Expectant Princess, Unexpected Affair. Jules Bennett
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She gave one last furtive look in the mirror and decided that short of a total makeover, this was as good as it was going to get. She opened the door and almost collided with her brother Chris, who was leaning against the wall just outside.
Bloody hell.
His grim expression said that he had heard her retching, and he wanted to know what would cause her to be so ill.
“Let’s have a talk,” he said, jerking his head toward the study across the hall.
“But, supper …” she started to say, and he gave her that look.
“Now, Anne.”
Since arguing would be a waste of time, she followed him. With their father in poor health, Chris was acting king, and technically the head of the family. She was duty-bound to follow his lead. And didn’t she always do as she was told? Wouldn’t everyone be surprised when they learned of her predicament.
She could lie and tell him that she had a flu bug, or a mild case of food poisoning, but at the rate her tummy was swelling, it wouldn’t be long before it was impossible to hide anyway. But she wasn’t sure if she was ready for the truth to come out just yet.
Or maybe he already knew. Had Louisa blabbed? Anne would kill her if that was the case.
Anne stepped into the study, and, shy of her mother, father and the triplets, the entire family was there!
Aaron and his wife, Liv, a botanical geneticist, sat on the couch looking worried. Louisa and her new husband, Garrett, stood across the room by the window. Louisa wore a pained expression and Garrett looked as though he wanted to be anywhere but there. Melissa, Chris’s wife, stood just inside the door, looking anxious. Not five minutes ago they had all been in the dinning room eating supper.
Her first instinct was to turn and walk right back out, but Chris had already followed her in and shut the door.
What a nightmare.
“I don’t suppose I have to tell you why I asked you here,” he said.
Ordered was more like it. Now she was sorry she’d agreed.
“We’re very concerned,” Melissa said, walking over to stand beside Chris. “You haven’t been yourself lately, Anne. For the last couple of months you’ve been pale and listless. Not to mention all the times you’ve dashed off to the loo.”
So they didn’t know. Louisa had kept her secret.
“It’s obvious something is wrong,” Aaron said. He normally wasn’t one to butt into other people’s business, so she knew he must have been genuinely concerned. Maybe waiting so long to tell everyone had been an error in judgment. She didn’t honestly think that anyone really noticed the changes in her or for that matter cared about them.
“If you’re ill—” Melissa began.
“I’m not ill,” Anne assured her.
“An eating disorder is a disease,” Chris said.
Anne turned to him, amused because Louisa had suspected the same thing at first. “Chris, if I were bulimic, I would be dashing off to the loo after supper, not before.”
He didn’t look as though he believed her. “I know something is wrong.”
“It all depends on how you look at it, I guess.”
“Look at what?” Melissa asked.
Just tell them, dummy. “I’m pregnant.”
All through the room jaws dropped. Except Louisa’s, of course.
“If this is some kind of joke, I’m not amused,” Chris said.
“It’s no joke.”
“Of course!” Melissa said, as though the lightbulb had just flashed on. “I should have realized. I just never thought …”
“I would be careless enough to go out and get myself in trouble?” Anne asked.
“I … I wasn’t even aware that you were seeing anyone,” Aaron said.
“I’m not. It was a one-time encounter.”
“Maybe this is a silly question,” Chris said. “But are you sure? Have you taken a test? Seen the family physician?”
She lifted the hem of the cardigan she’d been wearing to hide the evidence and smoothed her dress down over her bump. “What do you think?”
Had his eyes not been fastened in they might have fallen out of his head. “Good God, how far along are you?”
“Fifteen weeks.”
“You’re four months pregnant and you never thought to mention it?”
“I planned to announce it when the time was right.”
“When? After your water broke?” he snapped, and Melissa put a hand on his arm to calm him.
“There’s no need to get snippy,” Anne said.
Ironic coming from her, his look said, the princess of snip. Well, maybe she didn’t want to be that way any longer. Maybe she was tired of always being on the defensive.
“This isn’t like you, Anne,” Chris said.
“It’s not as if I went out and got knocked up on purpose, you know.” Although he was right. She had been uncharacteristically irresponsible.
I’ve got it covered. Brilliant.
“This is going to be a nightmare when it hits the press,” Melissa said. Being an illegitimate princess herself, she would certainly know. Until recently she’d lived in the U.S., unaware that she was heir to the throne of Morgan Isle.
“And what about the Gingerbread Man?” Louisa asked, speaking up for the first time. “I’m sure he’ll use the opportunity to try to scare us.”
The self-proclaimed Gingerbread Man was the extremely disturbed man who had been harassing the royal family for more than a year. He began by hacking their computer system and sending Anne and her siblings twisted and grisly versions of fairy tales, then he breached security on the palace grounds to leave an ominous note. Not long after, posing as housekeeping staff, he’d made it as far as the royal family’s private waiting room at the hospital. Hours after he was gone, security found the chilling calling card he’d left behind. An envelope full of photographs of Anne and her siblings that the Gingerbread Man had taken in various places so they would know that he was there, watching.
He would sometimes be silent for months, yet every time they thought they had heard the last of him, he would reappear out of the blue. He sent a basket of rotten fruit for Christmas and an e-mail congratulating Chris and Melissa about the triplets before her pregnancy had even been formally announced.
His most recent stunt had been breaking into the florist the night before Aaron and Liv’s wedding in March and spraying the flowers with something that had caused them to wilt just in time for the ceremony.
Anne was sure he would pull something when he learned of her pregnancy, but she refused to let him get to her. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. “I don’t care what the Gingerbread Man does,” she said, lifting her chin in defiance. “Personally, I’m all for drawing him out into the open so he makes a mistake and gets caught.”
“Which we have agreed not to do,” Chris said sternly.
Aaron asked the next obvious question. “What about the father of the baby? Is he taking responsibility?”
“Like I said, it was a one-night thing.”
Chris frowned. “He didn’t offer to marry you?”
This was where it was going to get tricky. “No. Besides, he’s not a royal.”