“Yes. Right here.”
“We...need to meet.”
“All right.”
“Come to my villa. Do you have a pen?”
“Hold on.” He shot upright and flung back his locker door. As luck would have it, there was one, way in the back on the upper shelf. He grabbed it. “Go ahead.” She rattled off an address in the ultraexclusive harbor resort area of Colline d’Ambre. He had no paper handy, so he dropped back to the bench and wrote the address on his thigh.
“This afternoon?” she asked.
He’d just returned from a security assignment guarding Prince Alexander and didn’t expect new orders for a couple of weeks, which meant he had nothing that day that he couldn’t reschedule. “What time?”
A silence on her end. “You’re making this so easy.” She spoke with false brightness. “At the very least, I expected you to demand that the meeting be secret.”
Had he misread the meaning of her call? He didn’t see how he could have. They had been very clear with each other. But perhaps there was something else she was calling about, something he hadn’t considered.
He glanced around the locker room. He was the only one there. It should be safe to come right out and ask her if she was carrying his child. But someone else could enter at any time. It was always safer to be discreet. Besides, at that moment, he couldn’t have pushed the words beyond his teeth if his life had depended on it.
He said, with a formality that even he found ridiculous, “I would request that we meet in secret—if what’s been between us can ultimately be kept a secret.”
She made an impatient sound. “Well, it can’t be for me. But for you? Yes. Absolutely, it can.” Defensive. And angry.
He felt his own anger rise. What was she telling him? That she thought he might actually deny his own child—and that she would aid him in that?
He needed...to see her face. This was not a conversation they should be having over the phone. “Just tell me what time.”
A careful sigh escaped her. “Four o’clock?”
He stared at the address on his thigh. It was smeared a little from his sweat. The unreality of this hit him all over again. “I’ll be there.”
“Wonderful.” Her tone told him all too clearly that it was anything but. There was a click.
She had hung up.
* * *
At four on the dot a servant led him into a large sitting room furnished with excellent taste and a goodly number of fine antiques. A wall of glass doors opened onto a long terrace. The doors were flung wide. A pleasant breeze touched his cheek.
Beyond the central pair of open doors, Rhiannon sat at a small iron table, facing away from him. On the table beside her were two ice-filled glasses and two bottles of sparkling water.
“Thank you, Yvonne,” Rhiannon said without turning. “Nothing else right now.” The servant gave him a nod and left. “Marcus.” Still, Rhiannon didn’t turn. “Please.” She gestured at the empty chair on the other side of the table.
He went through the doors. The villa was high on one of the hills overlooking the harbor, so that beyond the squat stone pillars that supported the terrace rail, the view was of clear blue sky and the hills across the water. Pleasure craft crammed the wind-ruffled harbor below.
Rhiannon turned her head to him. When her eyes found him, there was a sharp, jabbing sensation in the vicinity of his heart. She was as beautiful as ever, in a summer dress printed with bright flowers. She’d pinned up her seal-brown hair. He thought she looked tired. Her dark eyes gave him nothing.
He didn’t know what else to do. So he retreated behind the habits of a lifetime. He’d worn his uniform. Somehow, civilian dress had seemed disrespectful. His visor cap was already tucked beneath his arm. He sketched a bow. “Ma’am.”
Her soft mouth tightened. “Don’t be absurd. Sit down.” He sat. “Just put your hat on the table,” she instructed wearily. He put it down. She offered, “Have some Perrier.”
“Thank you.” He made no move to touch it.
She poured the bubbly water over the ice in her glass and then set the bottle aside, resting her slim hand on the iron lace of the tabletop. “We are ludicrous. You know that. One time. How pitiful. This was not supposed to happen.”
If he’d had a shadow of a doubt, he didn’t any longer. He felt frozen in place, struck anew with extreme unreality. He attempted, badly, to reassure her. “It will...be all right.”
She weighed his words, staring out over the terrace rail again. “Yes. Of course it will. Eventually.” A small, strained laugh escaped her. “After my failures with fiancés, I had begun to believe I would never have children. I think that once I get over the shock, though, once I’ve become accustomed to the whole idea, I will actually be glad.” She stopped talking.
He realized he ought to say something, to reassure her, to make it clear that he fully intended to do what had to be done now. “We must speak with Her Sovereign Highness immediately. And with the Prince Consort.”
A frown drew her smooth, dark brows together. “Well, of course I will tell my parents. Soon. But I wouldn’t say there’s any huge rush about it.”
He didn’t understand. “Of course there’s a rush. It’s been two months since that night. The longer we put off the wedding, the more the world will talk. I don’t want that for the child, growing up with people pointing, whispering, calling him hurtful names. We need to be married immediately—that is, if Her Sovereign Highness doesn’t demand my head for this.”
“Your head? Please.” She looked at him again. “And what are you talking about? We’re not getting married. You never wanted to marry me. You were very firm on that. There is no way you suddenly get to do an about-face now.”
His ears felt hot. And his heart had set to galloping. This was a nightmare. “You deserve a prince. I know that. But the child is mine or you would not have called me here.” And no child of mine will be born without my name. No child of mine will grow up without his father, without two parents married in the eyes of God and man. He swallowed. Hard. And spoke with a composure he didn’t feel. “Of course, I understand your reluctance. I am so...sorry. But it can’t be helped. It’s necessary now that we go to the sovereign and somehow get her to see that we have to marry.”
Her mouth was a thin line. “No, it most certainly is not necessary. Not in the least.”
He gaped at her as a terrible awareness dawned. “Wait. No. You can’t. You wouldn’t.”
She blinked. “Wouldn’t what?”
He strove mightily for discipline. For calm. For reason. If ever there was a moment that demanded a clear head, this was it. And his brain felt like mush. Mush on fire. “I...understand that you don’t want to marry me. That you’ve moved on from wanting much of anything to do with me. And of course, there would be more suitable prospects who would jump at the chance to make a lifetime with you. But that is not going to happen now. Not while there is breath in my body. I’m sorry to disappoint you, Rhiannon. Sorry on more levels than you could ever imagine. But I can’t allow this. No other man will have my child. Never. My child will know his father. My child will grow up with parents who are married to each other and devoted to his well-being.”
She stared at him for several endless seconds. And then she said with slow, careful deliberation, “Marcus. You understand nothing. You never have. I refuse to marry a man who only wants to marry me because I am the mother of his child. And as to those ‘prospects’ you mention? There are none. I’m not marrying you. I’m not marrying anyone. Not now, anyway. Not for years yet.”
Of course she would marry him. She would have to now. There was no other way. He asked, just to be absolutely certain, “There is no one else, then?”
She huffed out a breath. “Do you actually believe I’m that reprehensible?”
He stiffened. “No. Reprehensible? Of course not. I never said that.”
“That is exactly what you said—not in words, no. But it was clearly implied.”
He knew he was in trouble here and he didn’t even know why. Flatly, he defended himself. “I did not.”
“You asked me if there was someone else.”
“Yes, I did. But that doesn’t mean I find you reprehensible.”
“What else would you find me if you believe that I would have had sex with you while I was involved in a serious relationship with someone else?”
He hadn’t thought of it that way. If the truth were known, he was having trouble thinking, period. Ever since he’d answered her call that morning, he’d felt as though he didn’t have a brain inside his head. The last thing he could ever do was to marry the woman beside him. And now to marry her was the thing that he somehow, against all odds, must find a way to do.
Valiantly, he tried again. “I only meant, if you had someone...if you knew someone more suitable than I, someone who would marry you and give the child his name. I only meant, I’m sorry, but I cannot allow that to happen.”
She picked up her glass, took a slow sip, set it back down. “Oh. Oh, I see. You were thinking I had perhaps planned ahead and cultivated the acquaintance of some random minor prince, or even some lesser aristocrat willing to call another man’s child his own for certain...monetary considerations, or simply for the chance to marry up.”
He could not sit in that little iron chair for one second longer. Rising abruptly, he went to the stone rail. Staring out over the harbor, his face to the wind, he spoke without turning to her. “Please, Rhia.” He was so desperate to get through to her that he used the intimate form of her name, the form he had tried in the past eight years to completely eradicate from his vocabulary. “I did not mean to insult you.” He turned and faced her then. “I don’t judge you, not in any way. Except that I respect you deeply and...and you know that I care for you, that I always have.”
She wrapped her arms around herself then, hunching her slim shoulders in a self-protective way. And for a moment, she closed her eyes. Her black lashes lay like small silk fans against her too-pale cheeks. When she looked at him again, her expression had lost the tension and anger of a moment before. Now she seemed defeated, infinitely sad.
“You’re right.” She spoke softly. “I want to be angry with you. I want to...take out my frustrations on you. But that’s not helpful. I’m sorry, too, Marcus. I truly am. I’ve made a mess of everything. I shouldn’t have seduced you that night in Montana.”
“Don’t blame yourself.” The words felt scraped out of him, ragged and raw.
She drew back her shoulders, folded her hands in her lap. “But I am to blame.”
He told the truth. They could have that at least between them. “I wanted you. I’ve always wanted you. I think you know that. We both...gave in.”
“Because I pushed it.”
He held her gaze steadily. “Let it be. Let it go.”
After a moment, she nodded. “All right. Yes. I’ll let it be. It’s only that I...” The words wandered off. She glanced down at her folded hands and then lifted her head again. “At least I’ve told you. Now you know.”
“Yes.”
“And you know that I’m not going to marry someone just to give our child a name.”
“Not someone,” he clarified. “Me.”
She made a small, pained sound. And then she rose, smoothed the slim skirt of her dress and approached him. They turned and looked out over the harbor together. The breeze brought her scent to him, sweet and exciting as ever. “Oh, Marcus. No. I could never marry you now. I meant what I said that night in Montana. What we had years ago, it’s over. Too much has happened. There’s been too much pain. We can’t go back. Don’t you see that it’s not possible?”
He watched her profile, so pure and fine. One way or another, he would make her see that there was only one choice here. They were going to be married. It was going to happen. He would make it happen. “I don’t intend to go back. I only intend to marry the mother of my child.”
She did look at him then. The wind blew a few dark strands of hair across her soft mouth. She smoothed them away and tucked them behind her ear. “No.”
He turned his body so he faced her fully and he tried another line of attack. “You can’t shame your family this way. The tabloids will have a feeding frenzy.”
“I doubt that. They’ve always been more interested in my brothers than in my sisters and me.” A faint smile tried to pull on the downturned corners of her mouth. “Except for Alice, on occasion, when she does something wild.”
“You will become ‘interesting’ and you know it, if you’re not married when the world learns of the baby.”
She shrugged. “The interest will pass quickly. I’m sixth born—and eighth in line to the throne.” His Highness Maximilian was the oldest, the heir, and he already had two children. “I’m an extra princess if ever there was one. And I don’t see any shame in my decision. Yes, that this happened is completely my fault. I should have been more careful. I should have backed off that night when you said it was wrong. I should have...left it alone. But I didn’t. And now there’s a baby coming, a baby who will have my love and my complete devotion. And you can still be a father. You just won’t be a husband. At least not to me.”
He reminded her sternly, “You are a Calabretti, a princess of the blood.”
“I am a Bravo-Calabretti, thank you very much. We marry for love. And only for love.”
“Well, all right, then. I love you. I’ve always loved you.”
She stared at him for a very long time. “I could slap your face for that,” she said at last.
He reached out and clasped her smooth, bare arms. Heat seared him, just to have his hands on her again. “Do it, then. Only marry me.”
Her eyes were dark fire. “No.”
He went all the way with it, pulling her to him, lowering his head, claiming those sweet red lips. She gasped. And for a moment, her body went pliant and her mouth was so soft. A sigh escaped her. The past rose up, the days of their happiness. Fifty-eight days of joy and light, all those years ago. In another country an ocean and a continent away....
But then she stiffened again, whipped her hands up between them and shoved at his chest. “Don’t. Stop it.”
He released her.
She staggered back, her hand against her mouth. “You have to stop this, Marcus. It’s too late for us. You know that it is.”
He refused to believe that. “You’re wrong. It’s not too late. Whatever it takes, we are going to marry. I know what it is to grow up a bastard, unwanted. Unclaimed. That is not going to happen to any child of mine.”
“The situation is in no way the same. Oh, Marcus, I know it was difficult for you, growing up. But things were different then.”
“Not different enough.”
She looked at him pleadingly now. “How many ways can I tell you? This baby will be wanted and loved. This baby will have everything. I will make sure of it. You have to see that. Please. Open your mind just a little, won’t you?”
He fisted his hands at his sides to keep from grabbing her again—grabbing her and shaking her until she came to her senses at last. “How blind you are. How proud and thoughtless. You’re a Bravo-Calabretti. You were nursed at your mother’s breast and your father doted on you and on all of your brothers and sisters. You always had what every child needs. You took it for granted. You’re the one who doesn’t understand.”
She gasped as if he’d struck her. And then she took another step back and tipped her chin high. “I think we’re at an impasse here. I don’t know what else to say to you to make you see.”
He refused to give up. He would never give up. “I’ll tell you what to say. Say yes. Say you’ll marry me.”
She made a low sound, impatient and regal. And then she went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “I know this has been a terrible shock to you and I’m so sorry to have to put you through this—to put you through what will come, to make you a father when you never asked for that.”
“Marry me.”
&
nbsp; She swallowed. Hard. “I want you to know that I will stick by you. I will make certain there is no...penalty for you with the guard or the CCU because of what’s happened. And I hope that, in time, we will reach some kind of peace with each other, that we will find some way to work together, as parents, for the sake of our child.”
He dared a step toward her. “The way for us to work together is as man and wife.”
She put up a hand. “Don’t. Do not come one step closer. I mean it, Marcus. You make a mockery of all we once had.”
“That is not my intention. You know that it’s not. I only want—”
She didn’t even let him finish. “Please. I would like you to leave now.”
He almost said no, that they had to come to an agreement, now, tonight, that there was no time to waste.
But he’d already said that. And she’d simply refused him.
He was a soldier, after all. He knew all too well that there actually were times when discretion was the better part of valor.
He needed to...clear his head. To think it through. He had no power. She was his princess and he was sworn only to serve her. She held all the cards. If she simply kept refusing him, what could he do?
But then he thought of the innocent child they had made. And he knew he would do whatever it took. Whatever he had to do.
“Please,” she said again, her voice so soft, full of hurt that they were doing this to each other. Again. “Go.”
“Fair enough.” With a last bow, he left her, pausing only to grab his hat from the table as he strode by it.
* * *
Rhia stayed rooted in place on the terrace until she heard the front door close.
The sound set her off at a run for her bedroom suite. She made it into the bathroom and to the toilet just in time to flip up the seat and drop to her knees.
Everything came up. It wasn’t a lot, since her lunch had been very light. But still. It was awful.
And after it was over, she just sat there for a while. She didn’t have the energy to get up—which was fine. She still had that queasy feeling, which meant she would probably only end up on her knees again, anyway.
37 Her Highness and the Bodyguard Page 8
