Claiming His Pregnant Princess. Annie O'Neil
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was all just a pipe dream.
“Were you still working in trauma? When you came back to Italy?” he added.
“Off and on.” She nodded. “But mostly I was working in a free clinic for refugees. So many people coming in on boats...”
“With all your language skills you must’ve been a real asset. Were you based in Venice?” He might as well try to visualize some sort of picture.
“Just outside. On the mainland.” She stopped farther along the railing, where the view to the lake and the mountains beyond was unimpeded by boats, and drew in a deep breath, curling her fingers around the cool metal until her knuckles were pale.
The deepening colors of the early-evening sky rendered the lake a dark blue—so dark it was hard to imagine how deep it might be. Fathomless.
“It was relentless. Working there. The poverty. The sickness. The number of lives lost all in the pursuit of a dream.”
“Happiness?” he asked softly.
“Freedom.”
When she turned to him the hit of connection was so powerful he almost stumbled. It was as if she was trying to tell him something. That her moving back to Italy had been a mistake? That she wished she could turn back time as much as he did?
“Do you miss it? Working at the refugee clinic?” he qualified.
If she was going to up and leave again, he had to know. Had to reassemble the wall he’d been building brick by brick around his heart only to have the foundations crumble to bits when she’d walked back into his life.
She turned her head, resting her chin on her shoulder, and looked at him.
“No.” Her head shook a little. “I mean, it was obviously rewarding. But I don’t miss being there. Venice...”
Something in him gave. His breath began filling his lungs a bit more deeply.
“What drew you up here to our little Alpine retreat?”
He leant against the railing, unsurprised to see her give him a sideways double take.
Nice one, Jamie. Super casual. Not.
“I used to come up here to one of my cousins’ places. Skiing. The next valley over, actually,” she corrected herself, then continued, her eyes softening into a faraway smile. “One year I brought Fran with me. Remember Francesca? My mad friend from America? I don’t think you met her, but she was—” Beatrice stopped, the smile dropping from her eyes. “We saw each other recently. She’s getting married.”
“Ah.” Jamie nodded.
What was he meant to say to that? Congratulations, I wish I was, too? He elbowed the rancorous thoughts away and reharnessed himself to the light-banter variety of conversational tactics.
“Wasn’t there something about finishing school and a giggle-laden walk of shame before the term was out? Mussed-up white gloves or something?”
“We snuck away one day.” Beatrice feigned a gasp of horror. “Away from the ‘good’ set.”
“You mean the ‘crowned cotillion crowd’?” he asked without thinking twice.
Beatrice had been so contemptuous of them then. The group of titled friends and extended family who seemed to drift across Europe together in packs. Hunting down the next in place, the next big thing so they could put their mark on it, suck it dry, then leave. The exact type of person she’d left him for. Oh, the irony.
When he looked across to see if his comment had rankled he was surprised to see another small cynical smile in Beatrice’s dark eyes.
Huh. Maybe she’d softened. Saw things now she hadn’t before. Not that he and Beatrice had ever “hung with the crowd.” Nor any crowd, for that matter. They had been a self-contained unit.
It had never once occurred to him that she was keeping him at arm’s length from the affluent, titled set she’d grown up with. He’d never considered himself hung up on his low-income upbringing. The opposite, if anything. Proud. He was from a typical Northern family. Typical of his part of the North anyway. Father down the mines. Mother working as a dinner lady at the local primary school. Brother and sister had followed suit, but he’d been the so-called golden boy. Scholarships to private schools. Oxford University. An internship at London’s most prestigious pediatric hospital before he’d returned to the part of the country he’d always called home.
Meeting and falling in love with Beatrice had just been part of the trajectory. Local boy falls in love with princess. Only that hadn’t been the way it had played out at all. He hadn’t known about Beatrice’s past for—had it been a year? Maybe longer. Those two years at Northern General had been like living in a cocoon. Nestled up there in the part of the country he knew and loved best, hoping he’d spend each and every day of the rest of his life with Beatrice by his side.
He cleared his throat. “Sorry—you were saying about your friend?”
“Si—yes.” Bea gave her head a shake, as if clearing away her own memories. “She’s staying in Italy. Fallen in love with an Italian.”
“Happens to the best of us.”
Beatrice looked away.
He hadn’t meant to say that. Not in that way. Not with anger lacing the words.
“It’s a magical place up here. I’m glad I came,” she said at last.
He nodded, turning to face the view. Despite the summer, snow still capped the high Alpine ridges soaring above the broad expanse of blue that was one of Europe’s most beautiful high-altitude lakes.
“You know there’s a little island out there?”
“Really? Uninhabited?”
“Quite the opposite. There’s a group of monks. A small group living there... It’s quite a beautiful retreat. Stone and wood. Simple rooms. Cells, they call them.”
“Sounds more like a prison than a place of worship.” Beatrice’s eyebrows tugged together, but her expression was more curious than judgmental.
“No. The simplicity is its beauty. Gives you plenty of time to think.”
He should know. He’d spent long enough in one of those cells, just staring at the stone walls until he could find a way to make sense of the world again. The friary was the reason he’d chosen to come here in the first place. He’d needed to hide away from the world for a while and atone for—he still didn’t know what.
Failing himself?
Not fighting hard enough for Elisa’s life?
Not fighting hard enough for Beatrice?
Those two years they’d spent together in England felt like a lifetime ago. He’d felt...vital—full of the joys of life. In his prime. When she’d told him she didn’t want him anymore he’d just shut down. “Fine,” he had said, and pointed toward the door. What are you waiting for?
He sure as hell hadn’t found any answers when she’d taken him up on his offer.
And he was certain there hadn’t been any when Elisa had died.
He’d found a modicum of peace when he’d gone out to that tiny island friary.
When one of the monks had fallen ill he’d brought him to the clinic here on the lakeside, had accepted the odd shift and found himself, bit by bit, coming back to life. Part of him wondered if the monk had been faking it. And when the clinic “just happened” to mention they needed full-time staff he’d thrown his hat into the ring. He’d been there almost a year now and—as strange as it sounded for a village several hundreds of years old—he felt a part of the place.
“They make some sort of famous Christmas cake—a special sort of panettone. I’m surprised you haven’t heard of it.”