbow on his shoulder and let her fingers scratch through the short, thick curling hair atop his head. “Is that how it works?”

  He tilted his head into her hand and closed his eyes, but his hand stroked up her thigh and back, leaving those happy tingles racing over her skin. But his certainty was convincing, especially when it became clear how much he’d actually done.

  “I don’t know what to say,” she whispered, feeling relief so palpable that this whole endeavor suddenly seemed possible. Or at least less terrifying. “You look tired.”

  “Long day,” he confirmed, and opened his eyes, his hand still stroking up and down her thigh. He wanted to stay.

  More. She wanted it too. “You could sleep here.”

  It took a lot to make the offer, so when he removed her hand from his hair and sketched a rueful smile she’d already started bracing herself for rejection.

  “The sofa looks comfortable, but I’d rather a bed.”

  Since they’d met again, there had been kisses of all description—angry, overwhelming, gentle, sweet, tender—and all initiated by him. But she wanted to kiss him, even if it might not convince him she meant him to stay for more than sleep. She wanted her mouth tender from the day’s growth of scratchy beard; she wanted that delicious burn all over her. She wanted to finally see the man’s body that time and service had given him. He’d somehow managed to stay dressed that time in her office.

  He hadn’t stopped touching her, so she followed the will of her pounding heart and brushed her lips lightly against his. “I meant upstairs.”

  The way his fingers curled into her thigh and the uptick in his breathing said he wanted that too, but, as she tilted her head to deepen the kiss, he pulled back, regret in his eyes. “Is this gratitude?”

  “Grat—?” She stopped and shook her head, leaning back to look at him. “No. It’s not gratitude.”

  “Did you finally accept that I love you?” he asked, then flopped his head back, eyes closing. “Please say that’s it, because I want to stay.”

  He couldn’t be happy with progress; he wanted everything when he wanted it.

  She didn’t want to talk about this, not right now. “I know you care, but why does this have to be about love? It wasn’t about love in my office. That was hate sex.”

  “That wasn’t hate sex.” He lifted his head sharply, instantly annoyed, but his hands stayed gentle, as if he’d willed them to be so, even while putting her off his lap.

  His reaction shocked her almost as much as the grief she felt at losing the cage of his arms and the solid heat beneath her. But when he scooted an entire cushion away, that shock turned into grief. “What else would you call it?”

  “Years of agony.”

  His bitter, disbelieving laugh robbed her of anything else to say. It took everything to keep the burning in her eyes from pouring salty rivers.

  “What’s it going to take? Do you think I half-violated a citizen’s rights and kicked him out of the country because I just kind of like you and really like what’s between your legs?”

  Still no words came, even when he rose and stomped for the door.

  “So that you can’t be further confused, I’ll make it clear. When you accept why I’m doing all this, I’ll go upstairs with you. That’s it.”

  Love. She knew what he meant.

  If she said what he wanted to hear, it would just be because she wanted him to stay and stop looking at her like that.

  Even if it was exactly how he should look at her—shock and bitterness that meant he was reconsidering this foolish idea.

  “Did you look at the photos?”

  “That’s what you want to know?” He shook his head, jaw gritted as he closed his eyes for long, stuttering heartbeats. “I saw enough to confirm it was you. That’s it.”

  Which should’ve made her feel a little better, but didn’t. “Where are they?”

  “Penthouse safe. You can have them after the wedding.” The smile he gave her was all teeth, sharp and unhappy. “Think of it as the world’s most messed-up wedding gift.”

  “More blackmail to marry you? Is that an act of love?”

  “Collateral,” he corrected. “If you love someone, set them free? I’m supposed to just let you go? Because you said you wanted me to fight for you. You can’t have it both ways.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ANAIS WALKED THE LONG, winding corridors of Sisters of Grace Hospital, her hand tucked into Quinn’s. From the dampness of his palm, she knew he was worried. Not that anyone else could see it—the military bearing seemed marrow-deep now, to the point that he practically marched and she had to jog to keep up.

  Ben’s surgery started in an hour, having been scheduled with remarkable speed during the few days she’d been away from Almsford—something Quinn finessed.

  “He’ll be all right,” she whispered to him, but he gave no sign he’d heard her until the door to their private waiting room finally swung shut behind them.

  It had barely clicked closed before he tugged her into his arms and seemed to deflate a little until his chin rested on her shoulder.

  She said it again, no matter how close it felt to the kind of assurances she’d been trained to never give. For him she’d forget that training. “It’s going to work. He’ll do great.”

  He released her and pushed a white handled shopping bag into her hands—the one she’d thought carried a gift for his friend. “I asked if, as one of Ben’s doctors, you could pop in and out of the surgery to keep us updated on how everything was going. Would you?”

  Ben was still pre-op, with a long surgery ahead, and Quinn was already a breath away from completely wrecked.

  A peek into the bag confirmed her suspicions: scrubs.

  Aside from demanding she marry him, Quinn had asked very little from her so far; really nothing compared to all she’d asked of him. Wear this gorgeous ring, go for a walk and picnic in the park, attend tonight’s Independence Day party at the American Embassy… All requests made in service t
o his Make People Like Anais campaign. This was the first thing he’d asked for himself.

  As awkward as it was to barge into another surgeon’s OR, she didn’t want to say no. She remembered clinging to her computer for any news she could scavenge in the days after Quinn had been injured.

  Waiting when the life of someone you loved hung by a thread was absolute torture.

  “If they’ll allow it,” she ventured. “I don’t have privileges at this hospital.”

  “I cleared it all. Thank you.” He breathed out slowly, a small amount of tension ebbing from his worried brow. “Rosalie’s in with him right now, but she’s going to be in here with us, waiting. I’m sure she’ll appreciate updates too.”

  “I’ll do whatever I can. Is there somewhere I can change?” She’d thrown herself—quite unsuccessfully—at the man only days ago. It’d be pointless to get weird about changing her clothes in front of him now. “Or can you stand against the door? I’ll be quick.”

  His brows popped up, but he nodded and went to plant his shoulder against the only exit. “Want me to turn around?”

  Just a polite question; the man already looked like he had no intention of moving, the confidence she’d been missing immediately returned.

  “You’ve seen it all. Your body’s the mystery here.”

  “How’s my body a mystery?” Quinn asked, his eyes tracking each button’s release down her front.

  The weight of his gaze on her, changing in a hospital waiting room, shouldn’t have brought back that maddening tingle—a feeling she was starting to make peace with and maybe even enjoy a little. Aside from him touching her, it was the next best thing. Even when it started feeling more like a striptease than a simple matter of necessity.

  Her blouse fell open, and Anais had never been so happy to have selected a pretty white lace panty set over her usual combination of whatever she’d blindly grabbed from the underwear drawer. The pressure of looming princesshood made her feel the need to dress in her best, and that even included the bits no one would see unless she was in a tragic accident. Under Quinn’s plan, she now felt obligated to wear pretty, matching underwear.