Midwife's Longed-for Baby & the Prince's Cinderella Bride & Bride for the Single Dad (9781488022142)
Page 34
Mom nodded, but in the morning light she didn’t look as frail to Anais as she had since coming home. She looked like that woman who’d worked three jobs so they would stay afloat, refusing to let Anais get a job that would take her away from her studies and the better life Mom had wanted for her. Or maybe that was just what Anais needed her to be right now when her own strength was flagging.
“They’re taking some of the blame for it.”
“Who?”
“Everyone, I guess. People. Reporters. This morning, woven wedding crowns began appearing on the steps of the cathedral.”
“Flowers?”
Mom nodded.
“I guess they really enjoyed The Sip.” None of it made sense, especially the hope she felt fluttering in her belly.
“There’s something you’re not telling me, baby.”
Yes.
She didn’t want to lie to Mom. “I’m still trying to sort everything out.”
“You know he’s going to be dressed and at the wedding. People are still attending. It’s not cancelled.”
Breathe.
If things were as Mom reported, then he’d done what he’d promised—deflected blame. At least enough that she might be able to keep her home. Maybe even enough to work at Almsford again in a few months when the news died down.
There it was again, a lifting feeling that terrified her, that just left her with further to fall.
To hear Quinn talk, she’d been a victim, but really, she’d been stupid—the one thing she’d always had to cling to, cancelling the other things said about her, had been her intellect. But she’d been so stupid that night. Willfully stupid, not just naïve. Stupid and so hungry for attention and any small sense of belonging she’d drank his booze, and did other things.
Made terrible decisions. Got naked. Took photos. Made out. Blacked out…all with a man she wasn’t even really attracted to.
None of that matched up with Quinn’s victim hypothesis.
Then resolved it all with violence because she wasn’t smart enough to handle things civilly.
* * *
The day before the wedding, her wedding dress, underthings and accessories came by courier in the morning.
At noon, a van and security men with a hand truck carrying a small safe arrived. The inventory listed the contents: tiara, necklace, earrings, worn by Lady Evelyn in her wedding to Prince Thomas in 1954.
A man with a large bouquet of flowers arrived as the jewelry delivery men left—but a small security detail stayed to provide security overnight.
Anais let them all in, because what else was she supposed to do? Just stood there, being an observer to her life because both choices paralyzed her.
She waved the flowers in, thanked the man, then spent some time staring at the roses, lilies and violets. Nestled in the blooms was a small envelope. A card.
She couldn’t bring herself to look at the jewelry in the safe, but she fumbled the card out of the envelope and read Quinn’s strong script:
Today’s courage is tomorrow’s JOY.
The words on her tattoo, but with Quinn’s correction.
It struck her like a body blow, the simple word replacement. As did the words tucked beneath:
Watch the video. Please.
He thought she was aiming too low.
“What’s it say?” Mom asked, coming down the stairs from her shower.
Anais handed the card over and took the bouquet to her refrigerator to spare the blossoms.
“What video?” Mom asked, following.
Deep breath.
“I need to tell you something.”
* * *
Saturday morning broke bright and sunny after three days of rain and time that had crawled, maybe even stood still for black stretches of night, when Quinn struggled hardest.
Philip had to practically put him under palace arrest to keep him from going to Anais’s house, especially as days stacked up without word from her.
Now he stood at the altar in the beautifully decorated Romanesque cathedral where all the important family events had happened for centuries, wearing his finest, most stately regalia. And sweating buckets.
Every breath came with effort—not just for him. The entire congregation seemed to hold its breath at the slightest sound from the street beyond the ornately carved—and closed—doors at the far end of the nave.
He watched the door; everyone else watched him.
The place reeked of sweat and flowers, and he couldn’t bear to look anyone in the eye for fear he’d see pity there, the certainty she wouldn’t come. He especially avoided Philip’s eye, and the King—who’d managed to come to the wedding and now sat in the first row.
Everyone who mattered to him was there except her.
She still had a few minutes. She’d come. He had to hold on to that if he wanted to keep from collapsing under the weight of his own decisions.
Ben, his best man, sat in his chair to his left.
Rosalie, who’d agreed to be Anais’s maid of honor, waited alone on the bride’s side of the altar.
It just wasn’t enough time for her to work through it.
He should’ve postponed the wedding. Or stayed, watched with her, ignored her objections. Made her watch it.
The only thing three days had been enough for was to pull everyone else as far into his worry as he was.
It had been days of him seeing that same brave but stricken expression on every face, including the people lining the street outside the cathedral, waiting. So many clustered at the doors it might be hard for her to make it inside if…when she did come.
As if summoned under the weight of his stare and thoughts, the doors rattled and his heart, hammering hard enough to mold steel, fell into his shoes.
In unison, all the heads turned to the door. Breathless seconds passed.
Nothing.
Should he go check?
Could the doors have become locked somehow?
God, please…
His clenched gut answered him.
As coolly as he could, Quinn left the altar and jogged the length of the nave. When the doors opened enough to clear the frame, he closed them again.
Not locked.
She wasn’t trying to get in.
She wasn’t there.
Right.
He blew out a heavy breath and turned to walk, shoulders square with effort, head high with more effort, back to the altar.
Don’t look at the clock.
His wrist felt heavy with the timepiece there. Everything felt heavy.
Everything to do with Anais was a gamble, not just whether or not she’d arrive—he was hanging by a slender thread of hope there—but whether she’d have the press after her and for how long if she didn’t.
Should he still offer to renounce for her so they could leave the country together? Could he really abandon Philip to all this? Could he walk away from the last weeks or months he might have with Grandfather?
Yes.
He closed his eyes. Not even sure whether to be ashamed of that.
Anais’s side of the cathedral was, ironically, the most packed. Everyone wanted to be seated as her guest, as if their bums on the pews could pull her in. Someone in the back was crying.
Sharon wasn’t there either. Which should probably tell him something.
The doors rattled again.
God help him. He wouldn’t go check.
He closed his eyes and forced his hands to unclench. His belly moved in and out, proof he was still breathing.
Doors again.
It wasn’t until he heard the gasps that his eyes flew open.
She stood at the end of the nave, beautiful in her white dress, those strawberry waves
flowing down her back, a bouquet dangling from her left hand.
Shaking, he gave up every pretext of keeping his composure. Some strangled sound of dismay and elation erupted from him.
The music started and she began walking to him.
He was supposed to wait.
The thought barely died before a more forceful one overrode it. To hell with propriety and tradition.
He sprinted down the center aisle to her.
“I’m sorry.” She got exactly two words out before Quinn grabbed her by her wet cheeks and dragged her mouth to his.
He didn’t need words. He only needed her. Her soft lips, her warmth, her grumpy mornings, her ravenous nights.
The kiss filled his chest after endless empty days.
She kissed him back with a frantic heat, grabbing at him—his waist, his hips, then his head, smashing flowers into his hair in desperation to get closer. Full of promises he didn’t need spoken, echoing the explanations he didn’t need.
Cheering started at some point, and he became aware that it had evolved to giggles and good-natured ribbing, but her arms around his neck and the flowers now smashing into both their faces hid tears he couldn’t find a drop of shame for shedding.
“Prince Quinton.”
The King’s voice broke through and he pulled back from the kiss. They were supposed to get married now.
Her hands slid to his lapels and fisted there, not letting him go before she could whisper in his ear, the three words he’d already heard in her heart weeks ago, but which sounded more beautiful than anything he’d ever heard.
“I love you too.” He looked deep into those blue-green eyes he loved, and though they were filled with happiness, hope, and regret, tears streamed down her cheeks.
“Forgive me?” she whispered again.
“After the wedding,” he teased, too full of joy to care. On a whim, and because he couldn’t even bear the idea of her being inches away from him after days of torture, he swept her up in his arms to carry her toward the altar.
People clapped again, but he had a mission to complete, and refused to put her back on her feet when they reached the priest.
Anais dropped the bouquet in her lap so she could have both her arms around his shoulders, and he didn’t hear a word the priest said. All he heard was her, the promises in her eyes, and the future.
He let her down for the ring exchange, and their first official kiss that could’ve lasted forever as far as Quinn was concerned.
When Philip pelted them with rice ahead of schedule, Quinn reluctantly separated from his wife’s sweet lips.
Her fingers stroked through the hair at the back of his head and the smile she gave him… He could finally breathe.
In the aftermath of the video, he knew there were still dark places they’d have to explore together, but if they hadn’t stopped her from coming today he wouldn’t let anything else stop them from taking those obstacles together. Fighting for each other, never against.
Today’s courage for tomorrow’s joy.
EPILOGUE
Fifteen months later…
ANAIS HELD PIPPA, her six-month-old daughter, to her chest as she stood beside King Philip behind a wide red ribbon spanning the entrance of Hero’s Welcome, the project she and Quinn had dreamed up on their honeymoon and spent the months since building.
“Daddy and Be-Be are in trouble…” Anais murmured in sing-song fashion to Pippa and Philip, scanning the road behind them for signs of movement before she turned back to the crowd of citizens, soldiers and cameras there for the opening.
Life was so good she could hardly believe it from day to day, sometimes minute to minute. Even when her husband was late for their big dedication day.
“Where are they?” Philip muttered through his dutiful smiles.
“School…” Anais started to answer, but then she heard running behind her and turned to see Quinn and Ben Nettle racing toward them.
Even when irritated with him, her heart never failed to beat faster when she saw him.
“Sorry,” Quinn panted, kissed her cheek, and then reached for his daughter. “Test ran late.”
Pippa went eagerly into Quinn’s arms, and Anais couldn’t blame her. Hands free, she fetched the oversized ceremonial scissors for Corrachlean’s Bachelor King to use, if the autumn sky held back the rain until he’d finished the dedication speech.
Ben joined a pregnant Rosalie on the other side of the ribbon, still using his chair on university days. He’d gotten steady enough with both prosthetics to walk her back down the aisle last month, but it was still work for him to move around for long periods on them. He’d get there and, in the meanwhile, he and Quinn tackled university together.
Rejoining her perfect little family, Anais tucked in close to Quinn as Philip went over the assets of Hero’s Welcome—the country’s first specialized community for wounded veterans to assist them in readjusting to private life with their new challenges.
“How did you do?” she whispered to Quinn while Pippa alternated between shoving her fist into her own mouth and shoving into Daddy’s.
“Goog…” he garbled around the slobbery baby fist, then pulled it from his mouth and made faces at her to keep their strong-willed baby from making her displeasure known about formal duties.
“Show me your grade later, and I’ll give you a reward,” she cooed in his ear. The man was a terrible influence on her, tempting her to goof off and flirt with him at their big opening.
Philip, who’d ascended about four months after the wedding, didn’t mind so much when they goofed around. He was still getting used to the position, which he’d inherited unexpectedly when King Thomas, after a couple of months of relatively good health, didn’t wake one morning.
“Dr. Anais Corlow will be operating the community clinic.”
She stopped quietly misbehaving when she heard her name and waved briefly, smiling. Philip had stopped calling her Princess in favor of Doctor at her request, even if she was technically stuck with the title until Philip married and produced an heir. Something he’d better get on with if he didn’t want her to start funneling women in his direction.
After talking about the clinic, Philip went down the list.
Mrs. Rosalie Nettle—Job Center Administrator
Lieutenant Benjamin Nettle—Counselor.
“Prince Quinton Corlow…in charge of making faces to amuse Princess Pippa, until he graduates, and then something with physical therapy.”
Quinn had the grace to look fleetingly chagrined at his introduction, but rebounded with a quick smile.
He’d be a great part-time PT. He had other jobs that came first: devoted husband, delighted daddy, and sometimes reluctant but ever-faithful diplomat.
Philip left off the names of the operators for the community’s amenities. Aunt Helen at the salon, Mom at the community center, and those operating the market, butcher, bakery, pharmacy, bank, and post office. But they had it all, a fully functioning community.
Philip cut the ribbon and, after the applause and photos, Quinn stopped goofing around with Pippa long enough to announce, “There’s food and drink at the community center, and several of the differently equipped cottages are available for tours. Finally, Princess Pippa has graciously made herself available to drool on anyone who gets too close. At the community center. We’re following the food.”
He made her laugh every day. He never wavered when she got overwhelmed by some aspect of royal life, which blessedly was happening with less frequency.
She’d never felt she truly belonged anywhere, so they’d built a place where she unquestioningly belonged. They’d sold the penthouse and the townhouse, and built their new home within the community.
Wayne wasn’t even a ghost on her horizon anymore. The longer she spent with her ne
w family, the better life got, and the less Wayne Ratliffe mattered at all.
Her family and her purpose gave her the kind of peace that came in second to the joy of Quinn’s morning wake-up attacks, and Pippa’s strawberry curls and stormy gray eyes.
* * * * *
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ISBN-13: 9781488020742
The Prince’s Cinderella Bride
Copyright © 2017 by Amalie Berlin
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