by Annie O'Neil
But he’d never felt for any of them what he’d felt for this one.
Love.
Electricity crackled through him as the thought took shape and grew.
Of course he loved the child.
Because he loved Beatrice.
It was why he hadn’t been able to sleep. Why everything, despite being in the full bloom of summer, had seemed gray, dull and lifeless since he’d all but kicked her out of the clinic. Of his life.
It explained his ridiculous knight in shining armor attempt. By telephone.
The memory curdled when he tried to give it a softer edge.
It had been little less than cowardly.
He had given himself a way out by ringing Beatrice from the safety of his office, instead of elbowing his way past all those ridiculous camera-wielding journalists. Beatrice was right to have hung up on him. They were photographers—not armed snipers lying in wait to kill anyone.
Though they were stealing her right to live her life the way she chose. Just as he’d done by rejecting the baby she was going to bring into the world.
She wasn’t mad. Or foolish. She was brave. Loving. Selfless, even, to bring a child created in such calculated circumstances into the world and love it as if she hadn’t lost everything in the process.
A fire started in his gut. Beatrice shouldn’t have to do this. Hide away from the press. Sneak out of her shuttered apartment under the cover of darkness or hidden behind another disguise. Be fired for being—what?—the love of his life?
So she was pregnant because of an attempt to do the right thing by a family so interwoven in the traditions of the past that she’d agreed out of loyalty?
He knew loyalty.
He showed it to his patients. He gave it willingly to his own family. Would lay down his life for them.
He glanced at the newspaper again.
Mystery Knight in Shining Armor for Venice’s Runaway Principessa!
Hardly pithy, but no one needed to read the wordy headline to understand the one thing that photo showed.
He was in love with Beatrice.
It was there for all the world to see.
She was reaching out as the darkness of her faint began to consume her, and the expression on Jamie’s face as he stretched out his arms to catch her was one of the harrowing anxiety of a man who would lose a part of himself if he lost her.
* * *
There was no chance Bea was going to risk another set of heartbroken-princess headlines.
Jilted Again!
Always the Fiancée...Never the Bride!
Destined to be Alone...Forever.
Well, screw that!
If she was going to leave, she was going to leave with her head held high.
One long shower, a session in front of the mirror and a bit of prevarication over the blue dress that flattered her olive skin or the green that definitely showed her small baby bump later...and she was ready to go.
Her heart rate accelerated as the elevator doors opened to the wide foyer on the ground floor of her apartment block...the last open space before she opened the doors to the world...
“Jamie?”
She looked over her shoulder, as if half expecting the press to jump out of some invisible closet and scream “Surprise!” All the while snapping away, taking photos of her looking shocked. But there was no one. No one except for Jamie, standing there as handsome as ever, blond hair curling over the edges of his shirt collar, green eyes holding her in their steady gaze.
Her gut instinct was to run to him, throw herself into his arms and weep with relief that she wouldn’t have to go through any sort of charade with the press. The other instinct? The other instinct was hopping mad that he was there at all.
Wasn’t he the one who had pointed the way to the exit yesterday?
Wasn’t he the one who had refused to consider trying again?
Wasn’t he the one to whom she had lost her heart all those years ago and against whom no one else would compare? Ever.
She put one foot in front of the other and made her way across the foyer, through the doors and out onto the street, Jamie keeping pace with her the entire time. He swept out in front of her, down the steps and toward his car.
“Madame...” He opened the passenger door of his dark blue 4x4—a typical rugged Alpine doc vehicle. “Your carriage awaits.”
Bea stayed rooted to the spot. No way. She wasn’t going to let her heart go on this crazy merry-go-round ride again. She’d been through enough emotional joyrides and not a single one of them had been fun.
“What did you do?” she heard herself ask in a voice that didn’t sound natural.
Jamie had the grace to look the tiniest bit bashful before he admitted, “I told them you’d left the clinic and were headed to Milan. Something about going to a hospital ward...”
The edges of her lips twitched. But he didn’t deserve to win her smile. Not yet anyway.
“What type of ward?” she asked, her fingers still retaining their firm grip on the handles of her wheeled luggage.
“A maternity ward,” he answered, the twinkle in his green eyes flashing bright.
The tiniest glimmer of hope formed in her chest.
“Oh, really? And what is it exactly I’m meant to be doing there?”
“I don’t think you’ll be doing anything there,” he answered, his voice growing thick with emotion. He tipped his head toward the car. “What do you say we get you out of here? Before they figure out someone might’ve given them duff information.”
Her hand swept to her belly. She couldn’t do this again. Not if he was just offering her a ride to so-called freedom. It would just be a few days in a holding pattern until she came up with a new plan. A new place to hide away.
That wasn’t how she was going to face life anymore. She was a handful of months away from being a single mother. It was time to stand on her own two feet. Even so...he was looking terribly earnest. It would be rude not to ask what his plan was.
Wouldn’t it?
She gave her hair an unnecessary shake and showed him her haughtiest look.
“What exactly are you proposing, Jamie?”
“I’m proposing we get out of here,” he said, taking a determined step toward her. “I’m proposing you consider forgiving me for acting like a boor.”
Bea shivered despite the warm summer breeze as he took yet another step. Only a handful of stairs stood between them. She had a chance. A chance to turn around...flee. Escape with a bit of her heart intact.
Her fingers pressed against the warm curve of her belly.
“I’m also proposing,” he continued, taking the steps in a few swift, long-legged strides and pulling her hands into his, “that we get out of here before any straggling paparazzi come by. C’mon!”
He tipped his head toward the car and reached either side of her to pick up her bags. She caught a warm hit of evergreen and...honey? Candle wax? She’d never been able to put a finger on it, but the scent had always been Jamie.
She would accept the ride and then she would say goodbye.
Loving a stranger’s baby was a big ask. Just knowing he’d forgiven her, knowing she could leave with true peace between them, stilled her restless heart.
He dropped her a wink. “C’mon. I know a girl who has a cousin who has a chalet somewhere out there in the wilderness. Let’s get out of here.”
* * *
Jamie knew the only way to stop himself from popping the question on the torturously long thirty-minute car ride was to fill the car with opera. Beatrice loved listening to the beautiful arias of Puccini, so he scanned his phone’s music library until he found the file he’d been unable to delete when she’d left.
Even catching a glimpse of it had been like swa
llowing bile up until today. But today? Seeing it there on his phone was like receiving a hit of much-needed sunshine on a rainy day.
As if he’d called up to the heavens and ordered it the clouds shifted away one by one until, when at long last they reached the hidden-away chalet, the sky was a beautiful clear blue and the sun shone brightly down on the broad spread of mountain meadows surrounding the estate.
Beatrice gave him the code for the gate, and when they drew up to the house she turned to him, her face taut with nerves. “You’d probably be best just leaving me here. I’ll be all right.”
“I am not doing any such thing, Beatrice di Jesolo.”
He was out of the car before she could stop him and around at her side, opening the door and pulling her hands into his as he dropped to one knee.
“I was hoping not to do this next to the footwell of a beat-up 4x4, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned this summer it’s that waiting is a bad idea when it comes to you.”
Beatrice’s brow crinkled. “What do you mean?”
“I was a first-class idiot, Beatrice. Two years ago when you left I should’ve put up a fight. Proved I was the man for you. Maybe I wasn’t. But I’ve grown a lot since then.”
A dark sigh left his chest, leaving the bright hope of possibility in its wake.
“And I hope you will believe me when I say I’ve grown the most since you’ve come back into my life.”
“What is it you’re saying, Jamie?”
“I’m saying I love you. I’m saying I want to marry you. I’ve always wanted to marry you. I’m saying I want to be a father to the child you’re carrying and any other babies you and I might create as we live out our lives of wedded bliss.”
He pulled her hands into his and dropped kisses on each of them.
“We’ve missed too much time together, Beatrice. Time I don’t want to risk losing again. Please say you’ll marry me?”
He looked straight into her eyes, praying that what was beating in her heart was the same fiery, undying passion beating in his own.
“Beatrice di Jesolo, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
For one heart-stopping moment a crease of distress flashed across her features, before dissolving into the most beautiful smile he’d ever seen.
“You’re absolutely sure?”
“Positively.”
“My family is insane.”
“Mine is too sane,” he countered. “It’ll make a nice balance.”
“Your mother-in-law will be a very...uniquely challenging woman,” she said warningly.
“I’ve been told I have a way with the ladies.” He dropped a wink and rose to his feet so he could look her square in the face. “I’ll win her over.”
Beatrice’s eyebrows lifted. “You have to win the bride over first.”
“So it’s a yes?”
“This is what you want?” she asked. “Mystery baby and all?”
She gently pulled her hands from his and swept them along the small swell beneath her cotton dress.
“Mystery baby and all,” he replied, more solidly than he could even have imagined. He meant it. He wanted this baby. To love it. To raise it. To read stories to it while it was still in the womb and for every day after. “You are the love of my life, Beatrice. I can’t let you get away again.”
Tears popped inito her eyes as she nodded her understanding. “Si, amore. It’s a yes.”
He didn’t need to hear another word. Whooping with joy, he swung her around before pulling her into his arms for a kiss that was long overdue.
Sweet, sensual, loving, impassioned... The kiss embodied it all.
When at long last they broke apart, heads tipped together as if any more space between them was an impossibility, he whispered to her again, “I love you, Beatrice.”
“I love you, too, Jamie. Forever and a day.”
EPILOGUE
BEA PUSHED THE shutters back so that the morning sun could flood into the bedroom, barely able to contain her fizz of expectation. January in Britain had never seemed so beautiful. Frost still covered the fields beyond the house—just as Jamie had described when he’d told her about the single winter he’d spent here on his own, with only the wood burner for company.
Well, a lot had changed since then.
A knock sounded at her bedroom door, and before she could cross to answer it Fran’s face appeared in the door frame, wreathed in smiles.
“And how is the happy bride-to-be?”
“Happy!” Bea said, laughing as she spoke, feeling another jolt of enthusiasm crackling through her veins. She beckoned Francesca in and twirled around. “What do you think?”
“Beautiful!” Fran’s fingers flew to her lips as emotion stemmed anything else she’d planned to say. “Jamie’s going to go wild with desire when he sees you!”
“Hardly!” Bea swatted at the air between them, allowing herself a little twist and twirl to show off the A-line cap-sleeved dress she still couldn’t believe she fitted into. “Eight and a half months pregnant, swollen feet and chubby cheeked is not how I was expecting to walk down the aisle.”
“Oh, don’t be silly,” Francesca parried, flopping onto the old-fashioned bed with an added bounce or two. “You tried it the other way and that was clearly not singular enough for you. Surely your mother—”
“Uh-uh! No, you don’t!” Bea feigned horror as she turned to her hodgepodge of a dressing table, pulled together from a packing box and a precariously balanced mirror she’d found in the attic a couple of hours earlier.
She lowered herself onto the packing crate in front of it, ensuring she swept the short train of champagne-colored fabric to the side as she found purchase on the slats. Her mother would be having an absolute hissy fit if she could see her right now.
“We already tried it her way, and the reason you’re here and not her is because I thought I could rely on you not to go all Principessa royal this, royal that on me. We both know that is not a recipe for success.”
“I don’t know...” Fran pushed herself up from the bed and wandered over to stand behind her friend, their gazes connecting in the mirror. “It worked out pretty well for Luca and me.”
“You and Luca have an entire village at your disposal!”
Fran’s musical laugh filled the room. “It was a great day, wasn’t it?”
“Amazing. Enough glamor to tide my mother over until my brother decides to get married.”
“Pfft! Hardly!” Fran rolled her eyes. “I suppose Dad did go a bit over-the-top with the catering, didn’t he?”
“You should see what my father brought over. His suitcase was full of food and nothing else!” Bea’s hand swept across the arc of her swollen tummy. “Oof! I think this baby girl is going to be part focaccia and part wedding cake if the past few weeks are anything to go by! Italian made, that’s for sure!”
Fran took up a lock of Bea’s hair and started weaving it into an intricate plait along her hairline. “You’re still convinced it’s going to be a girl?”
“She,” Bea answered solidly. “I’m sure of it.”
“I thought you weren’t going to find out?”
“We haven’t, but... You should know by now—a mother can sense things.”
Fran stepped to Bea’s side and put her hands on her own growing belly. “It’s madness, isn’t it? The two of us pregnant at the same time?”
“Jamie would say it’s the world proving to us that we can show our mothers how it’s really done.”
“Jamie would say anything to make sure you’re here with him in this beautiful home, about to embark on a beautiful life together.” Fran grinned, returning to her role as wedding hairdresser. “It’s so great the hospital is only a fifteen-minute drive away.”
“Mmm...” Be
a nodded. “Great for work and great for when my water breaks!”
“I can’t believe how much your hair has grown. It’s so beautiful now.” Fran pulled an apologetic face in the mirror and rapidly covered. “I mean the platinum thing was good for a while, but—”
“Well, you’re not supposed to dye it when you’re pregnant, are you? And it wasn’t really me,” Bea said, pulling a face in the mirror. “A lot of things weren’t me over the past couple of years, but now...?”
She looked around the huge old high-ceilinged room, its corners stacked with boxes yet to be unpacked. Only the antique bed and the cradle beside it—lying in wait for its little occupant to make an entrance—were already made up and ready for use.
“Now I’m finally at home.”
* * *
Jamie glanced at his watch again, his brow crinkling further when Luca gave a rich, throaty laugh.
“Relax!” He clapped an arm around the nervous groom. “I thought the whole point of having your wedding at your house was so you could enjoy yourself!”
“It would be completely enjoyable if my bride would ever—” Whatever else he’d been going to say vanished. There, at the doorway to their centuries-old sitting room, was an angel.
Beatrice had never looked so beautiful. Her dark hair had been magicked into an intricate updo. Miniscule little plaits and curls of mahogany hair outlined her perfect face. Lips full and pinkened with emotion rather than lipstick. He knew she hadn’t put on a lick of makeup since she and her mother had agreed to disagree on “the true aesthetic of a princess.” The swoop and swell of her stomach made his heart skip a beat.
A husband and a father all in the space of a month.
The celebrant they had chosen for their simple ceremony cleared his throat, and Beatrice’s father jumped up from the armchair where he’d been making friends with Francesca and Luca’s latest canine companion.
“Beatrice! Amore...” He raised a fist to his mouth to stem a sob. “You look beautiful,” he added in English as he reached out his arm for her to take.
There was only a handful of steps to take from the doorway to just in front of the French windows, looking out onto the sprawling back garden and the farmers’ fields beyond, but with each step Beatrice took Jamie felt his heart pound with greater conviction and pride than he thought he had ever felt before.
