The Princess Predicament

by Lisa Childs

  “They probably thought we’d killed their friend,” she said, making excuses for the men. “I shot him, and you knocked him out.”

  Whit nodded. “Yes, because he was threatening your life—just like the person who’d left the note. So you are definitely still in danger.”

  She shrugged, apparently unconcerned. “The man who grabbed me was an opportunist. He recognized me, saw that I was unprotected and tried to take advantage of the situation.”

  “Why was he here?” Why? Had he followed Whit right to her? And if he’d followed him from the place Charlotte Green had been held captive in Michigan, then he could have followed him to the orphanage.

  “This country is a war zone full of rebels and mercenaries,” Gabriella said.

  “Then why the hell would your bodyguard send you here?” Maybe his doubts about Charlotte’s motives had been right. Maybe she hadn’t been trying to protect Princess Gabriella when she’d had plastic surgery to look just like her; maybe she had been trying to take her place as the legitimate heir to the country of St. Pierre and the fortune of the king.

  But Charlotte had seemed to genuinely care about her assignment. About her sister. Then he realized the answer to his own question. “She couldn’t tell you. The king had sworn her to secrecy with the threat of firing her if she told you the truth.”

  Gabriella gasped and then blinked furiously as tears pooled in her eyes. “My father wouldn’t allow her to tell me?”

  He had begun to appreciate Charlotte Green when she’d saved his life four or five days ago. But he really appreciated her now, for finding a way around the king’s royal decree. “So she showed you. She had to know that once you met her aunt you would figure it out.”

  Charlotte had found a way around the king, but with the way she’d handled the situation, Gabriella had been alone when she’d learned the truth. Even though Lydia was related to her, she was a stranger. There had been no one there for Gabby who could have held her, who could have comforted her.

  His arms ached, not from the gunshot wound, but with the need to hold her, to have been the one who comforted her when her world had turned on its axis. And when everything that she had believed to be true had become a lie.

  She expelled a shaky breath. “I figured out that my father, that my family,” her voice cracked as emotion overwhelmed her, “has made a fool of me my entire life.”

  He reached for her again, and this time she didn’t fight him off. Instead she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and clung to him. And his arms, which had ached to hold her, embraced her.

  He ignored the twinge of pain in his shoulder. He ignored everything but how warm and soft she was and how perfect she felt.

  Then, even as close as they were, there was a movement between them. The baby shifted in her stomach, kicking him as he or she kicked Gabby. While it was only a gentle movement, Whit felt the kick more violently than he had the princess’s when she’d tried to fight him off at the Jeep.

  This baby inside her could possibly be his. He could be a father?

  *

  GABBY FELT HIM tense, so she pulled back—embarrassed that she had clung to him. More embarrassed that she’d wanted to keep clinging to him. She had missed him, missed his touch—his strength. That night he’d guarded her he had made her feel safer than she’d ever felt. He’d made her feel more than she had ever felt.

  Even now, her tumultuous emotions were all mixed up about him. She had to remind herself that, like that night, he was just doing his job. She meant nothing more to him than a paycheck from her father. She’d realized that when she’d woken alone the next morning and even more so when she’d left for Paris and he hadn’t tried to stop her.

  She’d felt like such a fool for throwing herself at a man who really hadn’t wanted her. And then she had come here…and discovered exactly how big a fool she’d been.

  “I could never figure out why my mother—the queen—hated me so much,” she admitted.

  The woman had never shown Gabby an ounce of affection or approval. On her deathbed, she had even refused to see Gabriella—not wanting hers to be the last face she ever saw. She had never been able to tolerate even looking at Gabby. That was why she’d sent her off to boarding schools when she’d been scarcely more than a toddler.

  “But she wasn’t really my mother,” Gabriella said. She had actually been relieved to learn that; it had explained so much. It wasn’t just that she was so unlovable her own mother hadn’t been able to love her. The queen hadn’t been her mother. But then her biological mother hadn’t loved her either since she’d so easily given up her baby.

  “The queen couldn’t have any children,” she continued. He undoubtedly already knew this, but she needed to say it aloud—needed to bring the secrets to light since she had been left in the dark too long. “So the king had his mistress give him another baby—one he intended to claim and make the queen pretend was hers. Unlike Charlotte, whom he never claimed.”

  “He has now,” Whit said, as if it mattered.

  The king had denied the paternity of his eldest for thirty years. And for twenty-four years he’d denied Gabby a relationship with her sister and her aunt. Gabriella would never be able to forgive him that—let alone having traded her from one fiancé to another like livestock. But, as things had turned out, he had been right to break her engagement to Prince Linus. Despite her friendship with him, he hadn’t been the man she’d thought he was.

  Even if he hadn’t masterminded the kidnapping plot, he had gone along with it. He’d put Charlotte’s life and the life of Gabby’s future niece or nephew at risk. But he hadn’t done it out of love. He’d done it so he could make a claim on her country.

  Nobody in her life had actually been the person she’d thought he or she was.

  As if on cue, Lydia Green stepped through the doorway and entered the hut. Her gaze went immediately to Gabby, as if surprised to find her still there and emotionally intact.

  Gabby was surprised, too. But then if Whit hadn’t caught her, she might have been halfway to the airport by now.

  “Did the call go through?” Whit asked.

  Gabby held her breath, hoping that it hadn’t. She didn’t want the royal jet being sent for her—because she knew there was only one place that jet would bring her. Back to St. Pierre.

  But Lydia nodded. Her gaze still on Gabby, her eyes filled with regret. She knew this wasn’t what Gabriella wanted. She was the first one who actually cared what Gabby wanted.

  “When are they going to send the royal jet?” Whit asked.

  Her aunt still wouldn’t look at him, continuing to stare at Gabby—much as she had the first time Gabriella had shown up at the orphanage. When her sister had signed off her parental rights to her youngest child, Lydia had thought she would never see the baby again. She had been elated when she’d realized who Gabriella really was.

  Gabby had been devastated. Her biological mother had basically sold her. Unlike Lydia who’d followed her parents into missionary work, Bonita Green had resented never having material possessions. She’d spent her life conning people out of theirs until one of those marks had cut her life short.

  Gabby would never have the chance to meet the woman—not that she ever would have wanted to. The queen and a former con artist were her only maternal examples. Gabby rubbed her belly, silently apologizing to her baby. It wasn’t really a question of if she would screw up; it was more a question of how badly.

  “Are they going to send it?” Whit anxiously prodded Lydia for a reply.

  Her aunt continued to focus on Gabby. “They already sent it—several hours ago actually. It should be here soon.”

  She obviously wondered if Gabby still wanted to go. Gabby had actually never intended to go back there. But she wasn’t going to put Lydia in the awkward position that Charlotte had when she’d sent Gabby here. So she nodded her acceptance and forced a smile.

  Her aunt released a soft sigh, but Gabby couldn’t tell if it was of relief or
disappointment.

  “Before you leave for the airport, come say goodbye,” Lydia said, “again.”

  “We will,” Whit answered for them both.

  Once her aunt had gone, Gabby admonished him, “You shouldn’t have spoken for me.”

  His jaw tensed; perhaps he clenched his teeth in response to her imperious tone. But he didn’t apologize or argue. He only headed for the doorway, as if she were going to blindly follow him.

  “I’m not leaving,” she explained. She had no intention of going where she couldn’t trust anyone.

  *

  THE WOMAN INFURIATED him. From the moment he’d met her, he hadn’t been able to figure her out. She was unlike anyone else he’d ever known. “If you’re not leaving, why the hell did I just stop you from taking off in the Jeep?”

  “I was trying to get away from you,” she said dispassionately, as if her words weren’t like a knife plunged in his back.

  “Why?”

  “Because I can’t trust you,” she said—again so matter-of-factly that it was obvious she had never considered trusting him at all.

  But before he could defend himself, she continued, “I can’t trust anyone on St. Pierre. That’s why I’m not going back.”

  He understood her reasons. But he had a job to do—protect her. And after the close call at the airport, he wasn’t convinced he could do that alone. Especially not here. He had a gun but no bullets, a shoulder throbbing with pain and a possible infection. “You can’t stay here.”

  She let out a wistful sigh. “I know.”

  She’d been leaving earlier, and in a disguise, because everyone knew where she was now. He couldn’t blame her for wanting to stay hidden.

  “Where were you going?” he asked again.

  She chuckled but without humor. “You really are just like everyone else,” she mused. “You think I’m an idiot. But you shouldn’t believe my image. It’s a lie just like the rest of my life has been.”

  He’d already learned that for himself.

  She lifted her chin with stubbornness and pride. “I’m not telling you where I’m going.”

  “Fine,” he said. “I’ll tell you. You’re going with me.” Back to St. Pierre? Could he bring her back there? To the family who’d lied to her? To the stranger she didn’t want to marry?

  His stomach churned with revulsion over the thought of her marrying anyone, of her lying in anyone else’s bed, in anyone else’s arms…

  He forced away the repugnance and the twinges of jealousy. He had no right to either. Unless…

  “We are leaving,” he continued. “As soon as you tell me who the father of your baby is.”

  She flinched, as if he’d slapped her. Or insulted her. Because she’d often been photographed with movie stars and athletes, the media had painted her as a promiscuous princess. But he had intimately learned exactly how wrong they had been about her—as wrong as when they’d claimed she was ditzy.

  She was neither.

  “You’ve been working for my father too long,” she said. From the disdain in her voice, the comment was obviously more complaint than compliment. “You’re beginning to act just like him.”

  He winced now, definitely offended. Fortunately he had only been hired to protect the man, not to like him. King St. Pierre was tough to like. He was a difficult man. Period.

  “Since I do work for your father, I need to carry out his orders,” Whit replied, choosing to ignore the insult and focus on what was more important. “He wants you safely back in St. Pierre.”

  She snorted—a sound he would have thought her entirely too ladylike to make. Wouldn’t some princess etiquette class in one of those fancy boarding schools she’d attended have polished the ability to snort right out of her?

  She lifted her chin again, looking every bit the royal ruler despite her dirty jeans and blouse. “You’re crazy to think I will be safe in St. Pierre.”

  He might have agreed with her if he hadn’t just re-established his friendship with Aaron. He trusted that man with his life and hers. “You’ll be safer there than you are here where you were just nearly abducted and shot at…”

  She might have been right about it being a crime of opportunity. Maybe it was just a dangerous country with dangerous men. Maybe he hadn’t been followed straight to her…

  “That can happen in St. Pierre, too,” she pointed out.

  “I will make sure it doesn’t happen,” he said. “I will protect you.” And with Aaron and Charlotte helping, he had a good possibility of actually keeping her safe.

  “You will protect me from kidnappers and killers,” she agreed—again with that damn calmness that infuriated him. “But will you protect me from my father?”

  He couldn’t say that her father wouldn’t hurt her—because he already had. With his lies. With his manipulations…

  Maybe she had learned some of her father’s moves because she had veered the conversation away from what he wanted to know. She’d stalled him long enough. Maybe it was her form of payback for having had to wait twenty-four years before she’d learned the truth.

  “Gabby,” he began, about to urge her to stop the cycle of secrets now.

  But the roar of a Jeep engine drew his attention to the doorway. If he’d missed a tail from the airport, he had lost his ability to do his job properly—then he couldn’t protect the princess.

  But there was only one man in the Jeep. Both the man and the vehicle must have been familiar to the kids because they came out of nowhere to greet him, dancing around his feet like puppies as he hopped out of the vehicle. The kids hadn’t greeted him and Gabby like that. Maybe they’d been in class. Or maybe they had been taught to never approach a strange vehicle or a strange man. This man wasn’t unfamiliar to them.

  Despite the black medical bag clutched in his hand, he looked too young to be a doctor.

  Whit should have cancelled the house call Lydia had arranged; he didn’t need a doctor. He needed the truth from the princess; he needed to know the paternity of her baby.

  “Gabriella,” the man said. With the familiarity of a frequent visitor, he stepped through the hut doorway without knocking and waiting for her permission to enter. “I am sorry I took so long getting away from the clinic.”

  She offered this man the smile she used to give Whit when they’d first met. It was a smile full of warmth and welcome and beauty. Whit wondered if she would ever smile that way at him again.

  “Dominic, it’s fine,” she assured the doctor, her concern for Whit’s injury obviously long forgotten. “I know how busy you are.”

  The guy answered her smile with a wide grin. Not only was he young but good-looking, too, since women seemed to like that whole tall and dark thing. Or at least that was what he’d witnessed with the women who’d gone for Aaron Timmer over the years. As easily as his partner had fallen for women, they had responded to him, too.

  This guy also had charm. His grin widened as he took Gabby’s hand in his with a familiarity and possessiveness that had Whit gritting his teeth. “If you had been the patient, I would have dropped everything…”

  For her. Not for Whit. The doctor had clearly fallen for the princess.

  Maybe Whit had been wrong to assume the child she carried was his. Maybe her baby belonged to this man.

  Whit should have been relieved that he might not be the father. But his heart dropped with regret. And then possessiveness gripped him.

  He did not want Princess Gabriella or the baby she carried belonging to any man but him.

  Chapter Six

  “The doctor gave me a clean bill of health.”

  Aaron Timmer grinned at the news. He was apparently as relieved as she was that their baby was all right. But Charlotte wasn’t worried only about the baby she carried. She was worried about the baby sister she’d failed to protect as she’d sworn she would.

  “I’m clear to travel,” she said. “Clear to do my job.”

  Aaron shook his head. “You don’t have a job anym
ore,” he reminded her. “The king doesn’t want you working for him.”

  King St. Pierre claimed that he wanted Charlotte as a daughter now, not as an employee. But she worried that he’d dismissed her because he no longer trusted her to safeguard the princess—not after she had already failed. Charlotte had spent six months in captivity and during that time all kinds of unimaginable horrors could have happened to Gabriella—since she’d been left completely unprotected.

  “She’s pregnant, too,” Charlotte said, as with awe, she remembered her aunt’s words the first time they had talked. The phone connection hadn’t been good, but she’d not misinterpreted that.

  Aaron sighed. “Did you tell your father that news?”

  Charlotte tensed—not used to thinking of the king as her father even though she’d known for a few years now. Gabby had just discovered her real parentage. So she was dealing with all those conflicting emotions while she was going to become a mother herself.

  “I haven’t told him yet,” Charlotte admitted. “I’m concerned…”

  “About how he will react?”

  The king had never treated Gabby with the respect she deserved. He’d never treated her like what she was—an independent, modern woman. “He already arranged for her to marry another man.”

  “You don’t think the baby she’s carrying is Prince Tonio Malamatos’s?” Aaron asked, referring to Gabby’s fiancé.

  The prince had been waiting at the palace when they arrived. As soon as the king had notified him that the princess had been found, he had come from his country with an entourage that included his ex-fiancée. When Charlotte had stepped off the plane, he’d mistaken her for Gabby and tried to embrace her. She shuddered as she remembered the man’s clammy hands touching her arms, of his pasty cheek trying to press against hers.

  Gabby never would have let that man touch her. Charlotte shook her head. “And neither do you. You know who the father is.”

  He expelled a ragged sigh. “Whit. If they’d been involved before she disappeared, it would explain why he was acting so strangely when you and Gabby went missing.” Aaron had admitted that he’d been suspicious his old partner had been involved in their disappearances. “And why he was so anxious to bring her back once you told him where she was.”