Modern Romance Collection: December Books 5 - 8. Julia James
Читать онлайн книгу.
glanced at the internal telephone. She didn’t want him to think her desperate. Let him call her, she decided. Please.
There was no such thing as the hot water running out at the palace. She basked in the luxury of heat and fragrant scent until she felt thoroughly clean, cosy, and fresh again. Then she donned a fluffy robe and wondered what to do about clothes. Pushing her feet into slippers she found ready in the bathroom, that matched the robe, she returned to the bedroom with its panelling and paintings, and floating silk voile, drifting romantically in front of the open window. She suddenly felt incredibly homesick and reached for her phone. What she needed was someone down to earth to confide in, someone she could trust to act as an honest sounding board. Ma Brown answered on the first ring.
‘Ma...’
‘Yes, dear?’
Ma Brown’s concerned tone both bolstered Callie and provided a much-needed wake-up call. She had never been a moaner, and she wasn’t about to start now that she was about to become a mother. ‘I don’t want you worrying about me,’ she stressed, ‘so I’m giving you an update.’
‘Ooh, lovely,’ Ma Brown enthused.
Callie could just picture her dear friend, pausing mid baking, or ironing, or dusting, or stirring a pot of something delicious on the stove, to hear what Callie knew she had to make into a Christmas fairy tale so that Ma Brown would smile and share it with the family, rather than fret about Callie over Christmas. ‘I’m in Fabrizio,’ she began.
‘I knew it!’ Ma Brown exclaimed. ‘You’re with the Prince.’
‘Yes. But there’s something else—’
‘You’re pregnant!’ Ma Brown shrieked before Callie had chance to say a word.
‘I had intended to break it to you gently—’
Ma Brown wasn’t listening. ‘Has he proposed yet?’
‘No,’ Callie admitted.
‘Why ever not?’ Ma Brown demanded good-humouredly. ‘Do you need me to come out there and prompt him? I will, if you like. I can easily catch a flight.’
‘No,’ Callie said again, this time laughing. Ma Brown’s voice had soared at least an octave. She probably didn’t need a phone to be heard in Fabrizio. ‘I promise I can deal with it.’
‘Tell me about his country, then,’ Ma Brown compromised, snatching a noisy breath as she attempted to calm down.
To a casual listener, their conversation might have seemed a little blasé under the circumstances, but Ma Brown could always imply more by her tone than she said in words. The simple phrase, tell me about Fabrizio, for instance, promised that the subject of Callie’s pregnancy had not been forgotten, but merely put on the back burner for now. One thing was certain. Ma Brown would always be on Callie’s side. Missing out the fact that she should have been planning her future, rather than scrambling over Luca, having sex in his jet and then in his car, Callie cut straight to the particulars. ‘Everything in Fabrizio looks as if it has been polished to a flawless sheen. Think Monte Carlo with a touch of Dubai—’
‘Oo-er,’ Ma Brown exclaimed, breathless with excitement. ‘Go on,’ she prompted.
‘Luca’s palace looks like something out of a fairy tale. It’s like Cinderella’s castle with turrets and crenellations. There’s even a drawbridge over the moat.’
‘Imagine the staff needed to look after that,’ Ma Brown breathed in awe.
‘And everyone wears uniform,’ Callie confirmed to add to the picture. ‘Sentries stand guard wearing black velvet tunics braided with gold—’
‘Goodness,’ Ma Brown cut in. ‘Isn’t that all a bit intimidating?’
You have no idea, Callie thought, but what she actually said was, ‘Poof! Not for you and me, Ma.’
‘That’s the spirit,’ Ma Brown exulted. ‘I’ve read about the palace and how fabulous it is. The countryside around it is supposed to be equally beautiful. Tell me about that now.’
Hmm. Difficult topic, Callie thought as the silence extended. ‘I was so excited on the drive from the airport to the palace I didn’t take much notice,’ she admitted truthfully. ‘I’ll make sure to check it out next time and let you know.’
Ma Brown hummed thoughtfully. ‘I’ve taken quite an interest in your Prince since he rode to your rescue.’
‘He’s not my Prince, Ma.’
Ignoring this, Ma Brown continued, ‘The late Prince has ancestry stretching back to the mists of time.’
Unlike Luca’s, which stretched back to the gutters of Rome. Or her own, Callie reflected, which extended to a row of small, back-to-back houses in the same neighbourly terrace as the Browns, which she wouldn’t exchange for the world. She couldn’t imagine how she’d have got on when she was younger without the wonderful support of the family next door.
‘When are you coming home, our Callie?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Callie admitted.
‘If I were you, I’d stay there as long as you can,’ Ma Brown cheerfully recommended. ‘There’s a grand ball soon in Fabrizio to celebrate Prince Luca’s enthronement. You can’t miss that. I want to hear all about it.’
‘I doubt I’ll be invited,’ Callie confessed. Luca hadn’t mentioned a ball. She couldn’t imagine he’d want her there. Thank goodness. Her stomach flipped at the thought of attending such a grand occasion, and then flipped at the thought of Luca attending the ball with an eager princess on his arm. He was better off with someone like that, she told herself, someone who was used to public occasions. Callie would probably say the wrong thing, or trip over her own feet.
‘Don’t let me down,’ Ma Brown warned. ‘When you said you were going on an adventure, a ball at the Prince’s palace was exactly the sort of thing I had in mind.’
‘I’m not Cinderella,’ Callie reminded her good friend ruefully, ‘and I don’t have a fairy godmother.’
‘I wouldn’t be too sure about that,’ Ma Brown insisted. ‘And I want an invitation to the wedding.’
Before Callie had chance to respond, Ma Brown had bustled off the line, no doubt to attend to more motherly duties.
A diet of romance, Ma Brown’s favourite reading matter, had obviously distanced her from reality, Callie concluded, but she was both thrilled and relieved at the way her good friend had taken the news of the pregnancy. Ma Brown was right. Pregnancy was normal. Attending a royal ball was not. But she’d have a go, if she were invited. She owed it to Ma Brown to attend the ball if she got the chance.
Ten minutes later she changed her mind again. I don’t belong here. Burying her head in her arms, Callie took a deep, steadying breath, and then lifted her chin to stare at herself in the ornately gilded dressing-table mirror. Her reflection appeared in what was surely a priceless antique like everything else in her elegant suite of rooms. How on earth had she ended up here?
‘I’ll tell you how,’ Callie’s snarky inner critic butted in. ‘From good girl to a hussy in no time flat, that’s you, Callie Smith!’
Fair play, Callie agreed. The fairy tale wasn’t quite as she’d described it to Ma Brown. She never knew where she stood with Luca, and the worst of it was, a few months ago, she’d known exactly where she was heading. Her short adventure in Italy would be a harmless interlude to look back on with pleasure. She’d go home after a couple of weeks, pick up her studies, go to college, and get a better job. Pregnancy had changed all that. Her priorities had completely switched around. The baby came first. It always would. Every decision Callie made from now on would be in the best interests of her child.
Luca’s child also.
Closing her eyes, she reviewed what she’d seen of Luca’s life to date.