Royally Unexpected 2: An Accidental Pregnancy Collection (Surprise Baby Stories)

by Lilian Monroe

  As I walk toward the crashing waves, a seagull squawks above me. I look up at the bird, watching it land a few feet away from me. It cocks its head to the side, as if it wants to ask me a question.

  “I don’t know, gull. Being the King of Argyle seems a lot easier when Cara is by my side, but I don’t know if that’s what she wants. She left pretty quickly yesterday.”

  “Talking to birds now, Doctor Doolittle?” I turn to see my brother Dante walking on the sand toward me. He grins, his shaggy hair blowing in the breeze.

  “Birds don’t talk back,” I grin.

  My brother claps me on the back, and I wince at the pain that shoots through my shoulder.

  “Sorry,” Dante cringes. “I got the final report back from the lawyers this morning. I have news.”

  “Oh?”

  “Turns out, the marriage clause for coronation might not actually be consistent with the laws of Argyle. Every lawyer I’ve spoken to has agreed. Having a spouse isn’t necessary to be crowned King or Queen, according to the law. It’s only part of the royal culture. Wouldn’t hurt you in a court of law—only in the court of public opinion.”

  “Is there a difference?” I scoff, shaking my head. “Public opinion is more important than the law.”

  “Maybe. But you have public opinion on your side. I’ve been tracking your three-week tour through the Kingdom, and all mentions of you on social media are trending towards the positive.”

  “How did you do that?”

  “I track all the mentions, hashtags, and keywords that come up with your name and variations, and then I run them through a data analysis software to categorize them as positive or negative,” Dante explains, letting his eyes drift out to sea. “Then, I crunch the data and get it to spit out overall trends of popularity for you, for Father, and for the government as a whole.”

  “Of course you do. Nerd.”

  Dante grins, swinging his gaze back to me. “Someone’s got to do it, and I know it’s not going to be you.”

  “I’m hopeless with computers. That’s why I let you do it.”

  “Clearly I got all the brains in the family.”

  “If my shoulder wasn’t injured, I’d be punching you right now,” I grin.

  Dante snorts before faking a few jabs at me. He drops his arms and lets his lips drift into a smile, nodding at me. “Theo, this is good news. The people love you, and the law doesn’t say anything about a spouse. You don’t have to marry Cara. You can become King without her.”

  My smile fades as bitterness coats my throat.

  That’s supposed to be good news? It doesn’t feel good at all.

  The past three weeks have been the happiest weeks I’ve had in a long time. I’ve let myself imagine what it would be like to have Cara by my side. I’ve lived in a fantasy-land where everything turns out okay.

  But the truth?

  The truth is, she doesn’t want me. She was only playing along to help me out. If she wanted to stay with me, she wouldn’t have left yesterday. She’d have stayed by my side.

  “You okay, Theo?” Dante pulls me from my thoughts.

  The words are on the tip of my tongue. I want to tell him about these feelings swelling inside me. The fantasy of being with Cara, of living happily ever after.

  But I don’t know what Cara wants. I don’t know if she feels the same way.

  I know she enjoyed herself these three weeks. I know she feels happy when she’s with me, and that her smile widened and her face brightened over the course of our trip. I know she enjoyed singing with Prudence, and she started thinking of Argyle as a home, and not as a prison.

  Is it enough, though?

  She’d be giving up her dreams to be with me. She won’t have freedom if she becomes Queen. She’ll be chained to the duty of being a ruler.

  I’m ready for that. I’ve been preparing my entire life for it. But asking someone else to give up their dreams for the sake of duty… It might be too much.

  “Theo?” Dante arches his eyebrows, staring at me.

  I shake my head, exhaling. “I’m fine. Just a lot to think about.”

  “You like her, don’t you?”

  “Who?”

  “Don’t ‘who’ me, Theo. You know who. Cara Shoal. The woman you just spent every waking moment with for the past three and a half weeks.”

  “Oh. Cara.”

  “Yes, Cara. The social media analysis didn’t just talk about you, you know. Her name was trending in Argyle this week. You two caused quite a splash.”

  I frown. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, looks like your fake relationship was a little too convincing. There are dozens of blogs and videos dissecting every public interaction you’ve had with her. People are starting rumors that she’ll be the future Queen.”

  My eyes widen. “They are?”

  “You need to deal with this, Theo. You can’t keep pretending. Father needs to step down, and you need to take the throne whether it’s with Cara or without.”

  “Did your data analysis tell you to say that to me?”

  “More or less,” Dante grins.

  Another seagull squawks above us and comes to land next to the first one. I stare at the two birds and let out a deep sigh.

  “What do you guys think?” I ask, then pause for a few seconds. Turning to Dante, I pinch my lips. “They don’t know what to do either.”

  Dante snorts, shaking his head. “Have you told her?”

  “Who?”

  “Fuck, Theo. Stop playing dumb. You know who. Cara! Have you told her how you feel about her? Have you expressed the feelings that are currently causing you to talk to birds? Have you explained to her that you don’t want this to end between you two?”

  My heart squeezes painfully. Of course I haven’t told her. Last time I saw her, I was telling her good luck and goodbye, and watching her drive away.

  How am I supposed to turn around and tell her I love her?

  I shake my head. “I haven’t told her anything.”

  “You should.”

  “Are you the future King, or am I?” I snap. “When did you become so wise? Did you create a data analysis program for giving advice, too?”

  Dante chuckles and puts his hand on my shoulder again. He shakes his head. “I’m not wise, Theo. You’re just being unbelievably stupid.”

  20

  Cara

  I’ve been staring at my acceptance letter for hours. I barely slept last night. What sleep I did get was punctuated by nightmares.

  I stare at the letter. The rest of the envelope contains information about the school and a few pamphlets about the voice program.

  As the hours tick by, my decision doesn’t become any clearer.

  A soft knock on the door makes me lift my head from the paperwork strewn around me.

  “Come in!”

  Cathy, my eldest sister, walks in. She lifts a cup of coffee and a muffin. “Breakfast.”

  “Thanks,” I smile, shifting to sit up in bed.

  Cathy closes the door behind her and gives me a hesitant smile. “I heard about the letter.”

  “Father told you?”

  She nods. “Congratulations. I always knew you’d do big things.”

  “I’m pregnant.” I blurt out the words without thinking, then watch as my sister’s eyes grow wide with shock.

  “You’re what?”

  “It’s Prince Theo’s.”

  “Holy fuck, Cara.”

  I wince. Things must be bad when Cathy is swearing. I think I’ve heard her say bad words two or three times in my entire life.

  She sits on the edge of the bed, placing the coffee and muffin on my bedside table. One of the Juilliard pamphlets crumples beneath her, but neither of us tries to move it. The silence in the room is oppressive. Cathy stares at a spot on the floor, her hands gripping her knees.

  “Does Theo know?”

  I shake my head. “No.”

  “When did you find out?”

  “Yesterday
afternoon, right before I got home.”

  My sister lets out a long sigh. She runs her fingers over her eyebrows to smooth them, a motion she does whenever she’s worried. Finally, Cathy looks at me.

  “What are you going to do?”

  My bottom lip trembles. I suck in a long breath, and finally force my voice to work. “I don’t know.”

  Cathy’s always been the responsible one of all of us. She’s the eldest, and she has our mother’s strict propriety carved deep into her soul. Her posture is always perfect, and she values things like manners and traditions.

  Right now, though, her shoulders soften. She opens her arms toward me and wraps me in a tight hug, rocking back and forth as I struggle to keep my composure.

  As the first tears slip from my eyes, I know I’ve lost that battle. The dam is about to break. An ugly, snorting sob racks through my body, and Cathy just holds me. She rubs my back and shushes me softly until my sobs quiet down and I’m able to pull back.

  “I’m scared.”

  My sister nods.

  I breathe in through my teeth, forcing my bottom lip to stop trembling. Finally, I meet my sister’s gaze. “I think I love him, Cathy.”

  “Oh, Cara.” Her eyebrows draw together.

  “That’s not everything.”

  My sister tilts her head.

  “We were only pretending to be together. Theo was getting Prince Dante to look into old laws to see if he could get away with becoming King without marrying anyone.” My voice is small when I say the last word. When we decided to pretend to be together, it felt like the right decision. It was just necessity, to keep his father happy for a couple of weeks.

  Now, though?

  The thought of Theo actively looking for reasons not to marry me breaks my heart. Cracks splinter across my chest as pain rattles through me.

  I’m pregnant with his child, and he’s trying to find a way to break off our fake engagement.

  My life is a mess.

  Cathy gathers all the Juilliard paperwork in a big, messy pile and drops it on the floor. I try to hide my shock at my very proper, very tidy sister doing something like that. She climbs into my bed next to me and wraps her arms around my shoulders.

  “Come here,” she says. “It’ll be okay.”

  Why is it that people always say things will be okay? They say it like it makes a difference. Like I’d actually believe it. How can things possibly turn out okay?

  If I go to Juilliard, I lose Theo. I have to raise this baby on my own. Best case, I struggle through voice school with a newborn baby. Worst case, I send my baby back to Argyle while I study—but that doesn’t seem like an option to me at all. I already love the little bundle of cells growing inside me. Giving it up to pursue something as frivolous as singing seems wrong.

  On the other hand, if I stay, I’m giving up my dreams. No question about it. Once I tell Theo about the baby, I don’t even know how he’ll react. He’s actively looking for reasons not to marry me, and this will just add to the list.

  Or maybe, his sense of propriety and duty will force him to marry me for real, whether or not he wants to. That would be the biggest tragedy of all. We’d be sentencing each other to a life of misery, all because of a baby neither of us planned to have.

  I already know he doesn’t want a wife. I know he doesn’t want to lead the Kingdom into the same kind of scandal that happened with his father. I know that he wants to be clear-headed when he becomes King.

  Having a wife he never wanted and a child he didn’t ask for doesn’t exactly fit into that vision. I must have been delusional yesterday, when I thought this baby was actually a good thing. That it might bring us closer together.

  “You have to tell him, Cara,” Cathy says, resting her chin on top of my head.

  “Who?”

  Cathy scoffs. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  I sniffle, chuckling through the last of my tears. I pull away from my sister, leaning against the headboard. “I know.”

  “The sooner he knows, the sooner you can make decisions. You’re keeping the baby?”

  “Yes.” The word comes out with more vehemence than I intended.

  Cathy just nods, as if she wouldn’t expect anything else. “So you have to tell him.”

  “What if he doesn’t want it?”

  “Then he doesn’t deserve it.”

  Everything seems so simple when my sister says it, but it feels so much more complicated in my heart. Theo rejecting the baby feels like the same thing as Theo rejecting me—and that hurts. A lot.

  I don’t know when it happened, or how, but I’ve fallen for Prince Theo. Hard. Harder than I thought was possible. The feelings I have for him are stronger than anything I ever felt for Luca. This isn’t duty or arrangement. It’s real. It’s powerful.

  It’s going to break me into a million little pieces, and I’m never going to be able to put myself back together again.

  Sliding my hand over my stomach, I let out a sigh.

  Cathy nudges my shoulder. “Sing me something, Cara.”

  “What? Why?”

  My sister smiles. “Maybe you’ll go to voice school. Maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll end up with Theo. Maybe you won’t. One thing I know for sure, though? You have a beautiful voice and singing brings you joy. Heck, your singing brings me joy. It’s a gift, Cara. You should use it whether or not you decide to go to Juilliard.”

  Tears prickle my eyelids, but I try to contain myself. I don’t want to cry. I don’t want to turn into a blubbering mess and give in to all my worst fears.

  Instead, I take a deep breath and I sing the first thing that comes to mind. It’s an old love song that Prudence and I sang together, one that our father used to sing to our mother when we were little. Cathy leans against the pillows on my bed and closes her eyes. When I sing the chorus, she joins in with me.

  My heart swells.

  I haven’t heard Cathy sing since we were kids.

  She’s right. My voice is a gift, and I can’t give it up. As a hurricane of emotion blows around me, whistling through the cracks in my armor, I need to cling onto the things that are real.

  My baby is real, and I need to protect it. My voice is real, and I need to cherish it.

  My love for Theo is real, and I need to find out if he feels the same way.

  The door to my room opens, interrupting our singing. My mother stands in the doorway, eyebrow arched. She looks at the pile of paperwork on the floor and then swings her gaze to my sister and me. Cathy shuffles off the bed, adjusting her clothing and clearing her throat.

  My mother stares at me with cold, hard eyes. “The Crown Prince is here. He’s asking for you.”

  21

  Theo

  A maid places a silver tray beside me. A cup of tea lets off a wisp of steam as the maid curtsies and backs away. My knee bounces up and down. Tristan Shoal stares at me from across the living room.

  “We weren’t expecting to see you today, Your Highness.”

  “I was in the neighborhood.”

  Lie.

  I couldn’t stay away. I’ve only been apart from Cara for a day, but after my conversation with Dante, I felt like I had to talk to her.

  We’re connected. Cara and I share something that I didn’t even know was possible. I thought I wanted to be alone. To lead this country to prosperity on my own. To protect myself from the kind of scandal that marred my father’s rule.

  Now, I’m realizing I was wrong. I don’t want that at all.

  I want Cara.

  “Cara got some good news in the mail,” Tristan says, reaching for his own cup. It looks tiny in his meaty hands. Even as he ages, he looks like an athlete. Still a national treasure, and now the terrifyingly imposing father of the woman I’m falling in love with.

  “Did she?”

  Tristan nods, a proud smile tugging at his lips. “She was accepted to The Juilliard School in New York. To study singing.” His eyes gleam, and my heart stops dead. If Tristan notices, he doesn
’t let on. “I always knew she had a gift.”

  “N-New York?” I repeat.

  Tristan shifts his gaze to me, nodding. “I was shocked, too. I think people like you and me—who have the soul of Argyle deep in our bones—don’t understand wanting to leave this place. It’s paradise.”

  My throat is tight. I nod.

  “But Cara’s different.” Tristan smiles again, sipping his tea. “She’s always wanted to see the world. To be independent. I didn’t understand it until she got that letter in the mail. Now, I know. She wasn’t meant to be held down. She’s like a bird. She needs her freedom.”

  Another Doctor Doolittle. Great.

  I rack my brain to try to think of something to say, but all I can think of is Cara leaving.

  She doesn’t feel what I feel. She doesn’t want to stay. She doesn’t want to see if things could work between us.

  Her father’s words hit me like a sledgehammer to the gut, because I know there’s truth to what he’s saying. Cara does need her freedom. She deserves to explore the way she’s always dreamed. She should go to the best voice school in the world to pursue her dreams.

  Who am I to hold her back?

  Keeping her in Argyle, no matter how much she thinks she cares about me, would be wrong.

  As the realization settles in, my heart sinks deeper and deeper, until I’m not sure it’s even part of my body at all. Then, Cara appears in the living room doorway. I stand up, staring at her makeup-free face and her red-tipped nose. Her eyes are clear, and she stares at me with a million questions in her eyes.

  Pain shatters through my chest.

  I need to let her go. As soon as I see her face, I know Cara deserves to be set free. If she stayed, I’d be condemning her to a life of duty. Of service. Of living in the public eye.

  A life without singing, unless it was in the privacy of our own home.

  She’d never be able to share her gift. She’d never be able to study music. She’d never be able to explore the world the way she wants to.