Royal Holiday Baby. Leanne Banks
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he would ever be ready. Restlessness nicked at his nerve endings and he rolled his neck to release some tension. Desperate to distract himself, he picked up the trashy gossip rag on the table and skimmed the front page.
The theme of the day seemed to be babies. He felt his gut clench at the memory of the loss of his own child, but shook the paper and kept reading. Senator’s love child living in an igloo in Alaska. Movie stars adopt three more children. Dog helps deliver baby. Pregnant Princess? Who’s your daddy?
He almost tossed it back onto the cheap table holding the rest of women’s magazines. But as he flipped through the pages in disgust, an image of something he’d seen before flashed before him. A young curvy woman with brown hair. In the photo, she wore a hat and a loose-fitting dress. Her belly was amplified in a photo insert.
Zach frowned at the photo and quickly read the article. Princess Valentina of Chantaine has stood by the side of her fragile sister bride nonstop during the huge wedding that drew the focus of the entire world. Tina has always been the good girl in the royal family, but maybe she isn’t so perfect after all. Has Tina gained a little weight? Strange that her weight gain isn’t all over … just in her belly. Insiders report Princess Tina fought nausea throughout the wedding festivities. If the princess is pregnant, where is the baby daddy? Or did she give up on her prospects and enlist the services of a sperm bank? Time will tell.
Princess, Zach thought. What the— Princess Tina. She hadn’t mentioned being a princess. What kind of job had she said she had? Something in international relations.
He gave a cynical laugh. Cute, he thought. Real cute. He wondered how in hell Keely was friends with a princess.
Glancing at the slight baby bump, he felt a tight knot form in his chest. She couldn’t be pregnant, he thought. He’d used protection. He mentally flipped through the night they’d spent together. Every time they’d made love. And they’d made love a lot. Had there been one time when he’d forgotten or been too eager to feel her close around him or—
He had a vivid memory of feeling her wet velvet with no barrier.
“Damn,” he muttered, pulling off his hat. Was she pregnant? If so, that baby could be his.
Panic ripped through him. His heart raced, skipping and sinking. A horrible dread tugged at him, sinking to his gut and lower, dragging him down. He swore at himself ten times over. What had he been thinking?
He hadn’t been thinking. He’d been feeling. That was the problem. Feeling always caused problems.
Sucking in a long breath, he stared at her photo and that damned baby bump insert. He would find out if she was pregnant and he would find out if the baby was his. He clenched his fist in determination. It wouldn’t take him long.
For once, Tina’s sister came through for her. It was a huge switch. Although Ericka was happily busy and traveling hither and yon with her new husband, she said Tina could stay at her new home just outside of Paris. Close enough to the city, but far enough from the congestion, the new home was perfect for the respite Tina needed.
Tina had escaped just as her brother began to insist she was due for an examination from the royal doctors. Before her plane landed in Paris, rumors in the gossip rags had exploded. She’d only been away for twenty-four hours and her voice mail box was full. She didn’t even want to look at her e-mail.
She knew her brother was going to freak out, and her security man, Rolfe, was watching her every move. Thank goodness she and her sister had worked out a plan for this very situation. An older woman, Genieve, brought fresh vegetables most every morning and brought pastry treats for the staff. She usually left from the back entrance of the house around noon. Except today. Today Genieve would stay until 4:00 p.m. and watch television with one of the favorite staff members in a room upstairs while Tina dressed in dark clothes with a dark scarf covering her head and drove the woman’s car to a small, out-of-the-way museum with beautiful gardens.
There, Tina could think about her and her baby’s future. There, she could make plans.
Tina told Rolfe she planned to take a nap and didn’t want to be disturbed. As soon as he left her hallway, she took the back stairs to the back entrance and got into the ancient vehicle and escaped.
The July heat was oppressive, but the temperature inside the small museum was cool. She noticed only a few tourists, but an abundance of caution made her keep her head covered. Glancing outside, she saw no one in the gardens and walked outside to a stone bench beside a small pond. Despite the shade from the tree, the heat forced her to pull off her scarf.
She closed her eyes, craving peace and quiet for her mind and soul. She didn’t need panic in this situation. She needed to remain calm. Since everyone else was going to be emotionally jumping out of windows.
Tina could see the headlines now. Unwed Pregnant Princess. She, the one everyone counted on to be scandal-free. She laughed softly to herself, although she still struggled with a twinge of hysteria. Was she prepared to be a single mother? It didn’t matter. That’s what she would be. She stroked her abdomen, feeling protective of the baby growing there.
Tina had always put her loyalty to her position first, but there was no doubt in her mind what was most important to her now. Her child. Her pregnancy might be unexpected, unplanned and her situation not exactly optimal, but that didn’t change the fact that Tina would make her child her priority.
That solid knowledge released a tension from inside her. She took a deep breath and gave into the temptation to build a perfect little world for her and her baby in her mind. The two of them could live here in France, near her sister. She would lead a simple life raising her child, serving as a patron for her favorite charities and making rare appearances in Chantaine.
Her sisters would pitch in and take over her assignments. That was pure fantasy, she thought. And her brother would marry a woman who would keep him out of her hair. More fantasy.
She inhaled again, lingering over the idyllic image in her mind.
Something fell beside her on the bench. A chain? She opened her eyes and glanced beside her, immediately spotting the bracelet she’d thought she’d lost.
“Been missing that?” a deep male voice that had haunted her dreams said to her.
She glanced behind her, directly into the hard blue gaze of Zachary Logan. Her heart stopped in her chest. Her breath froze in her lungs.
“The baby’s mine, isn’t it?”
Zach didn’t like her color. She’d gone past the pale stage and she looked gray. He handed her his bottle of water. “Here, you look like you need this.”
She stared at him without blinking, seemingly without breathing for another long moment. “Tina,” he said and squeezed her shoulder. “Drink some water.”
At his touch, she finally took a breath and looked away. “I didn’t think I would ever see you again,” she said. “How did you find me?”
“A combination of Keely and a private investigator. I’ve had a guy watching your sister’s house for every person who came and went. I tried calling your assistant, but she blew me off.”
She looked up at him in alarm. “Did you tell her you and I had—”
“No, but I was tempted,” he said, reining in his frustration from the last several days. “When were you going to tell me about the baby?”
Tina blinked. “I—I wasn’t,” she said with a shrug.
Shock rushed through him. “You what?” he nearly shouted.
Tina glanced around in alarm. “Please keep your voice down. I don’t want to draw attention. I came here to think.”
Zach’s stomach turned. “Are you saying you’re not keeping the baby?”
She looked at him in confusion. “What do you mean? Give the baby up for adoption—”
“No,