The Princess and the Pediatrician

by Annie O'Neil

  ‘I’ve got an idea,’ he said.

  She raised her eyebrows and nodded for him to go ahead.

  ‘Let’s shelve all talk about weddings and babies for tonight. Carry on with our date.’

  Her chest filled with warm gratitude. There was so much going on in her head right now she was almost too frightened to speak. And he was giving each of them space to digest this tectonic shift in their lives.

  After the sun had dipped below the horizon they strolled along the beach, throwing one another the odd ‘softball’ question. Favourite sport. Least favourite food. Favourite spot on the island. But mostly they lapsed into thoughtful silence as each of them let their new reality settle deep into their bones.

  Without having talked about it, they ended up at Oliver’s house, with the faintest remains of the sunset still pinking up the sky. She let herself really absorb the place. Whilst from the beach the house appeared to be hanging in the trees, it was actually very firmly built into a sharp rising stone bluff dappled with old-growth trees.

  ‘I like how you can see the sunset on this side of the island,’ she said as they made their way up a flight of stairs to the kitchen.

  ‘Tired of the sunrise over on your side of the island, are you?’ He stopped mid-step. ‘Unless, of course, princesses don’t get up that early.’ He dropped her a comedic wink to ensure she would know he was kidding.

  She rolled her eyes, then said, ‘I’ll have you know I never sleep. It’s all those pesky peas finding their way underneath my mattresses.’

  ‘Mattresses, eh? I only have the one.’

  ‘I remember,’ she said airily, a few vivid memories of their night sending a flush to her cheeks.

  Oliver’s tongue swept along his lips—a clear sign that he remembered their shared night of passion with equal clarity. He ran his index finger along the curve of her cheek. Her breath hitched in her throat as his fingertip reached her lips.

  They were halfway between the bedroom and the kitchen. It would be a matter of a few steps to change course and go to his bed.

  Oliver abruptly led her into the kitchen. He was right. Tonight was for talking, not confirming what they both already knew. Their sexual chemistry was never going to be a problem.

  The kitchen, like the other rooms, was fronted with a long row of floor-to-ceiling retractable glass doors. There was a small native hardwood kitchen table inside, and a much bigger one outside on the covered deck—which, Lia was delighted to see, had two large trees growing through the decking that soared up into the tropical canopy above. The back of the room was a long line of doors.

  ‘I thought there was a cliff back there?’

  ‘Cupboards,’ Oliver explained, opening a couple to show her the contents, as if everyone had massive storage areas for food and kitchen implements in their luxury treehouse.

  Her version of haute cuisine was pretty much limited to fruit. The staff restaurant at The Island Clinic was staffed by Michelin chefs, and even their casual ‘snack food’ was on another level.

  Beneath three large filament bulbs in the centre of the room a gorgeous sprawl of marble topped a kitchen island, at the centre of which was a lovely fruit bowl. She closed her eyes, imagining what it would be like if she were the type of woman to sweep the bowl off the counter and to replace it with herself.

  ‘Want something to eat?’ he asked.

  Her eyes flicked open to meet his.

  No. She didn’t. She wanted him.

  He must have seen her hunger for him flare in her eyes and thrown his own reservations into the bonfire, because before she could draw a full breath he was kissing her. Urgently. Possessively. Tenderly.

  Their shared energy was urgent and gentle. Generous and hungry. Though their words remained unspoken, they both knew these were precious moments—the ones before the palace descended. There would be staff. Rules. Endless instructions. But this...here and now, before anyone, anywhere, boarded a plane with so much as a solitary fabric swatch...this was their time. Time she wanted to put a glass cloche over and preserve, as if it was the most precious thing in the world.

  Though they’d made love before, this time it felt entirely different. As if their bodies were making vows to each other. To care and protect. To adore. To love.

  Lia feared drowning in it. Losing herself to the very thing she’d promised herself she’d never do: the Palace’s bidding. But Oliver exuded a confidence about their shared future that charged her own faltering belief in herself. This was about them, not Karolinska, or his family’s title. Just the two of them—and, of course, the child she was now carrying.

  With each caress, every kiss he tenderly dropped on her belly, she felt as though she was absorbing his silent promises.

  We’ll be different. We won’t let them change us. We won’t let them take away the happiness we want for our child. For our family.

  As the energy between them grew more charged, more intimate, she finally allowed herself to give in fully to her own body’s longing to offer Oliver the same silent vows.

  What the palace didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them. Would it?

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ‘YOU READY?’

  ‘Not camera-ready,’ Oliver replied, giving his hair a ruffle that made him look even less so.

  Nope. Not so much as a smile. Okay... So someone wasn’t pleased about the palace photographer tagging along for this ‘spontaneous’ sailing trip.

  ‘There she is.’ Lia pointed to the end of the dock to her sailing boat.

  The teak-decked Island Dreamer had two huge masts, a dozen rigging lines—at least that was what Oliver thought they were called—and, slightly disconcertingly, only one visible flotation device.

  ‘You’re not planning on drowning me at sea, are you?’ Oliver joked as he looked at the impressive sailing boat, then back at his bride-to-be.

  Bride-to-be.

  He shook his head. What a difference one night of passion with a princess made. Well... One night, a month’s break and then several more nights, during which both of their worlds had changed completely.

  All the things that needed to happen on a practical level—like actually discussing their Harbour Hotel wedding—had yet to happen. It was as if discussing it would make it real, without time to take a breath and think about what they wanted, and they were both feeling bowled over by the Karolinskan palace-led reality.

  They’d agreed to sit down and talk about it every night after work. And they had met. Only there hadn’t been much talking. Without so much as a whisper of a decision about what type of flowers they’d like, or what flavour of cake they wanted, they’d end up in bed. Which, to be fair, was no bad thing. It was not entirely useful when it came to answering the palace’s never-ending stream of emails...but it seemed to be the one thing they could cling to that was solely theirs.

  Today, however, was different. Today was ‘palace-sanctioned.’ The family’s official photographer had arrived. Tomorrow the wedding planning team would set up camp at the same hotel where they’d had the gala. It was where Oliver and Lia had met, and it had been deemed ‘the most suitable’ location.

  Today was their first ‘accidentally on purpose’ photo shoot, and Lia was as skittish as a highly bred racehorse. As beautiful as ever, but...less accessible. And he was feeling the loss of their shared connection. If it was a sign of what was to come for them—a withdrawal of her affection whenever the palace was involved—he wasn’t entirely sure their future would be as rosy as he’d hoped.

  But he pushed his concerns about shared custody and having to move to Karolinska to ensure he’d have a relationship with his child to the side. They weren’t there yet, and with any luck they never would be.

  Lia laughed at his feeble quip, but her eyes remained on the sailing boat. ‘Consider yourself lucky. I don’t take just anyone out on her.’

  ‘No? W
hy not?’

  ‘It’s my happy place. Once that tether’s undone, it’s just me, myself and I.’

  Her expression remained the same, but the ghost of a shadow darkened those light blue eyes of hers—as if she were remembering countless other places that made her sad.

  Oliver winced in sympathy as an instinctual tug of protectiveness leapt to the fore. Though they’d not spoken about it explicitly, he knew their childhoods, although hundreds of miles apart, had been remarkably similar. Hers had compelled her to choose the life of a loner, to keep the pain at bay, whereas he had thrown himself into the fray. He had always loved bringing joy and happiness to others.

  A niggling thought surfaced. Had all his happiness been by proxy?

  She caught him looking at her. His expression must have still been caught in the wince, because she added a mischievous, ‘Don’t worry. Only people I genuinely like are allowed aboard. There are more flotation vests down in the cabin.’

  Her eyes left his and travelled to the two sails bound tight against the masts. One was a deep blue, the other brilliant white. The colours of the Karolinskan flag. So there was some national pride in her. But not any sense of freedom.

  He wondered if there would ever be a day when the two could be combined. When she could do her royal duty, but also feel she was living the best version of herself. He stopped short of wondering the same thing for himself. The family seat had always felt like a mausoleum to him. He was dreading the inevitable question his brief chats with his parents were building towards.

  When will you come home?

  He scanned the length of the boat until his eyes hit the stern, and there it was, the royal family’s crest emblazoned on a blue and white flag, fluttering in the light breeze, giving the odd snap to attention, as if it was aware Lia was about to board.

  His own family’s crest wasn’t dissimilar. A lion, an axe and a dragon were all shared symbols. Things that ruled with might. Hers, however, beneath the golden crown, also bore the scales of justice.

  She caught him examining the crest. ‘Hope you like it. They’ll be stitching it into your boxers before long. “Property of the Karolinskan Crown.”’

  His clipped laugh matched the dark humour of her comment. Just the reminder he needed that they weren’t alone.

  He swung his duffel bag onto the deck of the boat and said, ‘I hope the clothes I’ve brought please The Crown.’

  He’d been running late, so hadn’t given much thought to the clothes he’d stuffed into it. His mother would have been horrified. She planned the look of their family portraits for months beforehand, so in fairness his boxers—at home, at least—really did symbolically bear the Banford crest sometimes. But the rest of the year he was plain old Oliver Bainbridge. And he liked it that way.

  As if a knife had been abruptly shunted between his ribs, Oliver absorbed the reality that the minute he became Lia’s husband all of that would change...

  Too late, he realised that he was frowning, and that Lia had noticed.

  She bit down on her lower lip and gave it a chew, as if debating whether or not to tell him something. Clearly something that had been weighing on her.

  It had only been a few days since they’d learnt about her pregnancy, but so much had happened since then. Press releases had been written and lists of the things they had to do to make the ‘party line’ from the Karolinska press office bear weight had been issued. Which was why, after another full day in surgery for Lia and full office hours at the hospital for him, they were down here at the private yacht club for a photo shoot.

  It was meant to look as if they were casual snaps of the couple caught by surprise, but Oliver was swiftly learning how pre-planned the rest of his life might be.

  He reached out and touched Lia’s arm, warm with the late-afternoon sun. ‘Are you all right, Lia?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  Her voice was light, but there was something behind it. Something she wasn’t saying.

  He took her hand in his and tipped his head towards the entrance of the small yacht club, where the photographer was already standing, multiple lenses slung round his neck. ‘We don’t have to do this.’

  ‘Yes,’ she replied with a This is precisely what I warned you about smile, ‘we do.’

  She gently tugged her hand free and made a move to board the boat.

  She turned suddenly, her body language radiating defensiveness. ‘Unless you’re having second thoughts?’

  Her tone was sharp, remonstrative in a way he wouldn’t have expected from someone who was almost literally in the same boat as him.

  ‘I’ll never have second thoughts about being a father to my child.’

  Her entire body grew taut with coiled energy. He’d clearly said the wrong thing. But with a photographer a handful of metres away, this wasn’t the time to have it out, so he stuffed his hands in his pockets, his fingers catching on the small square box he hadn’t told Lia about.

  It wasn’t a traditional engagement ring. It was an eternity ring. A symbol he hoped would remind her, every time she looked at it over the coming months, that the child she was carrying would link them together for ever.

  She glanced at her watch. ‘C’mon. Let’s get this over with.’

  An hour later the photographer had what he needed and they sailed out of the protected harbour area and beyond the island. Though the shoreline was still within view, the holidaymakers on the beach appeared as tiny figurines on a film set representing yet another perfect day on St Victoria. The only thing missing was the happy atmosphere that Lia had intimated would exist once they’d been ‘caught’ in an embrace as they prepared the boat for departure.

  She’d changed clothes and poses three times in order to give the palace photographer plenty of material to work with. Shorts and a T-shirt. A sundress dotted with poppies. And now a pair of figure-hugging navy pedal-pushers with a blue and white scarf standing in as a belt and a white shirt, knotted at her belly button, sleeves rolled up to her elbows and, a bit disconcertingly, unbuttoned to that sweet spot just at the arc of her breasts.

  It was teasing at the memories Oliver had of last night...giving her nipples hot, swift licks, then drawing them into his mouth for another swirl and a light rasp of his teeth as she groaned her approbation.

  There was no such sensuality in the atmosphere today, let alone the primal hunger they’d shared. The past hour had felt impersonal in a way that had surprised him. Lia had directed him, sotto voce, to kiss her shoulder as she looked out into the middle distance, or to turn his face in a particular direction so the light was right when they looked into one another’s eyes before untying the yacht from the dock.

  Now, with the sails loosed from the masts and easily catching the breeze, the boat looked utterly resplendent. Free. He looked at Lia, standing at the steering wheel with the wind in the strands of white-blonde hair that hadn’t been caught in the knot at the nape of her neck, and he saw the woman he’d originally met at the charity function. One too aware of all eyes being on her. Of judgement being cast without consideration for her feelings. She seemed trapped in a cage.

  He looked over to the small speedboat that had followed them out of the harbour. It sounded its horn and then turned back to shore.

  When he looked at Lia again, and their eyes met, he wasn’t sure who he was looking at. Not the woman who had danced in his arms and kissed him on the beach. But nor was it the Look that way, media-savvy, aloof princess she’d been the past hour.

  A part of him wanted to pull her into his arms and tell her that as long as they did things together—as a team—they’d be fine. But this photo shoot had unleashed an uncertainty in him that he was finding hard to shake. He felt as though he’d been pushed a cool arm’s length away from Princess Amelia and he didn’t like it.

  He wanted Lia, who had walked with him in the rain last night, talking about her
surgeries. The woman who’d made love to him in the outdoor shower before seductively slipping under the bedcovers and beckoning him with impossible-to-resist bedroom eyes.

  Not this picture-perfect bride-to-be. Laughing on cue. Colouring slightly as he cupped her cheek in his hand. Lips virtually frozen as they pressed to his for a slow-motion peck while the shutters of the palace camera whirred and clicked away.

  He forced himself to backpedal. His own annual Christmas, Easter and summer holiday portraits were hardly bursts of spontaneous familial affection. He’d been lucky in that the nannies and boarding schools his parents had chosen for him had been a welcome substitute. He had plenty of friends and mentors from school that he was still in touch with to this day.

  Perhaps Lia hadn’t had even that. Her parents were divorced. From what he could gather she rarely spoke to her father, and she hadn’t so much as mentioned her mother. She’d eagle-eyed a fellow boarding school kid in him, so had clearly done her own stint there, and then, of course, boot camp with the Karolinskan army. That wouldn’t have been a touchy-feely thing, even for a princess.

  And yet, warrior that she was, the palace still clearly wielded enough power to make her bend to their will to an extent—and that was where the heart of his uncertainty lay.

  He jammed his hands in his pockets, and once again his fingertips butted against the small square box. He’d planned to slip the ring on Lia’s finger back at the yacht club, suspecting the photographer would be looking for some sort of sparkle befitting a princess, but it hadn’t felt right. In the same way staying in England and following his parents’ model of living by the rules of tradition hadn’t felt right.

  A niggle of discomfort wedged between his conscience and his discomfort with Lia over the past hour. He’d left the life he’d been ‘born to live’ thousands of miles away, just as Lia had. But now that they were going to be parents running away wasn’t an option. They had to find a shared strength that would shield their child from repeating the pattern.