Baby Surprises 7 Book Box Set

by Layla Valentine

  When push came to shove, I found I wasn’t able to tell Lizzie what happened that night. I don’t know why. Maybe I just wanted to keep the truth for myself.

  “Yes, it was him,” I said when she called me up the next day to press me for details about the mysterious prince of Avaran. “Melissa was right. He was trying to keep a low profile, though.”

  She was ecstatic. “You hooked up with a European prince!”

  “We just had drinks,” I lied. “He’s a fan of the show, so he wanted to hear all about it, and I thought his life was interesting too. It was just one of those fun encounters.”

  “Some people have all the luck,” Lizzie moaned. “Why is it that whenever I meet a fan, it’s either a skeevy dude or a huge nerd?”

  “Women like your character, too,” I pointed out.

  She made a dismissive noise. “That’s great and everything, but come on. A real live prince? That beats everything.”

  She didn’t know the half of it. The more I look back on that night, the more I feel like I was in a fairy tale. A handsome prince emerging from out of nowhere—almost literally out of nowhere, just bumping into me as we turned a corner in opposite directions. Discovering that we hit it off more perfectly than I have with anyone I’ve ever met before.

  It’s surreal and wonderful in my memory, but always, always, I wake up in the cold reality where it’s already happened and slipped through my fingers. The most magical event of my life was over almost before it had a chance to begin.

  I drive to my favorite coffee shop to pick up a drink. It’s a new routine for me. When I’m filming Royal Blue, I don’t drink coffee, because the physicality of my work gives me plenty of adrenaline. You don’t need caffeine when you’re filming fight scenes. But during the hiatus, I’ve found my body craves that spike of additional energy.

  I pull into the parking lot outside Alabaster Studios and climb out of my car and into the sunlight, juggling my purse and my coffee. There must be something wrong with me, I think wryly as I make my way toward the door. This was supposed to be my vacation, my time to go back to Ohio and feel normal for a little while. I was going to be back with my parents, having breakfast made for me by my mom every morning, playing chess with my dad by the fire in the evenings, and just generally not being in Hollywood. But before I had even unpacked my bags, I was on my way back.

  It’s all my agent’s fault, really. I told Debra I was going to take the hiatus off and do absolutely nothing. I knew she didn’t like it. I’m her most successful client, after all.

  She took me on when I was small time—she mostly works with commercial actors—and when I landed the gig on Royal Blue, she worried I was going to ditch her for a more hotshot agency. I could have. They courted me. But Debra was the one who got me that audition in the first place. She’s always believed in me, and I’m loyal to her.

  She doesn’t like it when I’m not working, though.

  “Couldn’t we book you some paid appearances, at least?” she asked. “You could do a signing in Vancouver. I know you’ve always wanted to go there.”

  “I’ve always wanted to go there on vacation,” I corrected. “And that’s what this hiatus is going to be. A vacation. Not work.”

  She let it go. But one week later, she sent me the script that made me eat my own words with a knife and fork.

  I’ve always been in awe of the work Alabaster Studios produces. It’s an independent studio, which means they don’t have as much money as some of the big guys, but they have a lot more freedom when it comes to deciding which scripts to make. They take chances on the kind of projects that big studios would be afraid of.

  The film I’m working on is about a girl who becomes lost and stranded out on the tundra with only her sled dogs for company. My scenes are almost entirely nonverbal, and I get to work closely with the animals, which is so much fun. There are horses on the set of Royal Blue, but I’ve never shared a scene with them.

  Inside, the director, Martine, is sitting by craft services and snacking on a donut. She waves when she sees me come in and beckons me over.

  “You’re early,” she says.

  “I’ve been sleeping weirdly,” I admit. “I was awake.”

  She examines me. “You do look a little tired. But that’s probably good for the character. I’ll have makeup check you for continuity though. We don’t want you looking a lot more tired than you did in yesterday’s shots.” She tosses me an apple. “Eat something, for God’s sake. You’re so skinny it’s ridiculous.”

  “I’ve actually gone up a few pounds,” I confide.

  She rolls her eyes. “Actresses.”

  Almost pointedly, she takes a big bite of her donut. I bite into the apple and head to my dressing room to prepare for the day’s work.

  The scene we’re shooting today is one in which my character takes shelter in a cave with her dogs and tries to build a fire. Once I’m dressed in the dirty rags that comprise my costume, I head out onto the set to greet the dogs. Part of the schedule is always spending a few minutes with them so they can get acclimated to me.

  Liam, the trainer, has them all seated and waiting for me.

  “So, today you’re going to be working very closely with Nome,” he says.

  He makes a signal with his fingers and one of the dogs steps out of line. I recognize him by his darker coat and bright blue eyes. He’s the one who ran at the head of the pack, back when my character still had a sled.

  “The others are going to pile up at the back of the cave, but on his cue, Nome is going to come over and lie down on top of you to keep you warm.”

  I nod. “What do I need to do?”

  “Just keep still. He’s not expecting you to move, and if you do, he’ll think that means get off.”

  “They won’t go too near the fire, will they? I don’t want anyone to get burned.”

  “No, no. They’re sensible enough to keep clear of that,” Liam assures me.

  I nod and head over to the stage.

  It occurs to me, suddenly, that I haven’t thought about Alex since I arrived at the studio, and I take a moment to congratulate myself on that feat, but of course now I’m thinking about him again.

  This is how it’s been every day. I try to lose myself in my work. It’s such an interesting movie, and I really am excited to be a part of it. At any other time in my life, this would be all I could think about. But now I can barely keep my mind in the present.

  It’s not just his body, either—although it totally is his body. I’ve felt more sexually voracious in the past few weeks than I think I ever have in my life, even as a teenager. And I know exactly what’s causing it. It’s got to be the memory of that night with Alex. It’s running through the back of my head all the time, and I feel like I’m always watching a dirty film.

  But it’s more than that. I want to talk to him. I want to tell him about the movie I’m making. I want to tell him about Nome and ask him if he likes dogs. I want to know what’s going on in Avaran. I could use a search engine to find the answer to that last question, of course, but every time I sit down at my computer I pull away. I don’t want to ask the question. Maybe I’m just afraid of what seeing his face again will unlock in me.

  I can’t believe it’s been six weeks already.

  Six weeks.

  Six weeks…

  Something clunks into place in my head, suddenly and unpleasantly, and my stomach swoops with realization.

  I’m late. My period is very, very late.

  It’s circumstantial, it must be. It doesn’t mean what my first thought is that it must mean, but suddenly other things are starting to add up, and they’re forming a complete picture that’s all too telling. Things like how tired I’ve been. It’s not because I’m not getting my usual adrenaline rush. My libidinousness isn’t due to constantly reminiscing on my time with Alex—or, at least, it’s not solely due to that. Even my weight gain makes sense.

  I’m pregnant.

  But I can’t be, can I
? Alex and I used protection. I remember my lessons from health class that protection isn’t one hundred percent effective, but it’s damn close. How could this have happened?

  Feeling shaky, I turn and walk back off the set.

  Martine stares at me as I approach her.

  “What’s with you?” she asks. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “Not feeling well,” I say, hearing the tremor in my own voice. “I’m sorry. I think I might be sick. Do you think we could postpone the shoot a few hours?”

  “Do you need me to call you a car?” she asks.

  “No, I’ll be fine to get home,” I say.

  “All right. Take the rest of the day off, then. We’ll just pick it up tomorrow. But call me if this gets any worse, okay? If we’re going to have to cancel tomorrow too, I’d rather switch the shooting order so we can shoot one of the scenes you’re not in.”

  I nod. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Martine says, not unkindly. “Get some rest.”

  I stagger out to my car. Once I’m inside, I rest my forehead on the steering wheel and try to think.

  Pregnant.

  Honestly, there’s a part of me—under all the anxiety and worry and dread about what’s to come—that’s a bit excited. It seems like every day one of my old high school friends is announcing her pregnancy on social media. Some of them have babies already and send me pictures in the mail or on holiday cards. They all look so happy.

  Although I haven’t had time to make any deliberate strides toward it, I want a family of my own. I feel a pang every time I see my friends with babies and toddlers. And lately, with how busy I’ve been working on Royal Blue and handling life in the public eye, I’ve begun to wonder if normal family life will ever be possible for me.

  Of course, there isn’t anything normal about this situation.

  I stop at a drive-through pharmacy to buy a pregnancy test. I put sunglasses on even though it’s a cloudy day and let my hair down to disguise my face. I’ll have to hope the clerk doesn’t figure out who I am, or if he does, that he has enough discretion not to leak it to the press. There’s nothing to stop him.

  Most women in my position would send a friend or assistant or their agent to the drugstore for them, but I don’t have anyone I trust enough, and I don’t have time to track someone down. I need this answered now.

  Back at home, I make my way to the bathroom, tearing the little pink box open as I go and shaking out the package with the test inside. I rip it open with trembling fingers. I have no idea at the moment what outcome I’m hoping for. The only thing I know for certain that I want is information.

  Is it true?

  The waiting is the hardest part. I place the test on the edge of the bathtub and pace, not daring to look at it, waiting for the timer on my phone to inform me that the results are in. It feels like forever. I lose a year of my life waiting on that test.

  The alarm rings.

  I freeze for a moment in the eleventh hour. Once I look, there’s no going back.

  Then I cross the floor quickly before I can stop myself and grab the test.

  Positive.

  I’m pregnant.

  I’m pregnant, and the father is a prince.

  I’m having a prince’s baby.

  Chapter 8

  It takes me a long time to calm down. I sit in the bathroom, frozen in shock, for at least a half hour. Even though I suspected it, even though I was pretty sure, I wasn’t at all prepared for having it confirmed. Even now, it feels like there must be some mistake.

  I can’t be pregnant. I’m not. I don’t feel any different.

  That isn’t true, of course—haven’t I already been noticing ways in which I feel different? But it should be more than that, shouldn’t it? I’m having a baby. I’m growing a whole person inside me. And the difference I notice is that I feel a little more tired? That’s nothing. Compared with the magnitude of the news that I’m pregnant, that’s not even worth talking about.

  Finally, I scrape myself off the floor and make my way to the bedroom to lie down. I don’t bother turning the lights on.

  I feel like I need to call somebody. I don’t know what my next step is here. There’s never been anything like this in my adult life. I’ve always known what I needed to do next, even if that thing wasn’t easy. When I wanted to become an actress, I needed to move to LA, get an agent, and start going on auditions. It was straightforward. But this? What do I do next?

  My friends back home, the ones who’ve had babies, they could tell me how to handle a pregnancy. But they wouldn’t have any idea how to keep sensational news out of the press. Can I trust the entire staff at my doctor’s office not to leak something like this? Lizzie, on the other hand, is great with advice on avoiding publicity, but what does she know about babies?

  Besides all of which, the person I really need to talk to is Alex.

  We agreed we’d let things die between us, that our one great night together would be just that, but this changes everything. Doesn’t it? Wouldn’t he want to know about this?

  I realize, suddenly, sharply, that I don’t know.

  How well do I honestly know Alex? It felt like we had such a connection that night. But can I honestly claim to know him? We barely had time to talk. I know nothing about his family, his childhood, even the country he comes from. I don’t know what his values are at all. And I don’t know anything about the strictures placed on him by his title, either.

  This baby is his, there’s no doubt about that, but it was conceived out of wedlock on a one-night stand with a woman who is decidedly not royalty, and not Avaranian either. How much of a problem might that be for him? It’s possible he’ll want nothing to do with this child.

  What would I do if that were the case?

  I have to tell him about the baby. That much is clear. He has a right to know he’s going to be a father. No matter how he feels about it, he has the right to the information, and he has the right to decide what he wants to do next.

  And, if I’m honest with myself, I want his involvement. It’s more than just wanting Alex in my life, too, although I definitely want that. If I had my wish, this would bring us back together.

  But I can’t count on that. He’s made it clear that a relationship between us won’t work no matter how we feel about it, and his reasons do make sense. So I’ll just have to hope that he wants to be involved in the life of his child. I hope very much that he will. I want my baby to know his or her father.

  Telling Alex the truth will be hard, there’s no doubt about it. But I feel confident in my decision. It’s the right thing to do for everyone concerned.

  And now I have a path forward.

  I close my eyes and pull my pillow over my face, stunned at how quickly my entire world has changed around me, and how much.

  Chapter 9

  I’m expecting another sleepless night, like the one I passed when Alex was here in bed with me, because I’m once again so distracted and caught up that it seems impossible I could ever relax enough to drift off.

  And yet, to my surprise, I find myself waking up as the early rays of sun slot their way through the windows. It must be the pregnancy, is all I can figure, ensuring that my body gets the rest it needs.

  I really know nothing about being pregnant. I feel like a book will spare me days getting lost in the myriad of information online, but it’s not like I can just walk into a bookstore and buy a pregnancy guide—the news would be out before I even got home.

  Fortunately, I have a P.O. box set up under a pseudonym, so I can shop online without having to attach my name to the shipment.

  I reach over to my nightstand and pull my tablet out of the drawer and tap a few buttons to place a quick order. The book won’t arrive for a few days, but that’s okay. I can look for information online until then.

  And speaking of looking for information online…

  The problem is that I don’t know any details about Alex, and that’s
going to make it next to impossible for me to contact him. We didn’t exchange phone numbers or any type of contact information. Of course, there’s the significant fact of him being the prince of Avaran, and that makes him fairly traceable, I would assume. But it doesn’t tell me how to get in contact with him at all.

  Really, he was right about one thing. His situation is incredibly similar to my own. I know I have thousands of fans, but it’s almost impossible for them to talk to me directly. Fan letters have to be sent to the production company, and they have people whose job it is to screen them before I receive them. Even once I do, I would never have time to read them all. And my public social media accounts are managed by other people. I’m sure Alex has exactly the same setup—not reachable to the public.

  But I have to try. I have to do everything I can to let him know.

  Before I can think about what I’m doing or try to talk myself out of it, I’m typing “Avaran” into a search engine.

  I steel myself, half expecting Alex’s face to pop up immediately, but it doesn’t. The first few images shown are all either maps of the little country or photos of a city I don’t recognize. I suppose it must be the capital. I scroll down. The search results page offers me a tourism guide, a list of hotels, and—an encyclopedia article.

  It’s as good a place to start as any.

  I click the link and skim the article, waiting for something to jump out at me. The article seems to cover the entire history of Avaran. The first part shows me where Avaran is in the world and talks about things like major imports and exports and what the currency is. Nice to know, but not the kind of thing I’m looking for.

  I scroll down a bit, not sure exactly what I’m hoping to see, and stop at a heading that says “Politics.”

  “Avaran is a monarchy with a recent history of turmoil,” the article reads. “Although the throne has been occupied by the Gosar family for several generations—”