The Princess Predicament

by Lisa Childs

He’d been delirious with a fever when he’d said those words. He probably hadn’t even known who she was. But still she couldn’t get that line out of her head. And when she slept…she dreamed it was true.

  That he really needed her. That he loved her as she had never been loved. Now she was back to being the young girl weaving foolish fantasies.

  It was time to wake up. The sun was beating hard through the windows, warming the room and her body. She squinted even before she opened her eyes. But the sun wasn’t shining in her face.

  A shadow covered her—the broad-shouldered shadow of a man. Backlit by sunshine, she couldn’t see more than the shadow at first. So she screamed.

  He leaned back, and the sun bathed his face and glinted in his golden hair. “It’s all right,” he said. “You’re safe. It’s just me.”

  Then she wasn’t safe at all. Not emotionally. He’d gotten to her again—gotten into her heart. The night they’d spent on the water, endlessly talking, she’d learned more about him than any of his friends could have told her. She wondered if even Aaron knew exactly how Whit had grown up. Alone.

  He had probably thought they were going to die. That had to be the reason why he’d told her all that he had. All his pain and disappointments…

  Or he’d hoped that if they lived, she would know better than to expect a happily-ever-after from him. He didn’t believe they existed. And with good reason.

  She shouldn’t believe in them, either. But even though she hadn’t experienced them personally, she’d seen them—when she’d visited boarding school friends who had found happiness with men who loved them.

  But maybe Whit couldn’t love—because he didn’t know how. And she wasn’t certain that was something that could be taught. No one had taught her to love, but it hadn’t stopped her from falling for this man. With resignation and wonder, she murmured, “It’s just you…”

  His lips twitched into a slight grin at her remark. His hair was damp and water glistened on his bare shoulders and chest.

  “You took a shower,” she said, around the lump of desire that had risen up to choke her. A droplet trickled down his chest, and she had to fight to resist the urge to lick it away.

  “I needed to—to wake up,” he said. “Looks like you did, too. Your hair’s still damp.” He put his hand in it, running his fingers through her hair—which was probably still tangled despite her efforts to comb through the thick mess.

  Grateful for the generator running the pump, she’d taken a shower and put her clothes in the mini–washing machine she’d found. But she hadn’t found any clothes to wear while she slept. So the only thing between her and him was a thin sheet and the towel draped low around his lean hips.

  “How long was I asleep?” he asked. “Days?”

  He touched his jaw—which was clean-shaven now. He must have found a razor because when she’d checked on him last he’d had a lot of dark blond beard growing on his jaw. Even asleep, he’d been tense—his jaw clenched. “Weeks?”

  She had lost track of time, thinking of him. Dreaming of him. But since her hair was still damp, she hadn’t been asleep that long.

  “A day and a half,” she said. “And you probably still need more rest.”

  “No.” He shook his head and leaned close again. His dark eyes were intense as he met her gaze. “That’s not what I need.”

  Her pulse started racing, her blood pumping fast and hard through her veins. She had to ask, “What do you need?”

  “You,” he said. “Only you…”

  She must have been sleeping yet—caught so deeply in the dream that it felt real. Like his lips skimming across hers, she could feel the warm soft brush. And then his tongue slid inside her mouth—in and out. Her skin tingled with desire and then with his touch, as his hands skimmed over her naked shoulders. He moved his lips across her cheek, to her neck.

  She shivered now.

  “Are you cold?” he asked.

  She shook her head. Her skin was catching fire with the intensity of the passion she felt for him. That desire chased away the last chill from their night in the cold sea. “No…”

  He kissed one of her shoulders and then her collarbone and the slope of her breast. Then he pushed down the sheet, skimming his hands over her breasts. But he stopped with his palms on her belly. “Can we do this?” he asked.

  “We jumped out of an airplane,” she reminded him. And during the whole parachute trip down to the water, the baby had kicked—as if with excitement. He was probably already as fearless as his father. Panic flickered at the thought, at how she would have to worry about him, like she worried about Whit.

  “I doubt a doctor would have recommended that.” Whit tensed, his eyes widening with shock.

  “Are you all right?” she asked. “Are you hurt?”

  She knew he had needed more rest and a doctor to examine his wound. But it looked better now, the edges of skin melding together around the puckered hole where the bullet had entered his body.

  “I—I’m fine,” he said. “And so’s he. He’s kicking.” He stared down at her belly, obviously awed that there was life inside her. “He feels strong.”

  She smiled at the fatherly pride he was already showing. “He is.”

  “You really think the baby’s a boy?” he asked, almost hopefully.

  Did all men want sons? She knew her father certainly had. Perhaps that was why he hadn’t claimed Charlotte because she hadn’t been the male heir he’d really wanted. And then by the time Gabriella had come along, he’d wanted an heir so desperately that he’d taken what he’d gotten despite his disappointment. Now he intended to barter her for a man, for a son-in-law, to help him rule his country.

  No matter how much she had fallen for Whit, her father would never approve him as her husband. He had no family. No country. Nothing her father could take in trade. Gabriella only wanted one thing—from both men. Love.

  If she couldn’t get it for herself, perhaps she could for her child. “I don’t know for certain he’s a boy. The orphanage had no access to an ultrasound to prove it.”

  “What about other prenatal care?” he asked.

  “Dominic took care of me.”

  That muscle twitched in his cheek again. “You should have found me, should have told me, and given me the chance to take care of you.”

  “I didn’t know that you’d want to,” she admitted. “In fact I was pretty convinced that you wouldn’t want to.”

  He uttered a ragged sigh. “If you had asked me if I wanted to become a father, I would have told you no.”

  She flinched as his brutal honesty struck her hard. “I’m sorry…”

  “But now that it’s going to happen,” he said, “I’ll deal with it. I’ll figure out how to be a good parent.”

  “Figure out?”

  He shrugged. “I told you—that night on the water—I didn’t have good examples.”

  “I know,” she murmured. The stories had been more about warning her than sharing with her.

  “My mom took off when I was little,” he reminded her, “and my dad cared more about drinking than raising a kid.”

  As it had when he had first told her about his upbringing, sympathy for him clutched her heart. “I’m sorry…”

  “You didn’t have any better examples,” he reminded her—again with the brutal honesty. “Aren’t you scared?”

  “Terrified,” she admitted.

  “You don’t need to be,” he assured her, stroking a fingertip along her cheek. “You will be a wonderful mother.”

  He had told her that before—on the water. And she hadn’t asked then what she should have. “How do you know?”

  “Because you care about people,” he said. “You’re not selfish…”

  “Like my father?” Would she be as controlling with her kid as he’d been with her?

  “He wasn’t responsible for those men on the plane,” Whit said in his defense. “They weren’t following his orders.”

  So he wasn’t a mon
ster, just a bully. “I know,” she said. “That’s why I figured out we needed to jump.”

  “You took a huge risk…”

  Her heart flipped with fear even just remembering. So many things could have gone wrong.

  “Take a risk on me,” he said, lowering his head to hers. He kissed her again—with passion and desire.

  He had to be real. This couldn’t be a dream. But what did Whit want her to take a risk on? Loving him?

  It was too late. She’d already fallen in love with him. Six months ago. And so many things had gone wrong…

  Except for conceiving their child. And except for making love with him. That hadn’t felt wrong. That had felt as right as what he was doing to her now.

  He made love to her mouth and then he made love to her body, kissing every inch of her. He teased her breasts with his tongue, tracing a nipple with his tongue before tugging the taut point between his lips.

  She cried out as pressure built inside her body. She arched her hips up, silently begging for the release she knew he could give her. And he teased her with his fingers, sliding them gently in and out of her. Then he pressed his finger against the point where the pressure had built. And she came, screaming his name.

  He moved away, dropping onto the mattress next to her. Sweat beaded on his brow and his upper lip, and the muscle twitched in his cheek.

  “Are you all right?” she asked, concern chasing away the pleasure afterglow.

  He groaned. “I will be. I just need a minute.”

  His body betrayed him. He’d lost his towel, so she saw the evidence of his desire.

  “Make love to me,” she urged him.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, and he pressed a hand to her stomach. “Or him…”

  “We’re fine,” she assured him. But she wasn’t completely fine because the pressure was building again. “But I need you. I need to feel you inside me.” And because she was afraid that he would hold back, she took the initiative.

  She straddled his lean hips and eased herself down onto his pulsing erection. She moaned as he sank deeper and deeper.

  He clutched her hips and lifted her up. But instead of pulling her off, he slid her back down. Up and down. He thrust inside her. And as he thrust, he arched up from the mattress. He kissed her, imitating with his tongue what he was doing to her body.

  The intensity of the pressure built and built…until he reached between them. He pushed against her with his thumb, and she came again.

  He thrust once more and uttered a guttural groan, as he filled her with his pleasure.

  Tears stung her eyes from the intimacy of their joined bodies and mutual ecstasy. Her heart swelled with emotion, with love. She had never felt anything as intense until she’d felt her baby’s first little flutter of movement.

  She loved Whit with the same intensity that she loved their baby. And she wanted to share that love with him.

  But when she opened her mouth to speak, he pressed his fingers against her lips. “Listen,” he said.

  And she waited for him to speak, hoping that he was going to declare his feelings. Hoping that he loved her, too.

  But he said nothing. Instead he cocked his head and narrowed his eyes. Then he asked, “Do you hear that?”

  “What?”

  “I think it’s a helicopter.”

  “You think the owner is coming back?” Heat rushed to her face over the embarrassment of the homeowner finding them naked in his bed.

  “I hope so,” Whit said, but his body had tensed again. And that muscle was twitching in his cheek.

  “But you don’t think it is?”

  He shrugged. “It could be. But my gut’s telling me that it’s not.”

  “You think they found us?” She had almost hoped they would believe she was dead again and not look for her.

  “I think we’re about to find out.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Earlier, when he’d awakened from his long sleep, Whit had checked out the house again. Instead of just searching rooms, he’d searched every drawer and cupboard. And he’d found something the owner had left behind that he’d worried might prove useful.

  A Glock.

  He pressed it into Gabby’s hand. “You take this,” he insisted. “And stay out of sight.”

  They had dressed quickly, in clothes that were still damp from the washer, and Whit had retrieved the gun, before they’d slipped out of one of the many sliding doors of the house. That first day, he had found a little storm shelter close to the outbuilding that held the generator. But the cavelike hole was so small that they both barely fit inside its stone walls. That didn’t matter, though, since Whit wasn’t staying. He moved toward the cement steps that led back to the trapdoor like entrance.

  Gabby clutched at his arm with fingers that trembled. “Don’t leave.”

  “You’ll be safe here,” he assured her.

  “Then you will be, too,” she said. “Stay here. Stay out of sight with me.”

  He shook his head. “That might be help arriving on that helicopter.” It had probably already landed, but the generator was too close to the shelter and too loud for them to hear over the droning engine. “It could be Aaron and Charlotte.”

  He doubted it, though. If the plane had crashed, there probably would have been no survivors—no one to share the news that they’d parachuted out. But before the plane had gone down, one of them might have called his boss—the one really giving the orders. That person might be aware that they’d gotten off before the crash.

  And he might have launched a search party to make sure they hadn’t—or wouldn’t—survive.

  “I’ll go with you,” Gabby said, anxious to see her sister now. How like Gabby it was to have already forgiven Charlotte for the secrets she’d kept…

  “We don’t know for sure who it is,” he pointed out. Even if it was the homeowner, Whit wanted to meet him alone first and gauge the person’s trustworthiness before he revealed the princess of St. Pierre. “So I need to check it out first.”

  “Then take the gun with you,” she said, pressing the Glock back into his hand, “in case it isn’t help arriving.”

  “If it isn’t, you may need the gun,” he said. “It didn’t take me long to find the shelter—they could find it, too.” He intended to cover that door in the ground, though, with branches and leaves.

  “You’ll need the gun more than I will, then,” she argued, “since you’ll be encountering them first.”

  The woman was infuriating and beautiful and generous and loving. And Whit should tell her all those things. He had wanted to tell her earlier. Those words and so many others had been on the tip of his tongue, but then he’d heard the helicopter in the distance. And he had known that this was neither the time nor the place for him to share his feelings.

  And if that wasn’t help arriving, there may never be a time and place for him to tell her that he was falling in love with her.

  “You need the gun,” he said, “to protect yourself and our baby.”

  She drew in a shuddery breath and finally stopped trying to push the gun on him. He knew that she wouldn’t have kept it for herself, but she wanted to protect their baby.

  So did Whit. He would make sure that she wouldn’t need to use that gun. He would protect her and their baby no matter the cost—even if he had to give up his life for theirs.

  *

  GABBY FLINCHED AS the baby kicked her ribs—hard. He was kicking her, too, like she was kicking herself for keeping the gun. She should have insisted Whit take it with him. She shouldn’t have let him leave the shelter with no protection.

  Maybe she should sneak out and see who had arrived, see if Whit would need the gun. She climbed the stairs toward the trapdoor, and standing beneath it, she listened intently. But all she could hear was the generator and the sound of her own furiously beating heart.

  The baby kicked again, and she pressed her free hand against her belly—trying to soothe him even as her own nerves fra
yed. If she really was safe where she was, why hadn’t Whit taken the gun?

  Could she risk her child’s life to save his father?

  Whit would never forgive her if she ignored his wishes and risked her own safety and their baby’s. But perhaps even being where she was would endanger them. If someone found them, inside the shelter, they would be trapped. She could get off a few shots, might hit one or two of them. But what if there were more than a couple of them?

  No. She couldn’t stay in the shelter. It wouldn’t be safe if she were to be discovered hiding in the cavelike hole because there was only one way out—through the trapdoor. She tried to lift it now, but it was heavy.

  She managed to raise it an inch and dirt and grass rushed in through the narrow space. Choking on dust, she dropped it back down. Whit had covered it, had tried to camouflage it.

  His friends claimed that his instincts were legendary and had saved more than one life during their deployments. For him to hide her as he had, his instincts must have been telling him that it wasn’t help arriving.

  They’d jumped out of a plane that had probably crashed. Why would anyone suspect they lived? Charlotte and Aaron were too realistic to believe in miracles. The only person who might know they’d survived was the one who’d hired the men, if the pilot or one of them had called him before the crash.

  And if it was one of them, then Whit was disposable. He was only in the way of whatever plan that person had for her. Kidnapping or killing…

  Whit, no doubt, had a plan to protect her and their baby. Like covering the hole to the shelter so no one would find her. But she worried that in order to carry out his plan he would have to sacrifice too much.

  Perhaps his life…

  *

  WHIT HAD WALKED BACK through the living-room slider before passing through the house to the front door. That way, hopefully, the person wouldn’t realize he had been outside.

  He drew in a deep breath and opened it to a man he wasn’t surprised to see. The guy was bald with heavy black brows and more scars than Whit and far fewer morals. Zeke Rogers had accepted his demotion with even less grace than the other men. He had to be the one who’d been giving them orders—since that had been his job before Whit and Aaron had taken it from him.