Nate nodded sagely. “Yes, I don’t think we can keep that a secret, either. We’ll tell both secrets—the baby and the other—together. For now, why don’t we have that quiet night?” He cupped her face and tilted his down to hers. “I want dinner with you, then I want to hold you all night.”
Her heart stuttered. If she had been feeling up to it, she might’ve suggested something more than just holding each other but, for now, it was exactly what she needed. “Sounds like a good idea.”
“No, Charlotte-mine. It’s a great idea.”
Hours later, tangled with Nate in their bed, she felt content and happy. She also felt safe. She always felt safe with him. Growing up as she’d done, she’d rarely felt safe.
She’d existed. She’d lived. She’d made it day-to-day, made it through switching foster homes repeatedly and then switching schools repeatedly. Made it through decent, overworked foster parents to shittier ones she remembered even now.
Even having a roof over her head or food in her belly hadn’t made her feel safe. Most people needed more than that, they needed someone to give a shit, and she hadn’t had that until she’d met Miss Lola, but she had it more with Nate.
Back then, she’d never, never have guessed she’d find that sense of safe in a royal palace tangled up with a prince.
Yet, that was exactly what she had, and she’d hold onto it. With every breath she had, she’d hold onto the safe she’d found so it wouldn’t slip away.
On that thought, she snuggled closer to the man she loved and faded into sleep.
Chapter Seven
Family dinner. Something Nate had attended with trepidation in the past—all his siblings had—until their father’s heart attack. Since then, they’d almost enjoyed them.
Almost.
The teasing was there. The taunting. It was damn good to see his family again, even if Alex, Rebecca, Marcello, and Grace were missing.
Also missing was his brother Ethan, the youngest of them all; he was a doctor in the Royal Navy and currently on assignment. His absence from dinner—and from the palace and wedding this week—was understandable.
Nate took his time and looked around the table.
His brother Lorenzo was visiting from Masillia, on Valleria’s coast, with his fiancée, Cecilia—whom he called Lily—and their daughter, Liliana. Learning he was a father hadn’t tamed the deviousness from him. If anything, it looked stronger. It also looked like he’d passed on the trait to his daughter.
His sister Carolina, who’d been living in Masillia, too, was also here. She was introverted and artistic, but she could hold her own with all of them.
His older sister Catharine—Cat—was sitting next to her fiancé, Eddie. They lived in Chames, at Eddie’s family home. They all missed her—well, most of the time—and he knew Alex missed his younger twin the most.
Sarah was visiting with her love, Rio. He was an Italian Prince and knew the royal life, but his family was appalling, so he spent more time with the Vallerian royals than his own royal family. He’d rearranged his life so that he could stay in Brazenbourg with Sarah, who was posted there as Vallerian ambassador.
However, the absence of his sister, Arianna, and her husband, Finn—the ruler of Brazenbourg—and their daughter, Eloisa was surprising. Apparently, they wouldn’t be able to get away for Marcello and Grace’s wedding.
That was one reason for the family assembling; Marcello and Grace were set to marry in just a few days.
Lorenzo tossed his napkin on top of his plate, a royal faux pas he didn’t care about when it was only the family eating. “Where are Alex and Marcello anyway? I had things to talk to them about.”
“They’re busy,” Nate intervened, hoping to get the subject off their missing siblings.
Lorenzo cocked a wicked grin. “I just bet they are. Wink wink.”
“Papa, what’s ‘wink wink’ mean?” little Liliana asked from the seat next to her father.
Lily elbowed Lorenzo. “It means Papa is being silly but he wasn’t very funny, was he?”
Liliana tipped her head to the side, then back. “No, I don’t think he’s funny.”
Nate stifled a chuckle, and it looked like he wasn’t the only one. “She’s got your number, Lorenzo.”
Lorenzo narrowed his eyes, then whipped out his phone. “I’ll call our brothers. They’ll tell you I’m hilarious.”
Charlie gripped Nate’s arm. “Maybe we should tell them now.”
“Tell us what?” Sarah asked, her eyes shrewd and assessing. “Are you finally getting married? You are, aren’t you? I knew it!”
Rio put an arm around the back of Sarah’s chair. “Bella, maybe you should let them speak in their own time.”
Sarah eyed the man she loved and sat back without saying another word.
Rio must be a miracle-maker. Sarah usually never shut up until she got her answer.
Nate cleared his throat. “We have an announcement.”
Lorenzo rolled his eyes. “We get it. Just say it already.”
He stood and Charlie stood with him. He wrapped an arm around her waist in support, for both him and her.
“We’re pregnant,” Nate said at the same time Charlie said, “I’m pregnant.”
Nate waited, not even breathing, because silence had coated the room.
However, it only lasted for three point two seconds before his mother shrieked.
“Oh, how wonderful!” She rushed over to give Charlie a hug and two kisses on each cheek, then did the same to him.
His mother stepped back to brush the tears from her face. “Oh, how lovely. How wonderful. A baby! And, of course, you’ll be getting married now. Oh, another wedding! How exciting.”
Charlie stiffened next to him and he wrapped an arm tighter around her waist. Her hand found his there and gripped it for support.
He needed the support as much as she for what they’d have to say next. “Mama.”
His mother wasn’t listening and kept going on about the wedding and the baby.
“Mama.”
Still nothing, though everyone else—who’d risen from the table and had started to move towards them to congratulate them—paused and grew slowly silent, including his father.
“Mama!”
His mother blinked, then her eyes narrowed as she took in the wary looks around the room. “What? What’s going on? Oh, don’t tell me you still won’t marry? You must. It’s not that your father and I mind, but people could be brutal to the child.” Her eyes flitted over to Liliana; Lorenzo hadn’t known of his daughter’s existence for several years. When he—and eventually the public—found out, some were not kind to the fact she’d been born out of wedlock.
It hadn’t mattered that Liliana was a child, a human being who deserved compassion and no judgment for circumstances beyond her control. Some people would always be intent on hurting others, no matter what.
Sarah, ever the diplomat, ventured cautiously into the fray. “Mama, maybe Nate wants to propose on his own, and not have his mother do it for him, or even order him to marry?”
His mother straightened. “I wasn’t ordering him. Exactly.”
Nate and Charlie shared a glance and he nodded. They’d discussed this before, had already determined who would be the one to say it.
It was to be him.
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Charlie’s hand tightened on his. “Mama, we won’t be getting married.”
His mother crossed her arms over her chest. “Oh? And just why is that?”
Nate took in his mother’s commanding, questioning face and his father’s steady gaze. His eyes flitted across the faces of his siblings and their loves and families.
Charlie squeezed his hand again, and he found the courage.
“Well, my son?” his father asked this time. “Why will you not marry?”
Straightforward. It was the best way to do it.
“We can’t marry because, the truth is…” He cleared his throat.
�
��We’re already married,” Charlie blurted out, apparently changing their plan and revealing their secret to everyone. “We eloped a while ago.”
There was a collective gasp, then stunned silence.
Lorenzo was the first to speak. His voice was only a whisper, but everyone heard it. “What the fuck?”
“What’s ‘fuck’ Papa?” Liliana asked.
Lily smacked Lorenzo’s arm and turned to Liliana. “It’s a bad word, honey, and your Papa shouldn’t have said it. So, you shouldn’t say it either.”
“Fuck is a bad word?” Liliana asked, though she had a devious smile—the same one they’d all seen on Lorenzo’s face plenty of times—on her face.
“Liliana,” Lily warned.
“So, I shouldn’t say fuck? Not ever?”
Nate stifled a chuckle, and felt Charlie holding one back, too.
“Liliana Santoro…”
Uh-oh. She was revving up to full-name Liliana. Full-naming was never good.
“But, Mama, I just want to make sure that fu—”
“Liliana Victoria Santoro!”
Liliana still had a deceptively sweet smile on her face. “Okay, Mama. I won’t say fuck anymore.”
Lily’s eyes went to the ceiling as she shook her head.
Nearly everyone else started chuckling.
Everyone, that was, but his parents.
“Tell us,” his father ordered.
He gave Charlie a squeeze when she opened her mouth, then spoke before she had a chance to. “Do you recall that trip we made to Australia? Not long after the holiday ball over a year ago?”
“Charlotte went with you,” his mother said, realization dawning.
“Yes. I asked her there, and we married there as well.”
“In Australia?” The hurt in his mother’s voice sent a pang of remorse through him. He’d known this was coming, that someday they’d need to answer for it, but he wasn’t prepared for the look of sheer disappointment in his parents’ faces.
“I asked you, at a family dinner after you came back, if you’d gotten engaged,” his mother recalled, then wrinkled her nose. “You said no and said that you’d come back with matching tattoos of leaves instead.”
“Technically, that is correct.”
His father waded in, his voice stern, and his eyes flashing with anger. “You married without telling us. Without warning us. Do you have any idea what might have happened if someone had gotten hold of this information before we’d found out?”
Nate shifted and slipped slightly in front of Charlie. A feeble defense against his father’s wrath. God, he’d known they’d be upset, but he’d never thought they’d behave like this. Not even a simple congratulations or a happy smile. Nothing but anger.
They’d never intended to keep it a secret for so long. When they’d gotten back from their trip, Charlie had wanted some time to enjoy it, just the two of them, because she worried about his family’s reaction. He’d thought then that she was being silly but had agreed because he realized he wanted that, too.
Now he could see how right she’d been. He could see that maybe something had been brewing under the surface between his family and Charlie all these many months, and he hadn’t seen it. Maybe he had not wanted to see it.
It didn’t matter now. What was done was done. He’d never leave Charlie, nor their child, so his family would just need to get over it.
His father stepped forward. “There are strict rules about a royal in line to the throne marrying. It can’t be done by just anyone or anywhere. It may not even be legal. Not to mention, did whoever married you even sign an NDA?”
Non-disclosure agreements; rarely a day went by when a royal didn’t hear mention of one. In this case, it was a non-issue.
“Ethan married us.” He hated to throw his youngest brother to the wolves, but he had no choice. “His ship was stationed in the South Pacific and was on its way back to Valleria. They stopped near Australia and we went aboard to visit, and he discreetly performed the ceremony.” As naval ships were considered Vallerian land in the same way an embassy was, there was no doubt it was legal. His brother was also authorized to conduct royal weddings. Though he was a doctor, he’d been given authorization by their father when Arianna had wed; that authorization had apparently never been removed. In fact, he’d used it when Alex and Rebecca had conducted their own secret wedding ceremony. Granted, the whole family had been at those ceremonies, but this reaction was extreme.
“Ethan knew of this?” his mother asked, disbelief weaving through her voice once more. “And he didn’t tell us either?”
“We asked him not to. We wanted to tell you ourselves, in our own time.”
Annoyance gave his mother’s words a sharp bite. “You did take your own time, didn’t you? Not a word for over a year? My God. If this had come out just before Alexander’s wedding—”
Nate’s words had their own resounding bite in response. “We were dealing with quite a lot just before Alex’s wedding, not including Papa in the hospital. Do you honestly think that would have been a good time to mention it?”
“No,” his mother nearly yelled, something she very rarely did. “The right time would have been when you returned. It would have been better still if you’d never married in the first place.”
Charlie let out a whimper behind him. Though he tried to keep holding her hand, she wiggled it from his hold.
“Mother. I would tread carefully if I were you.”
His mother blinked. None of her children had ever called her ‘mother’. She was always ‘Mama’. “Nathaniel.”
“Enough,” his father declared and put both his hands up. “What’s done is done. Whether or not they should have gotten married is a moot point. We just have to manage the situation.”
Manage it? It was a marriage. His marriage. To the woman he loved, who was also carrying his child. This could be dealt with easily enough with a simple press release. There was no need for this vicious attack against him and Charlie. “And do you?”
His father lowered his hands. “Do I what?”
“Think it was a mistake for me to marry Charlotte?”
His father waved a hand, as if he were swatting away a fly. “It doesn’t matter. You’ve married her now.”
“Oh God,” Charlie whispered behind him and she slipped further away.
He reached for her, but she stepped back further, her eyes moving wildly around the room.
She was toying with the edge of her shirt, wringing it in her hands, curling it tightly around her fingers. It was a nervous habit, he knew. “You don’t want me as part of your family, do you? You don’t want me here.”
His father looked stricken and shook his head. “Charlotte, that’s not—”
“I’m sorry.” Her words were choked, the emotions so strong they reverberated through the room, through everyone and back again like a boomerang.
“Charlotte-mine.” He reached for her, but she stepped back, fear and frustration brimming in her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. Then she turned and ran.
Nate cursed and faced his family. “Fools. All of you. You don’t deserve to know her.”
Then he turned and ran after her.
Chapter Eight
Nate caught up with Charlie in their apartment, standing just in the foyer.
“Charlie.”
She was breathing slowly, deliberately. “I’m sorry.”
Facing her, he put his hands on her shoulders. He wanted to pull her into his arms but sensed she needed some space. “What are you apologizing for?”
Her hands were once against twisting her shirt. “For…for…causing that?”
“You didn’t cause that. That was my family being monumental assholes, a rare occurrence but something that happens nonetheless.”
“I knew this would happen. I knew it. They’ll hate you now, too.”
Too? “Charlie, they don’t hate you.”
“We should have told them sooner. Or may
be never.”
“It shouldn’t matter when we told them. Their reaction was unacceptable and extreme. Charlie, why did you decide to reveal our news? We’d decided that I’d be the one to do it.”
She sighed. “I know. But, well, I figured your parents might be upset. I figured they’d be more upset at the person who actually said it, for a while anyway. So I thought by announcing it I could take some of the heat off of you. Stupid, right?”
He stilled as her words send a comforting wave of warmth through his body.
His Charlotte. So giving, though she never thought of herself like that. She so rarely took, as she grew up never getting, never trusting. She’d trusted him. Not only with her body, but with her heart and her future. He wondered if he’d ever be able to give enough back to her.
Now he couldn’t resist pulling her against him. He kissed her forehead. “No, Charlotte-mine. It wasn’t stupid. It was incredibly kind and sweet. Just like you.”
She shook her head and kept her face down, hidden from him. “That’s not me.”
“You never see yourself clearly.”
“I’d say that you never see me clearly.”
“Charlie.”
“They hate me,” she whispered.
His heart broke for her. “They don’t hate you.”
The tears were falling now, a slow few drops that would lead to a steady stream. She so rarely cried. His Charlie was too tough for that or felt that she needed to be tougher than that. “You’ll have to choose now.”
He cupped her face and tilted it until their eyes met. “No, I won’t. My family—our family—are acting like assholes, but they’ll apologize.”
She started shaking her head again, but he kept speaking.
“We’re married. I love you. I’m pathetically, desperately in love with you.”
She huffed a half-hearted snort.
“I am.” One of his hands shifted down her body to rest over her womb. Both of their faces tipped down to watch. “I’m also desperately in love with our child.”
“Nate.”
“How could I not love something that’s half you?”
“God, Nate. That’s one of the nicest things you’ve ever said to me. But your family—”
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